Hello, Well,I finished making a sketch of a map for my game and scanned it to the computer. The size of the sketch is around 6000x5000 pixels large. I opened this up in GIMP 2.6 and have finally just finished outlining all the borders, lakes, trees, towns, mountains, etc... But now i'm stuck. I am at the stage where all I need to do is color it, make it look old and worn out, and then i'll be finished with it. For the record, this is a fantasy map. I found a tutorial online on how to make parchment paper in GIMP, but it just does not look the way I want it to (http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/old-pergament-paper.html). What I am really going for is this sort of texture: http://fireemblemblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/world_map.jpg I tried using the airbush tool in GIMP, but it did not do what I want...In fact it just hid all the outlines I did. When really I need it to just color over them (making the black lines into whatever color i'm coloring in...you know?), not overlap the lines as if they were not there. Could anyone here give me some tips or a link to a tutorial for GIMP that would help me to color my map to have a similar texture as that fire emblem map? Much thanks, Progames25

Put your map paper texture on a layer below your outlines so it will not hide or blur them. Also the map example you linked looks to me like it is using a burlap or sandstone pattern, or maybe both on top of each other.

Hmm,
I'll try that.

EDIT: Ok, well im still not happy with the results :But I think i'm on to something here. Ok, so I looked back at that original parchment paper tutorial (http://www.gimpusers.com/tutorials/old-pergament-paper.html) and am going to try and use most of that, but towards the end change stuff around and do kinda my own thing with the colors and such.
So, I went through this tutorial all the way down to the end of the part where I apply the Lighting Effect (just before you start using the free selection tool). So, I applied the lighting effect and it looked REALLY good...but I was in either 12.5 or 25% zoom. After going to 100% zoom, it looked horrible (remember this is a 6000x5000pixel image). You could see too much detail and it look unnatural and total fake (unlike what I saw at 12.5% zoom.

Well, I messed around with the lighting effect settings and was able to get something a little better, but still not enough. So, it takes a while to keep rendering 6000x5000 pixels of lighting effect over and over again, so I am wondering if any of you have any tips on how I could tone down what this effect is doing? Really, I think at 100% what ruins the image is just that there are too MANY bumps and stuff, it needs to be more spread out and not as complex/cluttered (as if i'm trying to see how many bumps I can fit...).

Thank You,
Progames25

P.S. Towards the begining of the tutorial, it mentions using the "Plastic Noise" effect. I could not find that ANYWHERE in the filters list and ended up using Filter->Render->Clouds->Plasma. If thats my mistake, or if anyone knows where I can find that Plastic Noise effect in GIMP 2.6.7, please let me know :)

[Edited by - Progames25 on January 1, 2010 9:35:11 PM]