How to Make a Maze on Paper
Mazes have mystified people for years, and a well-crafted maze can keep people guessing for hours at a time. Drawing one on paper is actually fairly simple--at least, making a simple maze is pretty easy. You can make the maze extremely complex very quickly, as all it takes is a few simple tips at certain points. Before you know it, you'll be stumping your friends with the latest and most complicated hand-drawn mazes.
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Instructions
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Draw a large rectangle on a piece of paper in pencil. The lines can be straight, or they can be rough and curvy, depending on the art style you want to decorate the maze with.
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Choose a point to become the entrance and another point to become the exit. Erase small openings in the sides, and mark which point is which.
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Start drawing pathways. Draw a line parallel to one of the sides leading away from the entrance. If you want to make a more complicated maze, make two or more pathways leading away from the entrance. Make sure the line is far enough away from the line (no less than 1/8-inch) so that it's clearly a part of the maze. You can make the path as wide or narrow as you would like, but make sure you have enough room to make false paths.
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Make points where sub-paths will branch out. Leave or erase gaps in the inner walls, making them as wide as the path. Start drawing lines leading away from those branches.
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Work toward the exit by drawing more paths and sub-paths. You will eventually create a whole slew of dead ends, and one main path to the end of the maze--which is, of course, the solution. You should also have a fair amount of blank space left over.
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Fill in the blank space with more dead ends and pathways. Make liberal use of some junctions in mazes to make even more branches to the paths. Some of the most common junctions are T-shaped, some are U-shaped (with two paths leading away from the U, and one leading into the middle), and H-shaped, where a branch forms and runs parallel for a short time.
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Repeat until you completely fill the maze. If you make changes to the solution path, make sure they are clearly erased.
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Trace over the penciled lines in pen.
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Erase all of the lines on the paper, leaving only the inked lines. This will give the maze a very finished, clean look.
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Tips & Warnings
Make sure you photocopy your maze before handing it to friends.
You can add another layer of complexity by subdividing the initial rectangle into a few smaller sections before you start making paths.
References
- Photo Credit maze image by Raimundas from Fotolia.com
