These battle maps are painted on a cardboard of 50x70 cm, using gesso and acrylics. I usually start painting wet-on-wet, mixing colors on the board in a slightly uneven way with lots of visible brushstrokes. Often I splatter some paint in lighter and darker hues on top of that. When that’s dry I’ll paint in details like trees, water, and rocks. I’m very color oriented, so my first layers are often very bright. I like to go back over it with diluted black and white paint to enhance highlights and shadows. Some maps only need three layers but sometimes I use many layers until I’m satisfied. Acrylics are a great medium for an experiment, with many applications. Only after I’m satisfied with the paint I’ll go in with waterproof markers to line and detail. Lining brings clarity into the landscape which is good for both players and DM.

The biggest challenge of these maps is the dark forest. Steven suggested a haunted forest and I thought it was a great idea, it immediately spurred images in my head of it being night with Will-o-wisps floating around. So when I was putting out my colors and trying to think of a color story I decided to go for a blue-orange contrast. Blue for the shadows and overall spooky feel and orange for the Wisps. Now I didn’t realize but painting a night scene is challenging. Using a lot of black was making the forest dark but also not very readable. So after a lot of layers, I just went ahead and layered a dark indigo blue and a hint of purple over almost all parts of the painting, using light strokes and diluted paint except for the darkest shadows where I put it down thick. Then I used white to enhance where I wanted the Wisps and their cast to be and after that, I layered an orange and yellow neon paint over it. Neon’s are great for painting light or magic effects both on maps like this and miniatures cause they just give that pop! It was a real struggle to get it where I wanted it but to me that makes it a fun challenge, so thank you for that Steven!

I hope these maps might inspire you to try your hand at painting or that you’ll have a good time using them for your games.

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