Surprise for my group

[Hjorimir]

So, I'm a homebrewer. I love created worlds for my campaigns and my players. A thing that has always vexed me is not having a nice map for the table. So, I set out to finally pull a nice map together for my players. I ended up with something I like and had it printed out in 2' x 3' from Vistraprint for what I considered a reasonable price. I finally got to drop it on them tonight - a gift from a merchant lord they befriended - and it was quite the hit. Here's some pictures one of my players took with his phone.

 

[Sunseeker]

Awsome man. I've been thinking of doing the same for my campaign, how much did that run you?

 

[Hjorimir]

Vistaprint was having a sale at that exact moment. I want to say that it was less than $30 or so.

 

[Oofta]

What category does this fall under? Banner? Poster? Can you write on it with dry erase?

I've thought about doing something similar, just not sure mine would look quite as pretty since I've never wanted to use that much ink when printing.

 

[Hjorimir]

Well, as I used Vistaprint, ink was no concern! It is just a 2' x 3' poster, horizontal with the high-grade glossy paper upgrade. I haven't tried drawing on it with a marker.

 

[pogre]

Did you create this map in photoshop? It looks great.

 

[Ranthalan]

What tool did you use to create that map? I have CC, but this is much better than my mediocre efforts.

I printed my map out on six pages of card stock and used Avery laminate sheets to make a single, foldable map. I thought that was cool as hell until I saw this

 

[Hjorimir]

Some of my players now want their own hard copy of the map and it just so happens that Vistaprint is having a sale today (promo code: TOPRATED), in case any of you have a map you want to get printed. It's basically $30 and that includes the (cheapest) shipping.

 

[Hjorimir]

The recipe was...

1. I used Inkarnate for the base geography (textures only, no symbols). I first imported a scan of my hand drawn map as a texture, painted in that texture, then worked over the top of it to get the land.
2. I then up-scaled the image size via this site.
3. Pulled the image into Campaign Cartographer for the label and grid overlay (using a handful of sheet effects).
4. Finally, in Paint.Net, I did the following: insert compass rose and Arasil label, added the continental insert in the lower-left corner, added the two black borders to make it a better fit for the Vistaprint poster option.

 

[Hjorimir]

What tool did you use to create that map? I have CC, but this is much better than my mediocre efforts.

I printed my map out on six pages of card stock and used Avery laminate sheets to make a single, foldable map. I thought that was cool as hell until I saw this

I think that's awesome that you did that! Any pictures to share? I love, love, love seeing other DM's work.