Continuing our series of interviews with cartographers, this month we're talking to Mike Schley, known to many as the man behind many of the most well known fantasy rpg maps. He has worked for most of the big names.
We asked him 7 questions, as we will in each interview.
And he gave us a very cheeky interview.
We asked him 7 questions, as we will in each interview.
And he gave us a very cheeky interview.
1) Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background...
I was born way back in the swinging seventies conjoined to the seventh daughter of a largish family of Floridian coal miners. My big sister Eanid, she called me little brother due to our differences in size, and I were close in the way that only two people can be when they share buttocks and an elbow for over a decade. An early surgery could have probably helped avoid some of the tribulations we suffered as children but our family was always very poor. This destitution was partly due to the fact that my father was convinced he would someday strike it rich and put the orange state on the map as America’s richest anthracite coal field. Well, that never happened, to all of our surprise, but we had a happy life nonetheless.
Those youthful halcyon days of wandering pristine white sand beaches while perched on Eanid’s back and panning for coal were unfortunately not to last. The turning point was on our sixteenth birthday when my sister discovered the circus. She fell in love at first sight and decided, against my protestations, that in order for her to become a world famous trapeze artist, she needed to cut me loose. Soon after a successful, yet rather unorthodox surgery, we went our separate ways and suddenly I was on my own. Now, you might think that this would come as quite a blow to a young man in his formative years who’d only known the companionship of a somewhat self-interested older sister. Not so! I quickly bounced back and soon discovered the joys of drawing and map making. In that fateful moment I finally came into my own and began traipsing through the swamps and backwaters of the southeast with sketchbook in hand, mapping lagoons, drawing rusted water heaters, and generally searching for passages into the Hollow Earth. Florida’s sinkhole formations are a natural avenue for this kind of investigation by the way.
2) How did you get into mapping?
Sooner or later, with all of my wanderings and asking the right newbie questions in the wrong dark web mapping forums, I was bound to be recruited by the elusive Secret Lamstate Association of Cartographers and Kinesiologists (SLACK for short). To make a long story short, over the years and under their tutelage, I have focused my energies on uncovering the hidden and elusive worlds all around us while pushing the boundaries of illustration and mapmaking in what I hope are new and exciting directions.
3) Do you create maps professionally, or for fun? If you've sold your work, how did you get started? Any fun/horror stories to share about commissioned work?
I’ve been working full-time as an independent illustrator and cartographer since 2005. Before that time I worked in-house as an art director for Paizo Publishing where my main job was keeping Dungeon magazine afloat and tormenting my co-workers with my own poorly drawn nude self-portraits.
My first commission was for the 2005 D&D supplement “Weapons of Legacy”. Robert Lazzaretti was managing the project over at WotC and had a cartographer drop out halfway through the assignment. He had heard I was looking for freelance projects and threw it my way as a rush job. My work in this book and just about everything I did before last month makes me cringe a little when I look at it. This inner nausea increases over the passage of time and can be tracked on a curve that rises exponentially the further back in time I look. Other than that, I have no fun stories and resent the implication that I would ever have a bad experience with, or horror story about, a client. As all freelance artists are fully aware, clients are the most wonderful examples of humanity to have ever graced this planet and should be cherished like precious little flowers.
4) What kind of computer setup/equipment/software do you have? Any advice or tips for learners?
I currently use Photoshop CC 2015 for most all of my cartography work. Other than that I do a lot of rough sketches in pencil for my isometric and perspective maps before going in digitally. Advice? Well, you can’t do better than purchasing a copy of the mapmaking software package Dungeons of Schley for all your map making needs. In fact, I would go so far to say that you definitely should not spend your time studying and practicing the fundamentals of art making like perspective, observational/life drawing, tone, color, etc., since I’d rather not have the competition.
5) What are your favourite kind of maps or favourite map makers from history?
Lately I have been looking at a lot of cutaway illustrations like Stephen Biesty’s work for DK. They remind me of what it was like to read them as a kid and I still find myself completely engrossed by them. I also love old school book illustration such as the work of Arthur Rackham, Walter Crane, Jessie Wilcox Smith, Alphonse Mucha, Gustov Doré, and lots of others. Oh, and I like those paintings that elephants make.
6) What do you consider your best piece of work? How about your favourite, if different?
I’m pretty sure that my best piece of work hasn’t been completed yet. As for my favorite, that would have to be the personal project I’m working on right now called Schleyscapes. Having complete control and integrating map making, illustration and storytelling into a whole package has been absolutely wonderful. Hopefully other folks will like it too once I release it into the wild.
7) Where can we find you on the web?
My gallery can be found at mikeschley.com and I can be stalked through Twitter by following twitter.com/schley.
My gallery can be found at mikeschley.com and I can be stalked through Twitter by following twitter.com/schley.
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