Actually…let’s go through the process first…because seeing how a good fantasy book map is made today is important.
First, I went to Deviant Art and put up a notice on their forum, asking for someone to look at the old maps I had. I wanted someone to send me a message with their idea and how much they’d charge.
I was very lucky to find someone named M. Nires. This guy makes some great maps, and I already showed you the John Colter Map he made for me. Here’s what we did for these maps.
The map wasn’t that good, however, and in 2013 I had a woman in Europe make me a new one. This is what that looked like:
First I got some rough sketches, based on my desire to flip the world from landscape format to portrait. Yeah, I wanted the map to work better with a book’s shape, and that meant changing things. Here’s how the designer first started that:
The same process took place with the Jonguria map. Here’s the process on that one, from the oldest map through the updated one and then through the rough sketches to the final:
Speaking of maps, why not get a feel for these ones first hand – check out The Jongurian Mission on Amazon today!