Handy dandy cheat sheet of potential information to send

This is an optional extensive list of questions you could answer in your email if you’re the kind of person who finds prompts helpful.

The basics.

  • Size of map:
  • Sketch and/or description of map:
  • Any writing in which you describe the world:
  • Any art which demonstrates what you’d like:
  • Any maps which you particularly liked:
  • Budget? Half is paid after the sketch is approved.
  • Payment methods you are willing to use. Most of my clients use Paypal or direct bank transfers. Cash via mail is not accepted; cheques are strongly discouraged
  • Do you want to pay more for copyright or would you rather pay less and allow me to re-use aspects of the map for other maps or map packs:
  • Deadline:
  • If your answer to the above is “no deadline” please understand the scope of my client’s projects vary wildly. While you do not need to request a specific date for when this will be completed, what do you consider a reasonable time frame for a turnaround to your project? Years? Months? Weeks? Days? Are you writing a campaign for the undetermined future? Are you playing the game right now? What is the intended use of your map? Tell me when the campaign’s starting, how many weeks until you expect your party to reach the City of Sailors where the NPC will give them the map, etc, and I will be able to help you determine if your project timeline is feasible.
  • Will any people other than you and me be brought into the creative process? Will any other human besides me and you see this art before it’s completely finished?
    Examples of when to say yes:

    • You are part of an art team, several members of whom must sign off on the final art.
    • You have a co-writer whose opinion is invaluable to you.
    • You have an editor to whom you will send this map before finishing.
    • You work on a publishing house or game dev team.
    • You plan on sharing this map onto social media before it’s done to ask your friend’s opinions.
    • You plan on asking your party’s opinion before it’s done.
    • You want to post it on Discord to a Dungeon Master group for feedback from other people.
    • You always show your best friend / brother / mom and ask their opinion.Any of these can result in me having to spend a surprising extra amount of time editing. This is 100% okay! It happens about 50% of the time. Just let me know, so that I can make sure they are involved in feedback at useful points rather than me having to rip up significant parts of my art due surprise bonus feedback right at the end. If you let me know I’ll tell you “hey, send this to Bob from the Print Department too!”

Possible other questions you could answer.

  • Tell me about you! Who are you, what do you do, what are you using to fund these creations, and are what your goals with this project?
  • Inspiration for architecture, motifs, similar fandoms, culture:
  • Do you want animals or monsters, if so, what kinds:
  • Do you want a compass, if so, a basic arrow, a traditional compass, or a fancy custom compass?
  • Do you want a frame, if so, would you like a basic frame, one with corner icons, a fancy custom one? If you want bumper icons, are there any images from your world that you might like woven in?
  • Do you want a world label, if so, what should it say?
  • Is your world based on any existing culture or time period?
    What are the most important images you would like to capture?
  • How is this map being used? Is it supposed to have been drawn by someone in universe, or a helpful side asset for a roleplaying game?
  • What is the most important data this map should convey?
    What style of icons should be used to represent important features?
  • Should there be a legend? What would you like featured? Ei: measurements, town, city, fort icons, etc.
  • Do you want individual trees, or forest ‘clumps’?
  • What biomes will this map cover?
  • Do you want colored biomes, or icons to indicate biomes?
  • What manmade features might you like to see added? Ei: ships, power lines, roads, railways, mines, shipping routes.
  • What scale is this map? Common examples: 1 square = five feet, 20 feet. 1 inch = 10, 100, 1000 miles/km. If you don’t know how to work this out, you could tell me the travel distance between two locations by foot or horseback so I can estimate it for you.
  • Will you need a version for the players and a version for the DM / GM / LM? (Examples: there are secret passages, traps, tunnels, treasures, etc that you want to know the location of but keep secret to your player characters)
  • Will you need me to invent filler place names? I provide World Building Consultation and am a Cartography Consultant. Will you want me to fill in gaps in the world where you haven’t developed?
  • How would you like water to be represented? (Examples: Rise of the Dragons Escalon Map, Black and White fantasy map for Stranger Rituals, The Kingdom of Anglar – map for fantasy novel – you can have echo lines, wave trim, random waves throughout, a repeating pattern… many options, but if you don’t have a preference I will pick what I think is suitable)
  • How would you like mountains and hills to be represented?
  • Do you want NPCs and DMPCs to be developed to fill your world with people? Do you need social, economic, and religious or political places of interest?

Email me any information for your custom map commission quote

or Discord message: _ti_

Tiffany Munro, Feed the multiverse maps

for all your custom fantasy cartography needs

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