Hello there.

[Syt]

Hi everyone,

I recently registered here, and made my first post today.

Who am I?

I'm a 32 year old guy from Northern Germany, now living in Vienna, Austria, working as an accountant.

I got interested in maps since, well, I can't remember really. I recall loving two atlases my dad has when I was a kid. One of them had a beautiful design that I haven't seen anywhere since. The land areas were all greyish white, with broad colourful borders for countries and a greyish shaded relied for mountains.

I also loved the maps in the two volume Reader's Digest's World History that we had. So I drew my own maps/military campaigns soon enough. When I was about 13 I read Lord of the Rings and the Lone Wolf gamebooks. I loved those maps and especially the ones in Lone Wolf with their beautiful borders and colors. That's when I decided to write a fantasy novel at some point and drew more maps. Actually, the fantasy novel is, 20 years later, still a plan. The computer game Starflight caught my interest, too, and at one point I mapped out a whole sector for a story idea, using dice to determine ecosphere/species/culture/tech level/economy etc. for the planets.

Later, due to real life constraints (job, mostly), I lost track of this. It's only when I moved to Vienna that I returned my interest to planning to write creating worlds.

I'm mostly using Campaign Cartographer these days. I create maps for myself at this point, and the features the software and its expansions/annuals come with give me enough to do (I mostly use the Mercator styleset, handdrawn or black/white maps; and I greatly look forward to the August annual that covers Napoleonic battle maps) to make lands, cities, dungeons or spaceships. I attach as an example a WIP of a Mercator style map for a steampunkish/Lovecraftian story I'm working on that's partly set on Venus.

What do I do beside mapping?

I like movies (mostly classics, but also newer stuff; no romantic comedies/"blockbuster" movies for me - with a few exceptions), history (most my reading these days is non-fiction), music (nearly everything from metal through Sinatra to classical) and a few other things.

I can't say yet how active I'll be on this board, but I'll most likely stick around if only to read the friendly posts and tutorials here; plus the challenges may push me a bit to try/learn new things.

[emotaku]

Hi Syt, and welcome.

I'm a new member myself. I like your map, although I have to say I'm one of those old fashioned cartographers. I prefer to use good old fashioned pen and paper, but I wish you all the best in creating your world.

Actually, am I a part of a dying breed? How many people here draw their maps without the use of a computer?

[Alecthar]

Hi Syt, and welcome.

I'm a new member myself. I like your map, although I have to say I'm one of those old fashioned cartographers. I prefer to use good old fashioned pen and paper, but I wish you all the best in creating your world.

Actually, am I a part of a dying breed? How many people here draw their maps without the use of a computer?

Welcome to the guild, Syt, good to have you with us. I'm not particularly familiar with CC3, but I do like the look you've put together in that map. It might be worth your while to browse Ascensions tutorial on making Antique maps in Photoshop. I assume the technical aspects will be relatively useless, but the tutorial map has a very similar look, so you may find something that you'd like to try to emulate for your map.

emotaku, I think that you'll be pleasantly surprised if you take a look at some of the work being done on these boards. Many of our most impressive map-makers incorporate many hand-drawn elements into their maps. I'll grant you that some forgo the traditional pen and paper approach, preferring instead to use tools like tablets, but I don't think the breed is dying.

[NeonKnight]

Welcome to the Guild!

[Redrobes]

Welcome and yeah there are quite a few pen guys here tho I am not one. Torstan in a big tablet mapper and Delgondantelieus (or some similar spelling) had a big tut about using various pens and inks etc. Real good read - find it in the tuts section.

[Steel General]

Welcome Aboard!

[Syt]

Thanks, everyone.

I used to draw maps by hand, but quite honestly - my artistic talent beyond coasts, mountains and small towns is rather limited .... and it's so much easier to make corrections on the screen. I also love to use the computer software for quickly visualizing a place that's in my head. More than once I realized, when mapping out a ship's deck or a building that I used in a short story or some such, that I had forgotten a few details or totall misjudged the diomensions a lot.

That being said, I do prefer hand drawn maps, aesthetically. I have a few books with wonderfully crafted maps of the past century, and while computer products can come close they'll never quite be the same.

Alecthar, I did some checking yesterday and it was interesting - I use an old copy of Paint Shop Pro 7 for "post production" and a number of functions work similarly.

[Zar Peter]

Woohoo! A mapper from Vienna... well, "zuagrast" but anyway

Welcome and have fun!

(zuagrast: Moved from somewhere else to the town)

[ravells]

Welcome to the Guild!

[Syt]

Thank you! I'm told, though, that I manage to fake a convincing Austrian accent. "You're from Germany? One doesn't hear at all!"

I leave it to you whether or not that's a compliment.