Tis I, Kâ Lys

[Kâ Lys]

Greetings everyone!

I'm here since 2019, and was creeping around before that, but for some reason here I am today, introducing myself. I'm a single dad nearing his 30s and I live in Quebec. I'm more of A worldbuilder than a cartographer, I've been working on my world for more than a decennary now. I never did much else other than working on my world, and throughout its development I learned to use different softwares to make maps and apply special effects to pictures and artworks. They are Photofiltre, my first introduction to a graphic editor, than for a very short while I was introduced to Photoshop in college, but after I dropped out I found GIMP. It's free, you know, compared to Photoshop. And now I've been using this gem called Wonderdraft, I think not long after it was released. It was before the version 1.0 in any case. And I love it. The maps aren't half as good as self made ones, for sure, but still they can be decent and they sure do the tricks for a DnD evening with your friends. Below, I'll show you the progression of my world map.

1. The first official outline for my world, more than 10 years ago. At first there was no north pole, but I later I decided to add one using the shape of a continent in the Elder Scrolls game.
   
    

   
2. Then I found some free assets on Deviantart and started filling my world with them, and trying out some special effects. I swear, I thought it was a masterpiece at the time...
   
    

   
3. Inkarnate came around and I had to try it. Hated it. But it has change quite a lot since so my opinion now and then are quite different.
   
    

   
4. After lurking aroung and admiring much better maps than mine, I started learning about things gradually. I started working my landmass so they look more natural, adding islands and more natural shapes.
   
    

   
   
5. I tried to add color, painting everything myself for the first time. It was quite the challenge, figuring out how to use the layers for color, assets and everything. Lot of trial and error. But I this point, I've been around too long to fool myself into believing it was looking good. But I was glad I did it, it was a great learning experience.
   
    

   
6. Here's my first iteration that I was way too proud of, haha. I was so happy with it, I thought it was looking so great. It featured the first assets I ever bought, from Joel Pigou. What I didn't know is that I was prouder of the process I went through and the things that I learned and discovered than the actual result. What I was seeing when I was looking at the map was all I knew I could do better now, but I misinterpreted this for a while as just me being proud of the result.
   
    

   
7. This map is the second version of the first one I did with Wonderdraft. For some reasons, it took me more time making my first map in Wonderdraft than all previous version of it. I think it was the awe, the discovery of all the tools and assets and the possibilities they were allowing. But since WD was quite new, it had some issues. And the savefile of my map got corrupted. It was like hundred of hours of work. It ****ed me off so much I almost broke my PC. I took a long pause for many months before returning to worldbuilding. That's when I made this version. It wasn't as fleshed out as the one before, but it was still better than everything I had done before.
   
    

   
8. This was my final version for a while, went further then I ever did before with my maps, coloring the seas, reworking my rivers after being lectured by the river police, and many other details. But nearing the conclusion of this map, I had grew disastified with almost everything. Not that I disliked it much, but something was wrong with it or something was missing or out of place, I couldn't figure it out.
   
    

   
9. So after another break of mapping, I started again from scratch, armed with everything I knew so far, using 4 softwares : Photofiltre, GIMP, Fotosketcher and Wonderdraft. It took me a while, but thid is my map up-to-date released version of my world, so far. Still working on it though and there's already quite a lot of changes that I've made.
   
   https://www.easyzoom.com/image/278296

Sorry for the typos and any other mistakes!

[XCali]

Awesome to see your progress as a mapmaker.

I also giggled at somewhere you tried out Inkarnate. That was also part om my start. Then I found GIMP.

I wish you the best on your journey going forward.

[Dimension Door]

Love to see the progress! I can only imagine how many hours this endeavour took! And then start again from scratch!

[Kâ Lys]

Thank you guys. And yes, from scratch and I'm really enjoying its actual version right now. Feel so much bigger and alive imo.

[DrWho42]

hi there! welcome aboard!