How to Illustrate Your TTRPG Universe Without AI?
If you’re creating your own tabletop role-playing game campaign, one element may have quickly become a challenge: visuals. How can you illustrate characters, locations, and other elements of your universe without using images generated by artificial intelligence?
Lore, our worldbuilding software, and Tome, our storytelling software, do not include AI. That’s why we’ve prepared a guide with all the solutions for adding images to your universe without relying on AI.
Create Illustrations Yourself
The most effective way to create illustrations is, of course, to make them yourself. For this, you don’t need exceptional talent—it’s possible to create beautiful illustrations with the help of certain tools.
Draw Your Own Illustrations
If you have some drawing skills, you can obviously create your illustrations yourself. It can also be a great opportunity to learn how to draw.
Photoshop & Collages
With software like Photoshop and a few royalty-free images, you can easily create your illustrations.
For example, you can take an image of a person and add elements to represent a character’s role in your campaign or in your Lore.
Collages can also be done by hand, by printing images or cutting them out from magazines.
Let your creativity flow to create useful elements for your universe.
Characters with Dedicated Websites
Many specialized websites allow you to create illustrations, especially characters for your universe. One example is Hero Forge.
Create Maps and Battle Grids
When it comes to maps and battle grids for your campaigns, there are plenty of specialized websites and software available. Check out our list of 5 tools to create TTRPG maps and battle grids.
Hire an Artist
For high-quality results, you can hire an artist or ask someone you know. There are many specialized platforms where you can find illustrators, designers, or other creators ready to help.
Usually, for a more or less significant fee, you can commission someone to create your characters, maps, or other illustrations for your universe. This way, you’ll be sure to get artwork in the style you want and that perfectly matches your original idea.
In addition to supporting a creator, this option can be interesting in the long term if you plan to create multiple campaigns in the same universe.
Use Images Online
Of course, you can use images found online for your universe, as long as they are not generated by AI.
For personal use, you can browse images on Pinterest. The image library is endless. Plus, it’s now possible to filter out AI-generated images from your search results.
To do this, go to Pinterest settings, then preferences, and check the option to hide AI images.
Royalty-Free Image Websites
The simplest way to find non-AI images is to visit royalty-free image websites. Some of these sites are paid, while others are completely free.
On free royalty-free image sites, you can find plenty of visuals to illustrate your universe, especially generic locations like forests, oceans, islands, deserts, or other natural elements.
Even though more and more content on the web is generated by artificial intelligence, with a little patience and a few techniques, it’s still very easy to illustrate your universe without using it.
