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Thread: What a great resource

  1. #1
    Guild Novice
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    Post What a great resource

    Greetings, guild members.

    I've been looking through the tutorials and finished maps for a while, and I'm looking forward to trying some of these efforts. I've played D&D since the early 80s, and now I'm a proud father of a 13-year-old gaming kid (RPGs, board games, card games, miniatures,...).

    Most of the maps that I've created have been done with pen and paper, sometimes scanned and touched-up (though my image manipulation skills are rudimentary).

    Attached are two examples: a watercolor and ink map focusing on a portion of the Elsir Vale from Red Hand of Doom for a kids' group I run at the local library, and a map I did of the venue for a local gaming convention.

    In participating in the guild, I'm hoping to learn a lot about image editing, and I'm specifically interested in how to create encounter maps with a grid. I've searched for tutorials and threads on the latter, but no luck so far. But some maps have nice battle grids. Anyone know of some good descriptions of technique?

    Thanks,

    Geoff
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

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    Last edited by halfred; 08-22-2009 at 08:51 AM.

  2. #2

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    The watercolor map is quite nice There probably is tutorials on how to create grid based encounter maps.. have you checked the tutorial section already, or done a search on forum ? Oh, and have some rep for the watercolour map Welcome aboard!
    Last edited by Jykke; 08-22-2009 at 08:58 AM.

  3. #3
    Community Leader Facebook Connected Steel General's Avatar
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    Firstly... Welcome Aboard!

    Both are nice maps, the water color especially so.

    How to add a grid to a battle map will probably depend on what software you are using. I can think of at least two ways off the top off my head on how to do it in Photoshop, at least one should work in most raster-based graphic editors.

    Create a new empty layer than fill it with a grid-pattern. There are programs for generating these grids available on the web, but I'm pretty sure there are several examples posted here in the map elements forum.
    My Finished Maps | My Challenge Maps | Still poking around occasionally...

    Unless otherwise stated by me in the post, all work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.



  4. #4

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    Many people here on the forum use gimp as an image editor. If you are not sure with which program to start with, it's probably a good choice "tutorial wise". And the second good thing about it - it's totally free.
    Last edited by Jykke; 08-22-2009 at 09:45 AM.

  5. #5
    Community Leader Guild Sponsor Korash's Avatar
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    Yup...first post...first map....and a good one too

    Definitely worth some rep, and welcome to the Guild.
    Art Critic = Someone with the Eye of an Artist, Words of a Bard, and the Talent of a Rock.

    Please take my critiques as someone who Wishes he had the Talent

  6. #6
    Community Leader NeonKnight's Avatar
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    Welcome to the Guild!
    Daniel the Neon Knight: Campaign Cartographer User

    Never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice!

    Any questions on CC3? Post them with CC3 in the Subject Line!
    MY 'FAMOUS' CC3 MAPS: Thunderspire; Pyramid of Shadows; King of the Trollhaunt Warrens; Demon Queen's Enclave

  7. #7
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    Thanks for welcome and feedback. I've worked with PS Elements, Paint.NET, a little of the GIMP, and I did the icons in the Con map in Inkscape (getting the SVG -> WMF for my page layout was a big pain).

    I did some forum and tutorial searches, but thanks to @Steel General, I have some new search terms.

  8. #8
    Community Leader Gandwarf's Avatar
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    Welcome to the guild and have some rep for posting these cool maps. The first one is especially nice!
    Check out my City Designer 3 tutorials. See my fantasy (city) maps in this thread.

    Gandwarf has fallen into shadow...

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