Ross McConnell from 2-Minute Tabletop explains his personal method to designing and drawing battle maps for tabletop role-playing games.
Tag: guide
How To Print Maps & Assets To Scale With GIMP
How to use the GIMP image editor to print precisely to scale. In particular, printing maps, assets, and tokens on a 1-inch grid.
A Beginner’s Guide to Foundry VTT
This guide aims to explain how to get started with custom maps, assets, and tokens on a fresh install of the Foundry virtual tabletop.
A Beginner’s Guide to Dungeondraft Custom Assets
A three-step beginner’s guide to importing custom asset packs into Dungeondraft using the hand-drawn “dungeondraft_pack” files I provide.
Secrets of the Arena: Introduction
The first step in the arena-centric adventure. Learn Greybanner’s secret history, create your party, and give them an exciting introduction to the town!
A Beginner’s Guide to Roll20
How to import our hand-drawn battle maps, assets, character tokens, and other art into Roll20. Designed for those new to the Roll20 virtual tabletop.
Greybanner, Part 3: The Greybanner Region
Mountains, rocky plains, and a blighted forest surround Greybanner. What dangers and adventures might your players find as they explore?
Greybanner, Part 2: Locations in Town
Hundreds flock to Greybanner in preparation for the Grand Tournament. Once open streets are quickly populated by stalls and carts, and merchants’ voices begin to fill the air. The outskirts of town see camps and caravans arrive. Hopeful warriors share glances of anticipation as they size up their competition. The residents of the town move […]
Greybanner, Part 1: The History and People
A guide to the town of Greybanner, its history, and council. Who will your party befriend, and who will become their enemy?
How to Run a Cave Adventure
Our cave encounters are done but we’re not in the clear yet! Running the connective moments and making full use of the environment is just as important for a cave adventure as the encounters themselves. Every terrain is unique and should have its own challenges and atmosphere. Caves, in particular, allow us to inject claustrophobia […]
How Ben Adds Light and Shadow to His Dungeons
First, Ben’s multi-part, custom-lit dungeon made using many of our 2-Minute map assets. Second, his guide on how you can achieve such lighting effects yourself!
How To Make a Custom Dungeon Map with Photoshop
My Beginners Guide to Photoshop – specifically in using it to create custom battle maps with my 2-Minute Tabletop assets. Follow along!
How to Run Kobolds
Everything you could need to know for running kobolds in and out of combat. Dig some tunnels, rig some traps, and then throw your party in the deep end.
How to Run Goblins
An arrow flies out of a nearby bush, surprising the group’s navigator and bringing him to his knees. A barrage follows before the travelers can move to react. Some manage to raise their shields or catch the projectiles in their armor, but not all are so lucky. They push their backs together, wildly scanning the […]
How to Run a Jungle Adventure
Somewhere below the adventurer’s foot, a breaking crunch is heard. Crouching down to brush some mossy soil aside reveals a skull, bleached white and weaved with vines. It is, or was, human. Marks are etched into the surface, likely from multiple scavenger beasts taking advantage of a free meal. What originally killed the man, they […]
How to Run a Horror Adventure
Night descends, enveloping the small town in creeping shadows. The party looks out from the safety of their inn room. They know the kinds of monsters that lurk in the dark and the many ways to face them, and the time for that will come. Before they can destroy the horrors, they must first research, […]
How To Design a Town
Most tabletop adventures begin in a humble town in the countryside. But how do you design a town? We break down the process in this detailed guide.
How To Build Your Own Ship Map
In this short and punchy guide I will show you, step by step, how to build your own ship map like the one below. I recorded the process (you will see snippets below) and it took me only eight minutes on my first attempt. And if I can do it, so can you!
Let’s Draw a Forest
In this video I explain my process for drawing trees, bushes, and underbrush, each with multiple levels of detail. You can draw them quick and dirty, or slow and pretty!
Let’s Draw Caves
Join me as I try and explain my cave-battle-map-drawing-method using actual English words. This is the first episode in my new, laid-back, “Let’s Draw” tutorial series, where I talk through how I go about drawing my battle maps. It’s been too long!
Speed Drawing the Roadside Camp & Clearcut map tiles (Pt.2)
This is a 30x time-lapse of my painting process for my latest two map tiles, the Roadside Camp & Clearcut.
Speed Drawing the Roadside Camp & Clearcut map tiles (Pt.1)
In this time-lapse I draw two more Roadside tiles, the Camp and the Clearcut, sped up to 10x speed.
Speed Drawing some Roadside map tiles (Pt.2)
Here you can watch me paint and tweak the Roadside Rise & Wilderness battle map tiles, a time-consuming process sped up 1000-3000x for your viewing pleasure!
Speed Drawing some Roadside map tiles (Pt.1)
In this video I hand draw two tiles for my new Roadside series, a series of battle maps for random encounters on the road.
Speed Drawing the Snowy Summit battle map (Pt.2)
Coloring the Snowy Summit battle map in Photoshop, at a zippy 25-50x speed.
Speed Drawing the Snowy Summit battle map (Pt.1)
Drawing my latest map, the Snowy Summit, at 10x speed!
Speed Drawing the Crystal Cave battle map
Watch this icy cave map come together in 10 minutes, sped up 4-15 times!
Speed Drawing the Crystal Hill battle map
My work process sped up to 400-1000% as I draw the Crystal Hill.
Assembling the Harvest Horror Paper Figurines
I’m rebooting my YouTube channel with this simple “Let’s Build” time lapse of my Harvest Horror paper figurines. This video’s main purpose was to test out my new filming setup, so please excuse its simplicity!
How To Build a Castle in Roll20
This video guide explains how to use my Castle Walls Tileset to build your own custom castle in Roll20.
Flatting in Photoshop
In this video I explain the foundational discipline of “flatting” and my personal method. It is an excellent practice that makes layer manipulation and color tweaking very simple in all stages of your coloring process.
Jake’s Table Top City (Part 1)
Jake thought up and funded much of the modular buildings set, and kindly sent me this write up of his city-in-progress. He’s got a lot of great tips and an excellent concept, and I’m itching to see the finished product!
A New Printing Guide!
In all my recent adventures on reddit, I have found myself needing a concise printing guide not only to explain how it’s done, but to show off the customization options.
The Blacksmith Battle Map
Today’s battle map is The Blacksmith, a modular two-story building with an exterior workspace, interior shop, living area, and roofing. There’s even space for a basement!
Building a 2.5-dimensional Battle Map
I’ve long wanted to show off some of my 2.5-D stuff, and today I set the time aside that I needed to record the construction process.
From Here To Your Table (or Roll20)
I wanted to make a video demonstrating the new PDF map customization system, which quickly turned into a kind of start-to-finish guide. Basically, I show you how to download a map, customize and print it (or upload it to Roll20).
