TL;DR -- A great introductory how-to for drawing overland maps. It's just the basics, but that's all you need to get started. Sadly, it's just overland maps.
For a more extended review, read on!
The author/artist of this book is Jared Blando -- a familiar name in RPG products. Jared created the maps for both The Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat campaign for Dungeons & Dragons 5e..
This book is a basic introductory how-to for drawing overland maps of a traditional fantasy flavour. The tutorials in the book are organized into chapters, ostensibly in the order you'd draw them on a map.
The book is a nicely presented softcover with every page in full color. There are many excellent illustrations throughout. The layout, while nice, is a bit expansive. The use of space isn't efficient (but looks nice) and there's relatively little actual instruction on most pages (though there are lots of illustrations). I suppose there just wasn't as much actual writing or content as I expected.
I can't say I wholly approve of the title; it's misleading (or, at best, too encompassing). This book covers how to draw overland maps and that's it. No dungeons. No cities. No castles. I was quite disappointed by that.
Anyway, here's a chapter-by-chapter summary and review of the book:
Introduction
The introduction sucks. It's a photographic list of things you need to draw maps. Some people genuinely appreciate them, but these types of "here's what you need to do this" lists have always come across to me as somewhat pretentious. I only draw on canvas made from the stretched skin of an albino wombat that was hit by a road train with 10 trailers of pink diamonds and then passed through the digestive tract of a wedge-tailed eagle. Oh, and use this $500 pencil with a special core made of ground unicorn poo or you might as well not bother drawing. Rubbish. Grab a freaking pencil and a sheet of paper and draw. (Fortunately, this is limited to only two pages, and is by no means as egregious as others I've seen.)
Chapter 1: Building Your World
Could be summed up with "draw a shape for the main area you're mapping". This is probably the one chapter where there are too many steps; I felt like it was padded to get another couple pages.
Chapter 2: Mountains, Forests, Rivers and Water
(Yes, the lack of Oxford comma annoys the crap out of me.) To me, this chapter was just about right. It shows ways of drawing the various features without overwhelming you with different styles. Perfect for beginning fantasy cartographers.
Chapter 3: Town and City Icons
Not a terribly detailed chapter, but as the intent is only to draw icons or representations of cities/towns/castles on a map, it's perfectly fine.
Chapter 4: Typography
Hoooo, boy. Typographers everywhere are cringing. Well, forget them. This isn't a comprehensive treatise on use-cases for fonts in cartography; it's just to throw some ideas out there for putting text on the map -- font and style, placement, etc. There's some good (if perhaps obvious) tips, but it only scratches the surface of the topic and doesn't really get into font design or even provide a full sample alphabet.
Chapter 5: Landmarks
Roads, caves, ruins, towers... this chapter is really a continuation of Chapter 3. The tutorials are a bit less detailed here. They all consist of three steps: draw the thing, add details, final details. I kid you not. It's basically eight pages of "draw some circles... draw the f***ing owl".
Chapter 6: Iconography
Map symbols. There are some ideas for alternative visuals for those items covered in Chapters 3 and 5.
Chapter 7: Heraldry and Shields
Nothing in-depth, but some potential inspiration for political designations on a map. I can see putting this information to good use on a battlefield type of map.
Chapter 8: Political Boundaries
Nutshell: Use different types of dashed lines and different colors. Why did this take more than one page?
Chapter 9: Backgrounds
Weird title for this chapter. It covers adding decorative borders, corners, compasses, legends, and other flourishes to make it prettier. This and Chapter 2 are my favorites.
Chapter 10: Painting Techniques
Provides very brief tips for inking, shading, painting, and using digital media (PhotoShop, GIMP, etc). I suspect few people will find much of value in this chapter.
Chapter 11: Putting It All Together
An entire chapter of unnecessary fluff. Steps through all (well, most) of the previous tutorials to create a map. It's of practically zero value. A better idea would have been to include a sampling of completed maps showcasing various of the previously-discussed techniques.
So, what's my opinion of this book? I like it. I have a lot of issues with it that are more personal taste than anything, but my map drawing has significantly improved thanks to this book. I even intend to try my hand at drawing a full-on properly decorated map. Inked, painted, the whole bit. Might take me a while to work up to that.
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As an artist I’ve always been fascinated by fantasy maps created by other artists. So when I saw these books I decided to give them a try.The books arrived on time, but not without minor issues. Both books had some slight damage. As someone who appreciates a good library with well kept books to reference, this was disappointing. In the future it might benefit the seller to take better care in how these books are shipped. That or perhaps go the extra mile and offer a form of compensation depending on how bad the books arrive to the consumer as a show of good faith.But I digress, the books are full of great ideas and examples that are very helpful if your desire is to create a map in the authors style. The information provided also helps you to branch out and make your own style maps with minor tweaks.I’ve included a small video, that literally shows how easy it was. After simply flipping through the book, barely reading any of it, I was able to apply some of the ideas in the book easily. Imagine after reading it how easy it will be!Overall, damage upon arrival aside, I would recommend these books to anyone interested in making their own fantasy maps. The books are chock full of informative detail, with plenty of illustrations to aid even those with no prior experience in drawing maps. A very helpful reference.
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As an artist I’ve always been fascinated by fantasy maps created by other artists. So when I saw these books I decided to give them a try.
The books arrived on time, but not without minor issues. Both books had some slight damage. As someone who appreciates a good library with well kept books to reference, this was disappointing. In the future it might benefit the seller to take better care in how these books are shipped. That or perhaps go the extra mile and offer a form of compensation depending on how bad the books arrive to the consumer as a show of good faith.
But I digress, the books are full of great ideas and examples that are very helpful if your desire is to create a map in the authors style. The information provided also helps you to branch out and make your own style maps with minor tweaks.
I’ve included a small video, that literally shows how easy it was. After simply flipping through the book, barely reading any of it, I was able to apply some of the ideas in the book easily. Imagine after reading it how easy it will be!
Overall, damage upon arrival aside, I would recommend these books to anyone interested in making their own fantasy maps. The books are chock full of informative detail, with plenty of illustrations to aid even those with no prior experience in drawing maps. A very helpful reference.
The books arrived on time, but not without minor issues. Both books had some slight damage. As someone who appreciates a good library with well kept books to reference, this was disappointing. In the future it might benefit the seller to take better care in how these books are shipped. That or perhaps go the extra mile and offer a form of compensation depending on how bad the books arrive to the consumer as a show of good faith.
But I digress, the books are full of great ideas and examples that are very helpful if your desire is to create a map in the authors style. The information provided also helps you to branch out and make your own style maps with minor tweaks.
I’ve included a small video, that literally shows how easy it was. After simply flipping through the book, barely reading any of it, I was able to apply some of the ideas in the book easily. Imagine after reading it how easy it will be!
Overall, damage upon arrival aside, I would recommend these books to anyone interested in making their own fantasy maps. The books are chock full of informative detail, with plenty of illustrations to aid even those with no prior experience in drawing maps. A very helpful reference.
Images in this review
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