Illustration Tutorials and Advice Superthread

How do I use text in WorldA maps? Whenever I try to scale text down to fit, it gets super pixelized. Using GIMP btw.
textissue.PNG
 
Any Mac users here? I've been taking screenshots of a wikibox I recently finished but after editing them together in Photoshop (too tall to fit into one screenshot) the finished product is either too large or too low quality. Any help will be appreciated.

Edit: Another question: Is the photo size limit here 500 kb? All the photos I've uploaded or tried to upload are either too blurry or too large to add.
 
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The first version is better.
The second version is rather uncommon today.

Here is a tutorial from Crazy Boris, and his THICC 2.2 color scheme (one of the best color schemes used today)

View attachment 557639

This is a great guide, but as a rule of thumb dont ever, ever use checkerboards to fill polygons. Hatching, and sometimes dots, are generally okay but you want to keep your fills as unobtrusive as possible. A good guide is to try every other way of distinguishing that polygon first, and then use hatching.
 
I used Illustrator for a couple of months at school, but I just got it on my home computer today and I'm looking for help (specifically with text, centering objects relative to other objects, and... actually pretty much anything related to the centers of paths, objects, etc.) . Is anyone here free to talk in DMs or on Discord?
 
Anyone have good suggestions for a simple tracing program? Looking to convert some maps that are in JPG or otherwise un-fillable.
 
INKSCAPE HELP!

Starting some time earlier today, Inkscape is refusing to let me curve paths by using the edit nodes tool. I can still curve the paths on lines I've already made, but not on any new one. I'm guessing I must have changed some obscure setting somewhere, but I have no notion where.

Please help, this is really irritating
 
Where are the guidelines for map making?

In particular how do people decide what islands to give a box and what ones not to?

1597478104272.png


Like look at the inconsistencies here

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Also I'm looking for a colour scheme that doesn't change colours based on whatever political party is in power (something I think is not useful 99% of the time)

Colours should only represent the historical predecessors of a country and maybe the region that is the primary source of power for annexations/unions.
 
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In particular how do people decide what islands to give a box and what ones not to? Like look at the inconsistencies here
Seems to me like the boxes are done only when it‘s not readily apparent who the owner is. For example, the two islands off the Mosquito Coast are clearly owned by Nicaragua due to proximity, but without the box around the further islands, you’d assume they were also owned thereby, instead of by Colombia.
 

Pkmatrix

Monthly Donor
Anyone have good suggestions for a simple tracing program? Looking to convert some maps that are in JPG or otherwise un-fillable.

A combination of Inkscape and GIMP might work.

Bring it into GIMP, use the Color tool to shift everything to Black and White. Apply a Median Blur to smooth it out, then copy it over to Inkscape a run a Trace to Path. That'll let you export out just the lines on a transparency in a .PNG, which you can then bring into wherever you like to work with.
 
Where are the guidelines for map making?

In particular how do people decide what islands to give a box and what ones not to?

View attachment 575404

Like look at the inconsistencies here

---

Also I'm looking for a colour scheme that doesn't change colours based on whatever political party is in power (something I think is not useful 99% of the time)

Colours should only represent the historical predecessors of a country and maybe the region that is the primary source of power for annexations/unions.

Not been updated in a while, but the standard RCS does that (apart from USSR and PRC v. Russia/Republic of China, or allowing for historic situations of multiple dynasties around at once or the like) , as I think does TACOS, at least in older versions? Can't link atm as at work.

More concerningly, and probably based on whether the islets of the Seranilla bank and so forth should actually be marked or not, the Columbian claims to the former and Baja Nuevos, and Venezuelan possession of Aves Island aren't actually marked.
 
INKSCAPE HELP!

Starting some time earlier today, Inkscape is refusing to let me curve paths by using the edit nodes tool. I can still curve the paths on lines I've already made, but not on any new one. I'm guessing I must have changed some obscure setting somewhere, but I have no notion where.

Please help, this is really irritating
Please, I really need help with this. I feel like it should be a stupidly simple fix
 

Gust

Donor
How do I use text in WorldA maps? Whenever I try to scale text down to fit, it gets super pixelized. Using GIMP btw.
View attachment 567116
I usually change the text size in paint.net or inkscape. I'm sure GIMP allows something similar. If this results in the text becoming to small in order to fit, then I'll usually increase the size of the image itself so that image is four times larger.
Where are the guidelines for map making?

In particular how do people decide what islands to give a box and what ones not to?

View attachment 575404

Like look at the inconsistencies here

---

Also I'm looking for a colour scheme that doesn't change colours based on whatever political party is in power (something I think is not useful 99% of the time)

Colours should only represent the historical predecessors of a country and maybe the region that is the primary source of power for annexations/unions.
 
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