Fantasy maps and mapmaking tutorials by Jonathan Roberts
Today I’m walking through my method for colouring trees quickly for RPG maps. This follows on from this mini-tute/discussion on different tree styles from last week. I’m working with style 1 from that tutorial here, though it can be directly applied to the other styles just as easily.
The problem with trees is the leaves. Continue reading “How to colour quick trees for RPG maps”
One incredibly useful tool in photoshop is a good dynamic grungy brush.
The human eye looks for detail and texture, or patterns and regularity. If you use a hard edged round brush in your work, there will be hard edged circles in your work. We’re very good at picking them out, so your audience will see them. On the other hand, if you use a brush with splattered edges, a random orientation and a variable size then there will be no pattern anywhere. Then the human eye sees other patterns and forms. It sees texture that isn’t there, and fills in regions with the texture it believes it should see. Continue reading “How to make a grungy brush – Photoshop”
I was asked the following question over on the Paizo boards:
Can I ask a question about city design?
I see advice I’ve seen elsewhere — start with the streets.
But — how? Continue reading “More City Design Tips”
Trees are useful on a battlemap as they provide terrain, cover and a lot of artistic style. As the canopy stretches over the play area, how you depict your trees will affect both the form and the function of your maps. Continue reading “Four Ways To Draw Trees On A Map”
How do you take a dungeon map like this one from the previous tutorial and add colour? An isometric map is a little trickier than a top down map. Without a solid edge to use as a selection, we can’t use the tricks we use for top down dungeon maps. Instead I colour by hand. It’s not that hard – here’s the steps I use.
Continue reading “How to Draw a Dungeon Map. Part 2: Colour”
It’s often the case that you find that you have a map from an adventure that has labels on it. You need to remove the labels before you show it to your players or they’ll know where the bad guys are. On many maps this is actually pretty easy. Continue reading “How to remove labels from maps”
This week I’m looking at how to take published maps, rescale them for miniature or virtual tabletop use and then slice them up for printing at home. Continue reading “Tips and Tricks: Rescaling Maps and Slicing Them Up”
A couple of weeks ago I posted the world map for Lannithir, for the Illfrost adventure arc for Illusionary Press. The first adventure for the world of Illfrost is out now and I created the tactical battlemaps for it – and now I can show them off!
(more maps after the jump) Continue reading “A Temple of an Ancient Evil”
