Current project in GIMP

[Faide]

Since I discovered this site a couple of weeks ago I've been updating the maps for my D&D game.

It all started with this map.

[Faide]

I then tried to get hold of photoshop and illustrator and discovered the outrageous prices attatched to them so I hunted some more and got GIMP and Inkscape.

I found a tutorial for Sathurian (Sp?) maps which I had a go at and produced this..

[Faide]

I was really pleased with that but my players didn't seem impressed. I think they were expecting me to build a scale model rather than a very stylised black and white map.

I then went on to produce this map, which showed contours and much more colourful and also allowed me to do close up sections with villages and small detail.

[Faide]

Finally in the last few days I've been looking at adding a thousand years to my campaign setting ready for the next edition release in May.

I looked at raising the sea levels to change my maps and because I'd saved the contours as seperate layers on the previous map it was actually quite easy to do. I simply had to flood the bottom two contours and add a little more erosion to the next and hey presto flooded lands!

[Faide]

Having given myself a fairly crash course in GIMP I can say that after a few tutorials and a bit of experimenting you can achieve very satisfying results fairly easily and in very little time. In addition none of the software cost me any money so all I've really spent so far is a small fortune on printer ink.

I've ordered myself a graphics tablet which everyone advises as the next step if I want to do this a bit more seriously and so I'm looking forward to playing with that.

Any advice or comments on the maps?
The last two are both works in progress so any ideas and input is welcome.

[NeonKnight]

Very Nice. I like the "advance a few thousand years" aspect to prepare for the 4E release of D&D.

[RPMiller]

I actually prefer the second map over the others. It is much more stylish and still has function. If you could combine, that map with the others I think you would definitely be onto something. I also liked the flooding approach you took and will have to add that to "tricks to remember". Thanks for sharing!

[Talamar]

I really like the greyscale map, its looking gorgeous and I also love the thousand years idea, though I don't like the style of those two colored maps, but this is personal tastiness.

[Faide]

Following Pyrandon's excellent tutorial on making city maps has led to making this weeks map for my game group.

As I've been learning to make these maps and start a new campaign I've been steadily zooming in on them.

The party has taken their loot from Mourne's Cave, travelled to Four Trail Keep where they've sold most of it, and then (taking me completely by surprise) they've rented a house in the town, deciding to wait until spring to go adventuring again.

Fair weather adventurers..grumble...grumble.

Next week: Floorplans of the house ready for Night of the Relentless Zombie Attacks.


The Gif file really doesn't do it justice but it's too big as a JPEG to upload (By 0.13MB). Maybe if I just trimmed a bit off the top?

Karl

[Robbie]

Thats some of the best City Designer symbol combining I've seen in a long long while...I LOVE the way the buildings flow together in this map...