Master Your Game: Do It Like Dyson

I'm sure I'm not alone in being frustrated with the look of my own hand-drawn maps for my adventures. Even though I'm often the only one that will see them, they drive me nuts because I hate sloppy work. Call me obsessive compulsive, but I feel that I run a better game when I'm satisfied with the quality of the work that I've put into it. A badly drawn map to me feels like I'm putting perfume on a pig and foisting it off on my players.

Just about everyone in the OSR circles knows about, or has at least seen examples of, Dyson Logo's map work. To be sure, there are many other talented cartographers in the community as well, but out of all of them I'm most familiar with his work. There isn't a week that goes by one his social media accounts where someone doesn't ask him about his tools, methods, and everything else that he does to create such excellent pieces. Fortunately, he's always been gracious enough to share his tips.

The following are links to Dyson Logo's blog, with details of how he makes his maps, and the different tools he uses.

Dyson gives a 3-step tutorial on drawing a map from start to finish here, A Dyson Mapping 1-2-3 “Tutorial”.

Here is Dyson Logo's Tips & Tutorials,  the full collection of his infographic images on his work.

Here is his article, On the drawing of maps, concerning tools, paper, and scanning methods.

And here is a collection of his early pencil drawn maps in the Lost Maps Archive.

And finally, a time elapsed video of his process. Watch!