This is my commentary on how I color my battle maps using Gimp, a free alternative to Photoshop. I focus mostly on the ever-important skill of layer management, and ramble a little about color theory too.

Drawing grass from a top-down perspective takes a little thought to avoid a blank sheet of paper, or a time-consuming mess of hatches. This guide falls somewhere in the middle – a happy medium, if you will!

How to fill your map with difficult terrain and annoy your players!

The freshly fallen tree, and how to draw it in eleven minutes.

Here’s how to draw a lush top-down pine tree, step-by-step.

The first and simplest way I draw common trees, the cross section approach, as seen in the Jungle Stream.

A guide to the three ways I draw elevation on my battle maps; ridges, slopes and cliffs.