For the fans of the FILM version of the Marauder's Map, since the "Official" version being sold has been changed so much and leaves so much out, I wanted to share a couple things I stumbled across recently. First, a contributor to Instructables, who also has quite a few great tutorials and free downloadable files of Harry Potter props, has a version of the map which comes the closest to the film version that I've seen offered as a free download. His site is
http://www.instructables.com/member/Muggle+Magic/ and the page for his most recent version of the map is
http://www.instructables.com/id/Marauders-Map-With-Hidden-Footprints-Full-Size-Rep/ and is available in multiple print sizes. He also includes foldouts and extra "goodies" in his version, such as footprints of characters and areas that can be folded to display the message displayed when Snape looked at the map.
Second, a VFX artist names Jan Hamernik who lives in the Czech Republic has painstakingly created the closest I have EVER seen a map come to the original. His version is shown off in 2 different YouTube videos which compares his "DIY" map to the official version being sold by WB and to the various film scenes (
and
). He even included the fold-out stairs! You can see pictures of it on his page at
http://www.jan-hamernik.com/gallery. Unfortunately his version is FAR from being free, as I learned when I recently e-mailed him about it. Since he does commissions and also sells a lot of his work online I asked him how much it would be for either a copy of his map or the files necessary to create my own and received this reply:
Just thought I'd share this for anyone interested in either of these sources.