Hand printed Map – Ulthuan of Warhammer

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Illustrated Ulthuan Map of Warhammer.

Inspired by the world of Warhammer this map is hand printed the traditional old school way on hand made paper using an old letterpress from 1856. Yes, the way things were printed 'back in the day'.

– Nothing comes even close to having a real printed or painted map!

This is the second map made in this challenging and time consuming technique, but the effect is hopefully worth it.
The design is made with inspiration from wood carving plates. I pencil sketched a lot of small, loose elements, scanned and transferred all to Adobe Illustrator. There, after vectorising and cleaning all elements up, I composed all into one big piece. Then started the work of bringing out the hand cut style.

After exporting to Photoshop I brought out even more of that and added natural misstakes that originally always occur in a handmade piece of this kind. And lastly, I also used Photoshop to render the final printing plate file.

– It turned out to be a useful mood enhancing collectors item, not only for gamers.

Fact sheet:
Print:
Printed on an antique letterpress 'the old fashion way';

Colour: black
Paper:
Quality: thick (300 gr), handmade, acid free, ecological (no artificial glues or chemicals);
    naturally structured, not ribbed;
Edges natural, deckle edged (= not cut, but direct off screen);
    Size: 51 x 74 cm  (20 x 25,6 in);
    Colour: sun bleached ecru/off-white;

The title head is composed of all the heraldic animals and other symbols from the Ten Kingdom's banners.

Elven runes manifesting the virtues of the High Elves.

The north-east of Ulthuan with Cothique, Yvresse, Saphery. Avelorn and Chrace in the Annulii Mountains in the north.
I decided to go without a compass on this map, as the whole continent looks like one...

The ready entire Ulthuan map with the deckle edges and individual look (just a test copy on a folded paper sheet).

The map has the unusual height of 74 cm (25,6 in).

Pictures of details of the Ulthuan Map.

1+2. Some of the many hand drawn cities, castles, shrines, towers and ruins (and other doodles) I drew for the map. Usually in a café :)
3+4. Planning and fitting the mountain chains to the outline I prepared earlier. Scanned mountains in Illustrator planning typography.
5: The hand operated letterpress from 1856 we used for printing the Warhammer Map ↑

↑ One of the first good Ulthuan Maps printed.

There was a lot of sketches following the geographical research itself. I considered a few styles for the map, also a very elfish one. It landed on being an adventuring cartographers work :) Above: some stages of work ↑