Fishtank Room Battlemap, Hand Inked

[Mr. Greengoat]

Just for fun and to see how it would go, i decided that I wanted to try and make some full size battle maps using brushed india ink and bond paper.



I made this map to accompany an adventure I wrote for my friends to play in D&D 4e.


The only digital elements were the cutting and pasting to cobble the scan together into one image. It was on an 18" by 24" sheet of paper so i scanned eight sections to fit the whole thing into one.

For making the grid I used a tool called a pounce wheel (which looks like a tiny wheeled spur) to cut a grid of holes into a large sheet of mylar. I laid the mylar over the blank sheet of paper so the holes lined up to form a grid and then sponged/brushed the back of the mylar so that ink would flow through the holes down onto the paper forming a sloppy grid.

After the ink was dry I free handed he dungeon features in with pencil to get the placement right and then inked the whole thing in various shades of black ink.

I wasn't trying to be too careful since it was more of a proof of concept thing so it's a little wonky but it's great when I pulled out an actual hand painted map to play on. It took about two hours working on the pre-gridded paper.

In the future I would go with heavier watercolor paper because the bond paper was too thin for the water I was splashing on. The grid of mylar is like a primitive silkscreen and is just kind of a hassle for what you get. I think next time I would just grid it off with a T-square and pencil and add small brush lines in by hand later.

(thanks, and I hope this post is proper for the final works section.)

[Redrobes]

Crazy.

Love it.

and repped !

[Gandwarf]

I love it as well. Have some more rep

[Mr. Greengoat]

Thanks folks, making me blush

[Steel General]

Very nice, far beyond anything I could do.

I dub thee newly repped *bonk*

[Coyotemax]

Thanks folks, making me bush

Just make sure to leaf the windows open.

**hides**

Anyhow, this is some darn fine work, I love seeing hand done pieces. And thank you for giving a look at the creative process, it's actually pretty helpful. I was wondering how you did the grid at first glance, while you say the mylar is a bit of a hassle, I absolutely love the effect it gives.

I've started my own ink brushed piece, though it's 100% photoshop work - but now I'm going to keep yours around as reference so I can get it looking more realistic

you win!!

[Mr. Greengoat]

Realistic = warped paper with too much water applied.


To clarify the process:
To get the grid inked on I took a piece of mylar which is polyester film (plastic sheet that architects used to draw on) and punched holes in it with this little spur-ike pounce wheel and tried to keep the wheel steady with a big ruler.

This left a grid of punched holes in the mylar. I taped this plastic sheet over the blank paper and sponged ink through the holes onto the paper. It is essentially like a really primitive silkscreen or an advanced stencil. That way I could make a bunch of gridded sheets.

[Midgardsormr]

Beautiful! It makes me think Call of Cthulhu. I'd really like to see more like this. If you do another one, please do not hesitate to post it.

[DungeonMasterGaz]

Good hand-drawn style. It's almost old skool, and I think it has great atmosphere.

DMG

[Scorpius]

A fun look and its very clear.