Custom Map

Nice work @ari236

@Playing-Kid said in My First Custom Map:

You can use Gimp as a great free software to make your maps

And I agree with Gimp. That’s the tool I used for working on my map files.

And on a related point: if you look at an online map of the world and place a rectangular sheet of paper on it so that one of its long edges lies on the equator (alternately covering, for purposes of comparison, the bottom half and the top half), you’ll notice that most of the world’s land masses are in the northern hemisphere.  All of North America, all of Europe, virtually all of Asia, and much of Africa are located there.  The main land masses in the southern hemisphere are South America, the lower part of Africa, Australia, and Antarctica; the rest of the southern hemisphere is mainly water, which means that for A&A map purposes it’s mostly wasted space.  Oceania, a.k.a. the Pacific Islands, including Australia and New Zealand, did see significant action in WWII, so its inclusion on an A&A map is quite relavant…but by the same token Antarctica is a land mass that’s traditionally (and with good reason) omitted from A&A maps.

Thank you for the positive feedback! I forgot to say that in the previous post, and it’s very important that I do. It’s very encouraging and motivating to get good feedback, and we certainly appreciate it. The above mentioned four Essex class carriers are complete, a long with several other ships of the US Navy, so its time to update the thread. Just ships by FOlewnik in this post. More aircraft are almost done but I haven’t put magnets in them yet (so not really done), so no aircraft pictures this post.

We’ll start with the two “odd men out” of the HBG sculpt Baltimore Class Heavy Cruisers. Why “odd men out”? Because in the below picture we have on the left, the USS Unnamed Baltimore Class Cruiser Wearing Measure 31a, Design 9C, and on the right is the USS Columbus (CA 74), which wasn’t commissioned until June 8, 1945. The cruiser with the long name is wearing a design that was never used, but was taken from a period design found at https://www.wikiwand.com/en/World_War_II_US_Navy_dazzle_camouflage_measures_31,_32_and_33:_cruisers. The USS Columbus is wearing a Measure 12 Modified designed by FOlewnik to match the pieces we’ll be using for the US Atlantic fleet. These will get aircraft added, but at the time of the photographs the decals on the wings of the aircraft were drying.
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Next up are some metal destroyers from GHQ. Below on the left, the very brave USS Johnston (DD-557) painted in MS-3_/6D as it looked when it was “Sunk by Japanese Warships off Samar October 25 1944,” and next to it is USS Van Valkenburgh (DD-656) painted in camouflage Measure 31, Design 9d. All Wartime photos taken from Navsource.org, a great resource for US Navy history buffs.
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Below, the real USS Johnston shortly before her final battle, and the official design sheet:
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A great wartime picture of the USS Van Valkenburgh, which is the same on both sides:
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Now on to these two. From GHQ, USS The Sullivans (DD-537) painted in Measure 1, and the HBG sculpt light cruiser USS Marblehead (CL-12) who always wore Measure 2 throughout the war. If I can get FOlewnik to put the Shamrock on the first stack of The Sullivans when he puts the scout aircraft on the Marblehead, as seen in the below wartime photograph, I’ll come back and edit the post.
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The post previous to this post showed four Essex Class sculpts from HBG getting prepped and started with a base coat. Those are now completed and I had too much fun playing with them and the aircraft (that are complete so far) while I was taking photographs. I’m pretty sure I didn’t make any wooshing sea or aircraft noises or FOlewnik would have laughed at me. I was tempted though, and here’s why:
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Above we have the first of the Long Hull Essex Class, USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) on the left looking as she did after her April 1945 refit from suffering a Kamikaze Attack on January 21, 1945, and USS Bunker Hill (CV-17) on the right. The Bunker Hill is wearing Measure 33, Design 6A, of which Navsource says, “Her port side camouflage pattern was the most intricate design applied to any carrier.” One glance can confirm that!
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The final two Essex Class carriers are the USS Essex (CV-9) herself, and the USS Bennington (CV-20). The Essex is wearing a unique pattern, Measure 32v6, Design 10D, adapted from a destroyer pattern specifically for the long hulled Essex. The Bennington is painted in Measure 32, Design 17A.
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Finally, some group pictures just for fun:
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Thank you for checking out the post! If you liked it, please click the little heart. I’m trying to figure out why our post is only rated with a 2 when it seems it should be a bit higher if the other likes are any indication.

I’m not averse to printing a map at all, and the map files I’ve seen are indeed waaaay better. Truth is I just recently purchased the 1940 games and would like to get some use out of them before I abandon them for the master map. And will definitely look for the sticker paper my next trip to wallyworld. Thanks for the suggestion DK.

With Harlequin being UK based, does the ~$225 price you mentioned include shipping to the US? If not, do you have an approximate cost for that?

Heyo!  Thanks for posting the photos of the outlining guys, I wouldn’t have chanced it if I hadn’t got to see how good it looks  8-)  On on my second panel…

I use Photoshop Elements.  Its not the best but it works.