25 Quick & Dirty Map Tutorials (upcoming Kickstarter)

Soon I'll be starting a Kickstarter to fund the creation of a line of educational books offering detailed map tutorials using any standard graphics application, including: Xara Photo and Graphic Designer, Photoshop, GIMP, Paintshop Pro, Illustrator, Inkscape, CorelDraw, and many other similar applications. The first book (and first goal of the Kickstarter) will be 25 Quick & Dirty Map Tutorials Guide.

Each tutorial consists 9 to 15 steps, with 3 steps per page (each step has a corresponding map in progress thumbnail, beside the step description), thus 3 to 5 pages per tutorial, followed by a full page version of the map in the final step, then 3 sample maps using the same technique as the tutorial. Altogether 7 to 9 pages for each tutorial, at 25 tutorials, so the tutorial section of the book consists of at least 175+ pages of the guide book (probably closer to 200 pages.)

The tutorials section will be preceded by: about author and introduction, followed by an Explanation of Terms. This chapter describes the instructions given in each tutorial and which tools or techniques used in several other major design applications to duplicate the step. A subsection for Photoshop, GIMP, Xara and Inkscape (at least those) will be included. This will be followed by a Resources chapter giving links to online sources for photo textures, fonts, map objects and more.

The 25 Quick & Dirty Map Tutorials Guide book, if funded, is intended to be a softcover, full color interior printed book and PDF of approximately 248 pages long.

If we can fund the first book, I'd like to fund and release 25 Advanced Quick & Dirty Map Tutorials Guide, Hand-Drawn Techniques for Mapping Guide, Using 3D Elements in Mapping Guide, Sound Geography and Geology for Mapping, a set of Old West Hand-Drawn Map Objects, and more as Kickstarter stretch goals.

So far, I have a website setup for the project: Quick and Dirty Map Tutorials, and a Google+ community to serve as a forum for the site.

Who needs these books?

• Gamemasters who need maps that are print ready, or ready to use in their favorite Virtual Tabletop applications for their home games.
• RPG and board game designers looking to design their own maps, or want to improve their workflow getting their maps from concept to cartographer - saving time and money.
• Anyone wanting to learn how to better use their graphics applications in a fun way.

I will post a link to the Kickstarter, once that begins.

I hope you join the project, become a contributor when the Kickstarter begins, and help spread the word. There are no other books like these on the market - we need your help to make them a reality!

Below is a rough draft tutorial as originally posted on the Google+ community to give you an idea what my tutorials are really about and whether they have any value to you (note: the published version will be better presented with more textual description)

sounds really interesting and looks cool so I look forward for your kickstarter

For those who don't know me and want to know if I'm qualified to write these books.

Here's a link to my Map thread on these boards, to get a look at the maps I create.

Since 2007 I've been doing freelance cartography to RPG 3PP companies, large and small, doing all the maps for my Kaidan setting published by Rite Publishing, having done work for Iron Crown Enterprise, Dog House Rulez, Conflict RPG. I created 189 objects for the ProFantasy Modern Map Symbol Set, and more recently created the original hand-drawn map of the City of Kasai for the Paizo Publishing module The Empty Throne of the Jade Regent AP. I am credited as one of the contributing authors. I've done nearly 100 commissioned maps, and of course create many more for my own games (having played/GM'd D&D since 1977).

As an imprint under Rite Publishing, the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG) are a series of modules, supplements and the scheduled for Oct/Nov 2013 release of a 200 page GM's guide, and a Player's guide to Kaidan, with over a dozen products released so far is my setting. I am the developer, cartographer, page layout artist, one of the illustrators, game designers and authors.

So I know my way around creating publications on budget, on time, many that are highly rated by the reviewers.

So I have the qualifications to do this series and I hope you can spread the word!

Here's a sample map that will be included in the 25 Quick & Dirty Map Tutorials Guide that reveals one of my secrets: using a Photoshop Mosaic plug-in to help make a noble's chamber look 'noble'.

Looks good. Just remember to have a version for Print, and one for OnScreen PDF. You probably know why, but for any who don't, "looks good on screen" is not the same as "looks good when I print it out". There are resolution and contrast/balancing factors to deal with, and I have seen many, many, many books (especially independently published) that utterly fail to understand this.

I run a graphic design/digital print shop for my day job, having done so for 19.5 years so far, and worked for 10 years before that in the graphics industry - yes, I know that. Also I am the developer/cartographer, page layout guy and one of the illustrators for the Kaidan setting of Japanese horror (PFRPG). We have 13 products, 5 available as printed books, and 2 soft cover printed setting guides that will be released in Oct/Nov 2013 - so I work in the RPG publishing industry now, and create for both PDF and printed material. I also offer a map printing service for gamemasters and RPG publishers.

All in all, this project (as stated in the first post) is intended as a soft cover, full color interior printed book and PDF files - and I'm qualified for the task.

I figured you'd be good at it and know what you're doing. I wanted to make sure that anyone reading would understand better the level of technical expertise required.
3 years at McGraw-Hill in the production illustration department, with about 250-300 books per year. Learned CorelDraw and Ventura there. Learned to love them. Wouldn't touch Illustrator outside of a classroom with a barge pole!

2 questions for you:

1. What do you find most challenging in creating maps?
2. What kind of tutorials would you like to see in a guide to creating maps?

John Large of House of Black (tabletop RPG discussions blog) has posted an article about the Quick & Dirty Map Tutorials project, and the first to do so, so far. I look forward to hearing more such blogs about it.

Just a heads up. I'm planning to start the Kickstarter on Friday, July 12th running 30 days until Sunday, August 11th. I'll make an official announcement when it goes live!