Design of the Game Board

Impressive! Do you have any Photoshop tips for us? I'm particularly interested in how you did those gorgeous textures.

Yogurt

your mistake makes me think of the movie "This is Spinal Tap" when the minature Stonehenge prop comes down in their gig and they say something along the lines that the dwarves dancing around it almost crushed it due to their confusion of ' and "...classic

HR Puff

Greetings,

I print games on fabric and it's easy, well, now that I've mastered the learning curve!

I use 100% cotton cloth, one layer is decorated with my board game, the second layer is the backing. The 2 layers are sewn together with a chanel left for a drawstring, the whole board zips into its own pouch and all the pieces store inside. The black outlines are either screenprinted in bulk or hand drawn and the colors are handpainted with permanent transparent fabric dyes. To transfer the design by hand you can use a heat-transfer pencil on the back of your master, or tape the master and the fabric to the window and trace it through with Sharpie brand permanent pen.

You could send out your 4 color separations to a silkscreener, someone who does artwork bigger than a T-shirt but still works on fabric. Maybe a backyard mom-n-pop artist shop. It would require a screen setup for each color plus the black. That is the most expensive part. I generally pay $30 each screen then $1-$3 per pull at 4 dozen quantity.

You could print on full color iron-on-transfer paper, but the quality was low. It looks plastic and tends to peel, and trying to get the sheets aligned was tricky.

That map looks fabulous!! I was trying to figure out how it looked soooo 3D. It almost looks like clay. Cool technique. Good luck.

Bryanna

PS:
I can make custom handpainted fabric game boards/banners/shop signs etc. Very Rough Estimate of $10 per 8 1/2" x 11" section, more if shading/artistic touches like a map, less in quantity. Email me with your specifications for a detailed quote! Bryanna@BryannasTreasureBox.com

Hi Crabclaw,

Your map looks amazing! :-)
Yet, with such a beautifully crafted land texture, the water looks a bit too flat, IMHO. I think it desreves a tad more elaborate treatment, as do the bridges, wich are too harsh to match the great land work.

Maybe something like this might work better:

Just my two cents.

Seo

My advice regarding the file size and the many layers:

1) Keep a copy of the layered file. You don't know when will you decide to make some change that requires the layered version. Too many times I've discarded the original layered image, only to finde too late that there was some error that would have been easy to fix had I kept the original file, but now requires a time consuming carefull patching work. :-(

2) Get a CD burner. It's not expensive, and you'll need to backup files for some reason or another. USB drives are fine, but you'll want a CD backup for permanent backups. It's a good invetment.

3) Even with the most powerfull computer, you'll save a lot of time by working on a simplified (layers merged) verison. Just don't go too far in the merging process. I would merge al the basic texture/coloring of the land areas, but keep the labels and borders in separate layers, just in case. And always keep the original file! :-) (I'm a bit paranoid about this)

If you need any help with the water effect, just ask. I can send step by step instructions (but looking at the work you've done, I don't think you would need them). Anyway, I'll be glad to bring my grain of sand to your great map.

Seo

Great artwork! And please, keep the detailed descriptions coming, this is very useful stuff for the non-graphic art-inclined among us.

I must say, this is the most unique design approach I've ever heard of -- design a game component that is so expensive it can't ever be changed, and then design around that.

On the other hand, it may work. Indeed, one of my games has been through 10 rules iterations but the map hasn't yet changed. One advantage of that particular design, however, is that the territories are essentially "featureless" -- thus, the only property built into the map are the adjacencies between territories.

Since you're putting numbers and features on your map, there's a very good chance you're going to run into trouble down the road. What if playtesting reveals that "Aungoria" should really be worth "3" instead of "4"? Or that Olmshorn isn't the best place for a castle space? These things will be impossible to change, and while it will be theoretically possible to design the game around the numbers on the board, this may be more trouble than it's worth.

My advice, to take or to leave: you've got a beautiful game board. But now you need a beautiful game to go with it. Print it out at Kinko's for $50, mount it on some poster board, and playtest the thing to death. When you're sure the game is done, THEN invest in the nice canvas production.

Good luck,

Jeff

If you don't want to manually paint the layer mask to get rid of the wavy texture over the land, you can use a somewhat automated (but processor-intensive) technique instead.

Make the wavy texture as before, but do not add the layer mask.

Hide the wavy texture layer, and any layers that are currently adding texture to the water. The closer the water can appear as a single flat color, the better. Then use the eyedropper tool on a representative water pixel with the "5x5 average" option selected. Select-Color Range... and fiddle with the fuzziness to automatically create a selection that includes your water and not your land.

Then, make your wavy texture visible again. With that layer as the current layer, Layer-Add Layer Mask-Reveal Selection. That will save you some painting on the mask itself, at the expense of some time during the Select-Color Range... portion of things.