Cartography as a Career

FarsightX3

My favorite thing to do is making maps and naming them. I was wondering if there were any cartography jobs that use CC3? The only thing I can assume is freelance websites. If there are such jobs do they pay much? If I cant get into the gaming industry, I wouldn't mind taking this route as well.

loydb

I've never done any cartography from the freelance side, but I hired freelance cartographers to do maps for an RPG company for about 5 years. Short answer: don't quit your day job unless you can also draw publishable art as well. There simply isn't enough demand for freelance cartography-only to make a full-time gig out of it IMO, nor does it pay particularly well (although that could be said about pretty much everything in the paper & dice gaming biz).

You'll need to plan on hitting GenCon with a portfolio and lots of pretty handouts, and network your ass off. I don't know if they still have GAMA in vegas every year or not, but that's another good spot to make contacts.

As far as jobs that use CC3, I don't think any publishers give a damn if you use CC3, Dunjinni, or a paintbrush held in your toes -- the only thing that matters is that you deliver a quality product THAT DOESN'T VIOLATE ANY COPYRIGHTS. So check your symbol rights for everything you use. There will generally be a contractual indemnity clause that puts the onus for court costs, legal fees and damages in *your* ballpark if the company gets sued because you violated someone's copyrights.

Good luck!
Loyd

FarsightX3

Thanks for the information. How much did the guys made for the RPG map making? Just curious. What do you mean, symbol copy rights? As in the symbols made in CC3? Or just any map symbol period? The only intentions I have for my maps is to recognize a flow and theme of a map. These maps I do are just guide lines. I want to use these maps for my mmorpg idea one day. That will prolly never get made =(. Sucks because alot of mmo gamers really want me to make it =\

loydb

I honestly don't remember what we paid. It was low hundreds.

By "copyright" I mean that if you sell a map that you made to a company (or as a product that you produce yourself), you need to make sure that all of the symbol sets you use allow this. I think that the symbol sets included with CC3 and sold by ProFantasy can be used in this manner, but I'm not positive, and wouldn't use them without explicitly checking.

Simon Rogers

rpgnow.com is a very good venue for freelance map-makers to set up; look at Skeleton Key and similar companes. We always keep our eyes open on Show and Tell to see if anyone comes close to the Ralf standard! It's not very well paid, but there are opportunities.

FarsightX3

Simon, can you show me some of the Ralf standard maps? Check out World of Mahdran. Those are my fantasy maps. Can I get an honest critique from you or Ralf?

dtsdesign

The only money you might make is as a freelance map maker with CC3 and then probably little
everyone wants stuff for free.

as a draftsman person myself the only other careers you could make money at would most likely
involve other forms of design software....

I.E
Autocad, Catia, Ncad....

Georelrod

I was a architect in training until I switched into IT recently but I priot to my switch I was using programs such as autocad since 1989 to 2007. Anyways... I get CC3 because, it is got a CAD engine under it, but I also get photoshop, and all the design based graphical software out there. I own CC3, as well as the 'other' ;) package out there. so... if you want to do cartography then go for it. BUT... consider GIS systems, if you want something as a career in 'cartography' and still map stuff for a living. I know... it's not fantasy, but maybe, after enough experience with a wide range of software and you see what tools (they are only tools) are out there you can do exactly that and keep you day job as well.

I imagine LOTS of people writing and drawing and creating rpg stuff in this day and time and selling it are finding more receptive voices for online self published media then the traditional older publishing houses, I would guess... overhead is less. BUT, I also imagine so many people are doing it also. But, things can change... maybe the market will also.