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Time_Spiral
Henchman
Joined: 07/15/2008
Location: United States
Posts: 10
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| Posted: 07/22/2008 at 1:28pm | IP Logged
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Greetings!
This is an exciting topic for me to share with you all. This method takes a little bit of time, and effort, but will save you money and remove the limitations of buying miniatures for your campagns.
We've heard it all: wooden spools, poker chips, pocket change ... all used to represent characters, npcs, and monsters for table-top rpg systems.
Draw your players into the game with graphic paper standees!
ABOVE FIG.1 is a graphical reconstruction of what the end product standee will look like on a 1" grid map laying on a table. Clearly i've used an Orc monster as an example.
Below i'm going to give a step by step graphical tutorial on how to create these standees, offer you my own tips, give you exact dimensions, and provide a zip file that contains photoshop files of the three templates: PC, NPC, and ENEMY (all medium size at present)
ABOVE FIG.2 - Creating your file, printing, and cutting
Phase 1
a.) Create your standee file using the photoshop templates i've provided, or by creating your own. I recommend the following file specs:
Width - .88"
Height - 4.513"
DPI - 300
Paper - Photo paper, or card stock (photo paper works really good)
b.) After you've created all the standee files you want to print, save a flattened jpeg, or make a flat copy of the image and paste it into a new file (i'll call it the printer sheet). Bump all the standees flush with each other (Fig.2 step 2 ABOVE).
b.) My template includes a blank space next to the monster name (in the monster template). If you need multiples of a certain standee (which you will) copy the standee onto the printer sheet without the number, and then once you have all of your copies on the printer sheet, go back and manually number them.
c.) Print our the printer sheet. Make sure you set your printer to recognize that it is printing on the type of paper you are using. Most printers default to "best" quality setting when selecting "photo paper" - i find this to be unnecessary. "normal" quality works fine. I do not recommend using regular printer paper for standees. They will not be sturdy at all.
d.) Use a straight edge (metal ruler) and a razor (exactos work great) and cut out your standees (Fig.2 Step 2 ABOVE). You'll more than likely experiment with different methods like cutting them all out, then folding, or folding first then cutting. Do whichever works best for you. NOTE: You have to apply downward pressure to the straight edge to get a clean and straight cut. BE CAREFUL WHEN USING BLADES!
ABOVE FIG.3 - Folding, and Adhering your standees
Phase 2
a.) You should now have some nicely trimmed standees that need folding (FIG.3 Step 1 ABOVE). You will need to fold, and adhere each of your new standees. You can use any adhesive that you like: tape, glue, rubber cement, etc ... i think tape works pretty well. (NOTE: 2 sided tape is the best by far, but less common. So this example will assume 1 sided tape).
b.) Fold you standee according to Step two in FIG.3 ABOVE. I recommend pressing the creases of each fold as hard as you can. Possibly even use the butt of the exacto to get a nice solid crease.
c.) Create a tape loop (sticky side out) that will fit on the inside panel of one of the two FACES of your standee and carefully place it.
d.) Line up the tops of the two FACES (FIG.3 Step 2 ABOVE) and carefully press the two FACES together from the TOP DOWN. Press the faces together to ensure that they are secure. At this point you made to to recrease the two crease on the BASE of the standee to ensure that they will stand flat.
e.) At this point you should have yourself a brand new, amazing looking standee!
ABOVE FIG.4 - The Templates
Player Character Template: 6EE_PC_standee_template.zip
Enemey Template: 5F4_MONSTER_standee_template.zip
NPC Template: 727_NPC_standee_template.zip
About the templates
I have provided three Photoshop template files for each of the different types you will most likely need: Medium sized - Player Character (PC), Non-Player Character (NPC), and Enemy, or Monsters.
They are color coded for quick visual reference on the battle map. I use these standees in my game and everyone loves them! They look great, and give the players a visual aid about what they are up against. Not to mention the ambitious PC can find an image, or draw an image of their character and actually use it on the map! Plus, you're not limited by premanufactured miniatures, or the bland and confusing nature of using generic props like spools and change.
I want this thread to be the beginning. I'm sharing my standee template freely with everyone here hoping that it will spark an open source surge of standee creativity that we can all share with each other. I went searching for standee templates, and came up empty handed ... i wanted something simple, and effective. So i came up with this design. Enjoy!
