Misc thoughts on DIY boards and pieces

[Shad]

First, for the love of all that is hexagonal and holy, post some freaking photos of your projects dude!!!

But I was wondering, why use magnets for the board and the pieces? It seems to me if I could scan the maps to decent PDF or EPS quality, and find the right printer (BannersOntheCheap only prints on heavy vinyl), I could get the maps printed on Tyvek or at leat much-thinner vinyl. If I secured that sheet over a piece of sheet metal, and then just did magnetic counters, wouldn't that work for a magnetic board too?

I went with magnetic sheets because otherwise you need something holding the map sheets to the backing, and that will inevitably get in the way of gameplay.

I also went with magnetic sheets because the idea itself was really cool and I was skeptical they would work.

Printing and using something else to hold in place would be far cheaper, as the supply costs I listed at the end of my thread demonstrated. (still not as cool though! )

All this has also left me with some questions about graphics editing. I've tried freeware programs (GIMP) and so forth and it's too much like work. I'd really like to find someone who could scan maps for a reasonable fee -- maybe even someone who could do my dream axis and allies board graphics. Anybody know anyone who'd be willing to do that?

I've had good luck sourcing helpers for boardgame graphics design on BoardGameGeek. They have some forums for game dev and DIY. I paid a guy a large sum of geekgold to editing a bunch of Europa maps for me years ago! He did a great job. If you offered a bit of real money you'd get even better results!