Appreciation post: My old graph paper maps versus my new digital ones

I spent years drawing my fantasy world on graph paper, you know, the kind with the little blue squares. It felt right, like I was some old timey explorer. But last month I got a cheap drawing tablet for my birthday, and I tried making a map in Krita (it's free, which is nice). The difference is huge. With the paper, if I messed up a coastline, I had to erase and hope the paper didn't tear. With the digital layer, I can just nudge a whole mountain range over without a trace. I redrew the entire river system for my main continent in about an hour, something that would have taken me a whole weekend and a lot of white-out on paper. Has anyone else made this switch and found one specific tool, like the layer function, that just made everything click?

2 comments

2 Comments

angela_dixon6d ago

Oh man, layers were the game changer for me too. I used to trace my coastline on one layer, then put forests and hills on another. That way if I hated where the woods were, I could just turn that layer off and redraw without touching the shore. The undo button saved me so many times when I accidentally drew a city in the ocean. What's the one tool in Krita you keep going back to?

rivera.henry6d ago

Yeah, the layer trick for coastlines is so smart. For me it's the transform tool, specifically the warp mesh. I'll sketch a mountain range, then use the mesh to bend and stretch it until the shape feels right without redrawing the whole thing. It's like digital clay.