Defining Scale using Mountains

I’ve been asked a lot about how to depict different scales recently. The question is – how do you tell the viewer of one map that they’re looking at a zoomed in region of a small area, and on another map convince the viewer that they’re looking at a large area, zoomed out. The easiest cue for the viewer is mountain ranges. These are the feature that’s different enough at different scales that they can act as a defacto scale-bar.

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The East

The East map for Game of Thrones
The East, © George RR Martin 2012, used with permission

Today we visit the trackless East – land of mystery, off the edge of the known world.

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King’s Landing

King's Landing map for Game of Thrones
King’s Landing, © George RR Martin 2012, used with permission

King’s Landing, heart of power in Westeros, location of the Iron Throne. This city acts as the fulcrum for the plots and machinations of the warring factions of the Seven Kingdoms. This map is something of a dichotomy. It contains more detail than any of the world or regional maps, but fewer named locations. To see the high resolution version, you’ll need to pick up the poster map folio – The Lands of Ice and Fire – but if you want to see some detail shots, read on after the jump. Continue reading “King’s Landing”

A Week of Mapping Tips – City Icons, and drawing Mountains

Last year I started a series of quick mapping tips, meant to be read over lunch, that would cover a series of different questions. These are posted daily to my Google+ and Facebook pages. Rather than post them up everyday on here, I’ve opted to collate them on a weekly basis and plan to post these up on Saturday mornings for easy reading over the weekend. This week it’s City Map icons, mountains and creating aged paper map handouts. Continue reading “A Week of Mapping Tips – City Icons, and drawing Mountains”

Midgard’s Frozen North

Fire and ice – the northmen have come.

The map of the northlands of the fantasy land of Midgard for Open Design
The Northlands of Midgard

Open Design has released Frozen Empires, the first regional supplement since the announcement that the world that holds Zobeck would be the world of Midgard. The christening of the world was a good opportunity to change the style of the world maps a little, and this is the first in the new style to be released. Here’s a low res version of the Frozen North (you can click the image above to see a larger version). The full size version appears in the Frozen Empires pdf, and print versions. Check it out!

Ice logo for the Open Design fantasy world of Midgard