HINTS: you'll notice on the BASE for the monsters i have stat blocks. This can be a really helpful and handy way to put some reminders on their for you. I highly recommend creating printer sheets and fitting as many standees on one sheet as you can, butting them up as closely as possible.
Post your standees here, and let me know if i can help in any way. I plan on adding to this by creating templates for large, and huge monsters, and heck, maybe even posting some standees or some standee sheets!
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Be Peaceful on your way,
Time_Spiraling
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dragonwolf
Legend
Joined: 02/22/2005
Location: United States
Posts: 1500
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| Posted: 07/22/2008 at 11:31pm | IP Logged
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Cool templates Time_Spiral. Hope you don't mind, but I took your templates and modified them to make ones for Doors and Objects as well.
DOOR_standee_template.zip
OBJECT_standee_template.zip
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dragonwolf
Posted outside my cube: Free Advice: If you come into my cube and you have a Mountain Dew and I do not, that will be your unDewing.
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Kepli
Djinni (Admin)
Joined: 01/04/2005
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 16797
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| Posted: 07/23/2008 at 12:08am | IP Logged
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Very cool Time_Spiral 
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aegean
Legend
Joined: 03/05/2005
Location: Turkey
Posts: 2201
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| Posted: 07/23/2008 at 12:43am | IP Logged
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 cool
Fantastic idea Time_Spiral
(errrmm would a water elemental be a problem - card stock and all??? )
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heruca
Janni (Moderator)
Joined: 09/28/2005
Location: Argentina
Posts: 6328
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| Posted: 07/23/2008 at 4:35am | IP Logged
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aegean wrote:
| errrmm would a water elemental be a problem - card stock and all??? |
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Not as bad as a fire elemental. 
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Tired of the time & expense involved in printing out all your DJ maps? Skip the printing step, and play right on your maps!
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Time_Spiral
Henchman
Joined: 07/15/2008
Location: United States
Posts: 10
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| Posted: 07/24/2008 at 6:05am | IP Logged
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dragonwolf wrote:
Cool templates Time_Spiral. Hope you don't mind, but I took your templates and modified them to make ones for Doors and Objects as well.
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It is absolutely cool DW! Great idea.
My hope is to get the basic concept out there and let it run. The people who play table-top need a creative, inexpensive way to depict characters on a battle map.
WotC's focus on Miniatures (for obvious reasons) is too much of a financial strain. Especially if we can start a group of people making and posting free standees!
I wasn't sure if this was the best place to post this information (in the adventure section) because map makers may never come here ... but i don't want to be overly redundant on other boards pointing here (try to take it easy on the Moderators  ).
What do you guys think? How can we spread the word?
Oh yeah, Aegaen - are you requesting i design a water elemental for you? Or was the sound i heard rushing by me your joke flying straight over my head?
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Kepli
Djinni (Admin)
Joined: 01/04/2005
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 16797
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| Posted: 07/24/2008 at 6:59am | IP Logged
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Make sure NOT to post any ready ones with WOTC copyrighted images on them on this forum, please 
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Kepli
Djinni (Admin)
Joined: 01/04/2005
Location: Netherlands
Posts: 16797
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| Posted: 07/24/2008 at 7:34am | IP Logged
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I did a quick TREE object.
1. Use a tree in side view for front and back
2. Add a small white piece to the top and the bottom that can be folded to create a small platform
3. Glue a top-down view of a tree on top of the little platform after cutting it to a size smaller than the tree top.
Instant tree
Sample ...
And the top ...
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Time_Spiral
Henchman
Joined: 07/15/2008
Location: United States
Posts: 10
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| Posted: 07/24/2008 at 7:54am | IP Logged
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Kepli,
Super cool!
Good call on the copyright thing ... That super sux though. I don't want to cause any waves here, (being new to the forum and all).
Obviously we're not going to be hand drawing or rendering all the characters we need, so maybe we just cant post finished standees here  . But at least we're empowering people with the tools to do it themselves!
Just to be clear: are you talking about posting visual displays? Or does that apply to files in a zip file as well?
Edited by Time_Spiral on 07/24/2008 at 8:20am
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Kepli
Djinni (Admin)
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| Posted: 07/24/2008 at 11:52am | IP Logged
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Visual and zips containing the images I am afraid. As a business we have to be carefull
They can't be posted on THIS site ...
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Dundjinni Mapping Software - Forums : Adventures
Topic: Paper Characters - Standees for Adventure
