Looking to commission a fantasy world map

[willow73]

Hi everyone, my best friend and I have created a homebrew world together where several of our home campaigns are set and as a birthday gift to him I would like to get a map made, printed and framed to give to him.

We have a map that we're using that is just pen on paper: outlines, mountain ranges, rivers and the main cities of two continents. I would love to get that map transferred to a full color map in the style of the maps that come with official dnd settings. I can share our version of the map privately once someone takes the job (i dont want to post here in case my friend sees it, i know they visits these forums)

- This would be a world map with two continents
- I would have a deadline around mid-august to allow me time to get the map printed. Is this a reasonable timeline?
- My budget for the map itself would be up to 50usd depending on quality and level of detail, happy to pay in stages as needed.
- I would expect to receive a high quality digital image that I can send to a professional printer

Thank you so much for your consideration!

[Wired]

Hey willow73, welcome to the forum.

I'm afraid what you're asking for is not really reasonable. Even someone working fulltime would be hard-pressed to create a full-scale, full-detail, full-color map within 3 weeks, given the necessary back and forth and ramp-up time.

Secondly, your budget of 50 USD would most likely get you as far as a very basic black & white sketch with most. A full color map, even within size and detail limits, will easily cost you hundreds of dollars with most cartographers as we're talking about around twenty-ish hours of work, at least.

Now, everybody has their own rates, but to give you an idea, my rate for a 12x9 inches sized full color map with simple borders and simple icons, for private use, so far started at €320. Given increased costs of living, that'll be upped to €350 soon. If you increase the size, the level of detail, maybe even the rights to use, this number very quickly spirals into the four-digit range. I reckon that to be true with most cartographers here to some degree.

There's still a chance someone will pick up your request. But temper your expectations. :/

[wminish]

Hey willow73, welcome to the forum.

I'm afraid what you're asking for is not really reasonable. Even someone working fulltime would be hard-pressed to create a full-scale, full-detail, full-color map within 3 weeks, given the necessary back and forth and ramp-up time.

Secondly, your budget of 50 USD would most likely get you as far as a very basic black & white sketch with most. A full color map, even within size and detail limits, will easily cost you hundreds of dollars with most cartographers as we're talking about around twenty-ish hours of work, at least.

Now, everybody has their own rates, but to give you an idea, my rate for a 12x9 inches sized full color map with simple borders and simple icons, for private use, so far started at €320. Given increased costs of living, that'll be upped to €350 soon. If you increase the size, the level of detail, maybe even the rights to use, this number very quickly spirals into the four-digit range. I reckon that to be true with most cartographers here to some degree.

There's still a chance someone will pick up your request. But temper your expectations. :/

Wired is quite right I'm afraid. Even the simplest world maps are very complex and involved to produce and back and forth communication to sort out the details can take weeks without even considering the time to produce the map. I would allow 6 weeks minimum for this project but even that is probably pushing it if the cartographer has other projects already on the go or if they only work part time.

At my pricing, we would probably be looking in the $300 - $400+ range as well (or $450 to $600+ for commercial rights).

You never know though, you might get someone wanting to do their first commission and willing to work for quite cheap.

[Kellerica]

Aye, I will have to agree with my esteemed colleagues here, my pricing seems fairly similar to what they are describing here. My lowest tier price for colour maps starts around the £300 mark, when commercial rights are not included.

[willow73]

Thank you folks, I fully understand! I guess I will try and fiddle around with inkarnate and stuff myself a little, see if I can come up with something passable.

I do hope you don't think I am under-appreciating the work and time it takes to make a map like this! I just figured I'd take a shot, since there are asks for free maps that get posted here.

Unfortunately the (utterly reasonable!) pricing you mentioned is out of my budget at this time, but I thank you for your time in reading and responding to my post!

@mods feel free to close this thread

[wminish]

Thank you folks, I fully understand! I guess I will try and fiddle around with inkarnate and stuff myself a little, see if I can come up with something passable.

I do hope you don't think I am under-appreciating the work and time it takes to make a map like this! I just figured I'd take a shot, since there are asks for free maps that get posted here.

Unfortunately the (utterly reasonable!) pricing you mentioned is out of my budget at this time, but I thank you for your time in reading and responding to my post!

@mods feel free to close this thread

Inkarnate sounds like a good plan and don't worry, I don't think any of us thought you were underappreciating our work.

Many of us here also sell cartography assets which can usually be used with Inkarnate and other map creation programs, that certainly would be within your budget and could help you create a much more interesting map than just using the default Inkarnate assets.

I'll update the thread to say the project is closed.

[Tiana]

It's not out of the question, there are people who do commissions in that range on the Wonderdraft Discord, usually hobby creators getting started in commission taking! I'd go there to shop around.