How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps: Step by Step Cartography for Gamers and Fans
Original price was: $25.99.$13.99Current price is: $13.99.
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Orcs prepare for battle against high Elves, Dwarves retreat to the mountains and men march to the sea to reclaim crumbling fortresses. Fortunes are decided. Kingdoms are lost. Entire worlds are created. This book will teach you to bring your fictional realm to life with simple step-by-step instructions on how to draw authentic fantasy maps. Set the stage for adventure by illustrating domains, castles and battle lines, mountains, forests and sea monsters! Learn to create completely unique and fully functional RPG maps time and time again on which your world can unfold.
All the skills necessary to create awe-inspiring maps are covered!
• Landscapes. Add depth, balance and plausibility with rocky coastlines, towering mountains, dark forests and rolling plains.
• Iconography. Mark important places–towns and cities, fortresses and bridges–with symbolic iconography for easy-to-understand maps.
• Typography. Learn how to place readable text and the basics of decorative script. Bonus instruction teaches you to create fonts for Orcs, Elves, Vikings and dragons.
• Heraldry and shield design. Depict cultural and political boundaries with shields and colors.
• Advanced cartography. Includes how to draw landmarks, country boundaries and political lines. Build roads to connect merchants and troops, troll cairns and dragon lairs. And complete your maps with creative backgrounds, elaborate compasses and thematic legends.
30+ step-by-step demonstrations illustrate how to construct an entire fantasy world map from start to finish–both digitally and by hand!
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1494 reviews for How to Draw Fantasy Art and RPG Maps: Step by Step Cartography for Gamers and Fans
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Original price was: $25.99.$13.99Current price is: $13.99.
Eddie –
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.
D.B Wendigo –
Really detailed instructions that show step by step how to create maps and other things I can use in my DND games. Extremely helpful
Emily kristensen –
Absolutely amazing book, starts very simple and ends very complex, good to build skills over a long period of time.
Toby –
DISCLAIMER: I have only been drawing based on the guides in this book for about an hour or two.
I think this is a really good book. As basically a novice at drawing maps, it has very good step-by-step guides with clear illustrations to show exactly how do each thing. I have only been practising so far, but already on my first attempts I have drawn a nice-looking continent and the individual map elements such as mountains and forests that I have tried look fairly good. Though obviously will get better with practice.
It goes into nice detail as it lays out in particular, for the most part, what pencil to use (or is suggested to be used by the author), and as a bonus also offers some general geography facts to help with more realistic placement of map features.
In general, it builds up piece by piece to a complete fantasy map at the end that showcases everything talked about in the book. I must say, the example at the end is very nice and really fancy. The book covers not only the initial drawing, but also all the colouring of the map, as well as things like calligraphic writing (and in multiple fonts/styles) for labels, the map compass and even coats of arms and things like that, perhaps for different factions or kingdoms in your world(s), and nicely decorated page borders.
All in all, very pleased. I am an aspiring creator of fantasy worlds and/or stories which is why I was interested in this book to help develop a “story world”. Not disappointed, I think it will be extremely helpful.
Note: based on Kindle version.
Janel Cooks –
Brought as a Christmas gift, hope it is received well. Arrived on time and great condition.
Andrea –
La guida all’elaborazione della cartografia da gioco, fantasy e medievale. Tempi non brevi ma il fornitore è stato disponibile ad ogni richiesta.
CMG –
A well illustrated, well written guide to creating your own fantasy/RPG maps. I got it as both diversion and guide. I’m very satisfied with this purchase.
Corey A Johnston –
I just received my copy in the mail today, and I think this book is very well done. I was looking for something a little less “rudimentary” regarding Mr. Blando’s process and style, but I can already tell this is going to be a go-to book for many budding and aspiring young cartographers. If this book had existed when I was discovering RPGs in junior high, I think I’d have developed into a better artist all around as it provides a process to explore one’s own map-making and drawing skills.
The book seems to be written to directly address a person who is inspired by their imagination to create their own RPG world. How do you get the ideas out of your head and into a map that will help you play out the stories you want to tell? It’s not necessarily written for more advanced and developed map-makers or cartographers, but speaks right to the heart of the need of those that have never made a map before and are bursting with ideas. The step-by-step methods he outlines are simple, and he takes it from an analog rather than a digital perspective. Anyone using a computer can certainly follow his outline, but he assumes his readers don’t have a fancy computer program they’ve somehow mastered with all its bells and whistles. This book is more of pencil-and-paint approach, not a Photoshop recipe.
It also has a LOT of visual examples. The vast majority of the book gives examples but doesn’t delve into specifics: “Step 1, Draw the henge. Step 2, Add detail. Step 3, Add finishing detail.” It doesn’t ever tell you how to draw the henge or add the details, it instead shows visual examples of how Mr. Blando does it. So there are lots and lots and LOTS of visual illustrations that are really inspirational. 30 years ago when I was in junior high, this book would have been too cost prohibitive to print. But today, it’s a visual treat that young people get to enjoy.
My only regret (and perhaps some day Mr. Blando will write another book addressing it) is that it’s a little too rudimentary for more advanced fantasy cartographers or fans of his work. I suspect, however, that may have had something to do with his editors and publishers.
Mr. Blando creates stunningly beautiful and imaginative cartography with a very high level of detail. And probably the best thing about this book is that it helps raise one’s awareness of the thinking that goes into that detail. It parses his approach out into elements that a casual viewer can use to go back and appreciate his work (and all fantasy cartography) with new eyes. Helping budding cartographers become aware of all those possible aspects to creatively express one’s own imagination through artistic mapping is probably the most valuable and impacting contribution this book will make. It’s going to influence a lot of beginning mappers, like similar “How to Draw” books have made on impressionable young artists. And ultimately that’s a good thing.
I recommend gifting this book to the young RPG’er in your life. They’ll devour it.
Amazon Customer –
The book is well-made, and provides many examples of making RPG maps. It gives good instructions and ideas. I wish the author would’ve provided a link to videos showing the process, kinda like the Bob Ross series. “Ok, now we’re going to paint the scary castile icon near the moor … just tap that brush …”. A great beginner book.
Don –
If you love mapping like me you well love this book.
shinyksword –
Excelentes condiciones,ilustraciones útiles, consejos,material que necesitarás, ejemplos gratuitos, buenas guías de cartografía
Lord Wanhoop –
Jag är glad med boken,
Dshell –
Totally worth the money I paid. It’s organized and the instructions are absolutely easy to follow! Presentation wise, it is absolutely genius. I look forward to making my maps more full and appear to be more lived in. 10/10.