Maps & Illustrations Together - A Personal Journey

[Ashenvale]

I’ve no idea whether a thread flooded with illustrations will prove a major faux pas on a cartographer’s website, or will just seem unprofessional, but here’s how I got into fantasy cartography in the first place. It’s also how I got the name Ashenvale, which I use on writing and illustration sites everywhere.

Around the time I became disabled and had to stop practicing law, a group of my fellow litigators introduced me to the computer game Baldur’s Gate, with which they’d become somewhat obsessed. I took one look at it and said that’s just D&D, which we used to play as kids with pencils, paper, and dice. They didn’t believe me, so I volunteered to pull out my old books prove it. As a lark (because professional adults don’t play D&D, right?), I invited them over one evening to play. I wrote an adventure about a magical stone and a fallen, cliff-side cathedral. They came over, and we played.

A decade passed. We’re still playing.

I had not begun my formal art training at this point. But I had basic skills. I began illustrating aspects of our adventure as it grew into a campaign. I loved being able to say while we played, “When you turn the corner, you see this!” and hold up an illustration.

This mountainside map, showing the alpine setting for the adventure, was the first real map I ever made. I drew the style from ski mountain maps I’d always adored. It’s oil paint on illustration board. I didn’t add the clean, digital roads and tags until a couple years later, after I discovered Photoshop.