I’ve been asked a few times recently about how I draw isometric buildings. Here’s the run down. Continue reading “How to draw an isometric house”
Author: Jon
Where is Valyria?
In Season 5 Episode 5, Tyrion and Jorah Mormont are heading to Meereen by boat. That’s a careful choice on Jorah’s part, but it goes horribly wrong when they detour through Valyria, in the shadow of the Doom.
So, why go through Valyria? And where is Valyria in context to the rest of Essos?
Where is Braavos?
The Free City of Braavos lies at the North Western tip of Essos, directly across the Narrow Sea from the Vale, and North East of King’s Landing. Here’s a map to orient Braavos to the rest of the events in Game of Thrones.
This is a sketch, based on the maps of Lands of Ice and Fire, but with just the core locations of interest pulled out.
Mapping An Ember in the Ashes
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).
Where is Dorne?
Dorne lies at the southern end of Westeros, towards the eastern end. It shares the south coast with Old Town. As you can see from the map, the bulk of Dorne lies south of Kings Landing, and southeast of Highgarden.
Free Jungle Temple Map
This was an old sketch with ballpoint pen in the back of a pad of paper. Recently I pulled this into photoshop to do a little tidying up, and ended up adding a touch of colour and shade.
A Free World Map
Most of the maps I create are for commissions. However, every now and again, I get the chance to create a map for my own use. These maps tend to be tests of new styles, or ideas I have for a new layout. This was one of the first tests I created for an isometric map style (used at a much larger scale in the map of Rhune). It worked out well, and forms the basis of one of my core styles to this day.
How to draw a map
This tutorial covers my entire process for how to draw a map – from start to finish. In this case I’m illustrating a simple town map, but the steps apply to any map. Continue reading “How to draw a map”
D&D Dungeon Maps from Game Night at Tor.com
One of the wonderful side effects of living in New York is the chance to run into great people from Tor.com. I’m now part of a semi-regular D&D game, and I draw the party dungeon maps.
Continue reading “D&D Dungeon Maps from Game Night at Tor.com”
After Earth – Mapping the Galaxy
It’s always fun to try something new, but in this case the something new was a sci fi galaxy map, and the client was Overbrook Entertainment, and Will Smith. The brief was to create 4 maps for the expanded universe around the movie After Earth. There are a bunch of books and graphic novels associated with the film. Those stories had been written in parallel with the movie development and each had added something to the geography of the universe.
One of the writers on the expanded universe material was an old RPG hand, and noticed that what the worldbuilding needed was reference maps – of the universe, solar system, world, and key city. And so I got a call.