How I deck

 There are a lot of ways to draw deck plans, suitable for table-top adventuring. Here's a quick dive into the workflow that I've used, recently converted from Adobe Photoshop to Affinity Designer.

I'll refer to Affinity Designer, but any graphic design package will let you follow the same workflow if it supports layers. I'll be honest, if you've no experience of vector-based illustration applications, this isn't going to be easy to follow. If you want to start creating deckplans, invest in a couple of hours of basic tutorials, getting the basics under your belt.                                 

It's all about the layers!

The approach breaks up the deck plan into separate layers. From the bottom up they go:

1.  Base layer (white page)
2. Grid layer(s)
3. Filter mask (can apply an opacity filter that lets you tweak the contrast on the grid)
4. Main mask. This places a white block in front of the grid. Shapes are then cut from the mask, so that the grid beneath becomes visible.
5. Details layers. This is where walls, doors, furniture -- anything else.

Per Layer!

Base Layer
A white background. Create a white box, make it white filled.

Grid layer
There are some apps that create grids. I copy and paste manually drawn lines, using the grid and grid snapping.

Mask layer
A layer that contains a while panel. To creat the ship's outline/hull line you can extract the hull shape. In the example below I cut out a rectangle. Then I applied a black outline to the cut-out which gives the hill a nice thick black line.

Detail Layer
At this point you can draw your deck details on the higher layers. It's now easy to chop and change details without impact to the previous layers.


I used the same workflow in Photoshop, some of the work is available on my dusty Flickr:

Traveller Deckplans: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lucasdigital/albums/72157614799771385/with/3338136048/