Displaying Your Map

There are many ways to display your wonderful map. You can frame it, put it in a shadow box, or just pin it to the wall. I ended up just using some double sided tape to stick it to the wall. (As you can see, I left some room for my next project, which will be a full map of middle earth😉) I am thinking about making Tauriels bow from the Hobbit- Desolation of Smaug. Let me know in the comments if y’all would like me to post a tutorial on it, I haven’t seen many tutorials for her now specifically. And I will add patterns for the detail pieces, I know how much of a struggle pattern making can be sometimes. Thanks for making it to the end of this tutorial!

Any sort of heavy paper
Watercolors
Paintbrush
Calligraphy pen or ballpoint pen
Ink
Red pen
Tub or shallow container that your paper can fit in
Reference pictures

I just finished watching the hobbit trilogy, and I am in love with the movies😍 I wanted to make this tutorial for anyone wanting to make they’re own map from the Hobbit. This tutorial is specifically for Thorins map, but the steps can be used to make any fantasy map

To weather the paper, you will need the container, paper, watercolors, water, and a brush. The container is only to keep the water from getting all over the place, so it’s not necessary. If you are planning on ripping or burning the edges, do that before the watercolors. Start at one edge or corner, and working your way across, apply water and brown watercolors with your brush. If you want a more even finish, wet the entire paper, then add color, if you want a more uneven finish, then just work your way across. (I ended up taking water and splattering it accross the page after I had done the watercolors, just for a cool finish) once you get the look you want, blow dry the entire paper until it’s completely dry. I ended up doing two rounds of the watercolors, you can do however many you would like, the more rounds you do, the darker it will turn out. Once you do the desired amount of rounds with the watercolors, blow dry the paper until it’s completely dry. It’s important to make sure it is dry, because if it is damp then the ink will bleed.

This step is not required, however, if you are a beginner to drawing, or if you aren’t great at free handing, I would recommend this step. To plan out my map I used a friction pen, which you can get off of Amazon. (You can also use pencil, it’s just harder to erase) the reason I used a friction pen is because the ink is designed to disappear when heated by the friction of rubbing the eraser over it. However, on this map, I found it worked great to blow dry it after I finished inking, as not to mess up the ink by rubbing on it. Then just generally sketch out your map, either by using a reference picture or a ruler. Once you are satisfied with the placement of everything, we can get started on inking the map.

For this step I used a glass calligraphy pen my sister loaned me, but any calligraphy pen will work. You can also use any color of ink, not just black. I started with some of the larger elements of the map, just to make sure I got proportions right. Then I slowly filled in the words and small details. I didn’t end up needing to, but if you struggle with writing words straight, you can place a light pad and a lined piece of paper underneath the map for guidelines. You can also use a window if you do not have a light pad. Once I was finished with the parts in black ink, I switched to a red pen for the dragon and runes.