Map Archives - Page 7 of 14

City Mapping Made Easy

Profantasy fantasy city tiles for Campaign Cartographer — An example map using the city style - map drawn by Ralf Schemmann

Today Profantasy released my new fantasy city map style for Campaign Cartographer as their March Annual style. You can check out the full details here. The style contains 15 different house shapes, each with a range of colours and roofing, 12 different textures, and a bunch of miscellaneous extras from city walls and turrets to piers and trees.

I’m especially pleased with how the city walls and turrets came out. They can work as city walls, the walls on a compound, or even the structure in a full blown castle. Check out the full set, and the other example images.

Shadowlands – revealed at last

A while ago I ran a gallery show of fantasy maps, and through that I met Christopher Merwin – a great guy and a local New York game designer. He was working on a fantasy world for the Pathfinder RPG called Sæmyyr, and asked me to work on up a fantasy world map. See below for the unlabeled map, and some details on how it was made.

Continue reading “Shadowlands – revealed at last”

The World of Hominia

The world of Hominia for Noah Murphy

It’s been a while since I posted any work, so here’s a piece I did for Noah Murphy for his book series K23 Detectives. You can check them out on Kindle and in print. It was an interesting challenge getting a black and white map to read clearly for the different Kindle formats.

More City Design Tips

The city of Redwall - for a tutorial on city design 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”

Four Ways To Draw Trees On A Map

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 to Draw a Dungeon Map. Part 2: Colour

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”

A Temple of an Ancient Evil

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”

Weekly tips 3 – Dungeons! Using Layer Effects, Stroking Walls and Going Old School TSR Blue

This week it’s all about the dungeon, and I’ve been covering ways of creating dungeon maps without actually drawing anything. These tips should work whether you’re a natural doodler or you think pencils are the devil incarnate.

How to generate pretty dungeon maps for d&d battlemaps

Continue reading “Weekly tips 3 – Dungeons! Using Layer Effects, Stroking Walls and Going Old School TSR Blue”

Weekly Tips 2 – How to design a gatehouse, using grids and building isometric maps

Castle Defence – a classic gatehouse

How to design a guard house of a castle

Castles are built for more than one reason – people live there, guards are stationed there and often they are political power centers for the region. But first and foremost they are built to keep people out. Continue reading “Weekly Tips 2 – How to design a gatehouse, using grids and building isometric maps”

Journey to the world of Illfrost

This month sees the release of the World of Illfrost, a new world for 4e D&D. Its icy grip is perfectly timed as winter descends our own frozen north. I worked with the guys at Illusionary Press to create the world map and the maps for the first adventure.

To give you a taster, Illusionary Press are giving away a primer for free over on RPGNow. Continue reading “Journey to the world of Illfrost”