I was commissioned to map the world of An Ember in the Ashes, the New York Times bestselling debut novel by Sabaa Tahir. The final is at the top of this post (and a larger version below).
Tag: fantasy map
How to draw a horizontal mountain range
This is definitely the week of mountain ranges. I had a question on reddit on how to draw mountain ranges that go east-to-west rather than north to south. Here’s a very quick tutorial on the difference. If you want to go deeper into the north-south version, check out this earlier tutorial on mountain ranges.
The hotizontal version is very similar – with a few tweaks. Continue reading “How to draw a horizontal mountain range”
How to draw, shade, and colour a mountain range
I’ve written up a couple of tutorials before on drawing isometric mountain ranges for fantasy maps – but never more than the pen and ink stage. I’ve had a few requests for how to take this to the next step and colour the mountain ranges.
Note that I use a graphics tablet. You can do this with a mouse and low opacity brushes, but tablets are getting good and relatively cheap. I’d recommend picking up something like the Bamboo Splash if you’re going to be playing around with illustrating maps.
Here’s a quick walkthrough of the four steps I take in my mountain ranges. Continue reading “How to draw, shade, and colour a mountain range”
How to Draw Forested Hills on a Top Down Map
Often hills are indicated on a map by drawing an outline, but when you have forest on top, that outline gets obscured. So how do you draw forested hills? The trick is to use the detail of the forest to indicate the hills, rather than obscure them.
Continue reading “How to Draw Forested Hills on a Top Down Map”
How to Draw Coastlines on a Fantasy Map
I’ve realised I have a particular workflow for drawing coastlines in my maps. Here’s a quick walkthrough.
Parsantium – City at the Crossroads
City maps are complex beasts. There’s a balance to be found between detail and time. The ideal is to be able to imply all the detail of a city, without getting lost drawing every single roof tile.
Quick Mountain Tutorial!
Today, a quick one on isometric pen and ink mountain ranges. Continue reading “Quick Mountain Tutorial!”
Heroes of the Jade Oath
It’s always a little daunting to take on a brand new style of map. When Steve Russell asked for an map inspired by the Orient for Heroes of the Jade Oath I took it on with some trepidation. After a ton of experimenting with textures, brushes and line-styles I came up with a version I was happy with, and this is the result!
Highlighting Featured Buildings – Shape, Detail and Contrast
Cities and buildings come up a lot in questions. I’ll put together a software specific tutorial on buildings, but today I’m just going to go through my philosophy when illustrating a featured building like a castle or a temple. The process is the same, regardless of software. In this case – ballpoint pen on sketchbook paper.
Continue reading “Highlighting Featured Buildings – Shape, Detail and Contrast”
