Thank you, Meshon! It's good to know that it is readable and looks good even on that!Originally Posted by Meshon
High five! This is really good. I'm looking at it on my phone, so I can say that this map will look great in the eBook too. I am a big fan of the mountain ranges that actually come in multiple ridges, that was some time well spent making those.
Cheers,
Meshon
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Thank you, Meshon! It's good to know that it is readable and looks good even on that!
I had occasion recently to talk to someone about this map, and in that email exchange, I wrote this. I thought it was a good enough description of WHY this challenge is a real challenge, so I figured I'd just post it here for general interest.
"Maps for fantasy novels have some very strong constraints that the artist has to work within. The map normally has to fit on a standard book page, so the size and aspect ratio are very specific. The fonts have to be readable at small size, so they cannot be fancy or cute. The lines have to be very clear, not blurry.
All shading and texture have to be greyscale, so mountains cannot be shaded with colors to give them shape and texture, only with shades of grey. Forests cannot be green to give them identity, so they have to be depicted only with shape and greyscale shading to give them the look of real forests.
The geography needs to be as real as possible consistent with whatever geographical insanities the author has written into his or her story. Mountains are huger than trees, but both must be shown somehow without making the trees look as tall as the mountains.
These constraints make fantasy cartography for publication in a novel more difficult than if the cartographic artist had freedom of size and shape and color.
I frequently get maps from authors which are horizontal format, and I have to first persuade the author that it has to be a vertical format, and then I have to stretch or rearrange the map to fit the vertical page while not disrupting the features that are specific to the story being mapped. That alone can be quite a challenge
Interesting. I actually have seen some very nice horizontal maps in books that work well, so I might say that the orientation doesn't really matter -- if the map works better wide and it fits the page dimensions well enough, print it sideways and turn the book... or your head. Or if it's more square than rectangular and double spread printing is an option, stretch it across two pages -- I've seen some lovely ones that way as well.
Yes, I've done some double page ones, too, but they have so many inherent problems, such as where to make the divide, visual continuity across the gap, and the like. I'm actually working on one right now, but it actually had a wide open center that lent itself to an easy division, so I didn't argue too much.
But the big problem is that paper publishers will not even consider (so I've been told by two different publishers and one client) two-page maps unless the author is so well-known that they are certain the book will sell big. The first place I ran into this was my first major commission, which started out as Calisdania and had to be completely redone as Primidia (both in my album) because the publisher wouldn't allow the double page, even after the map was finished. After that, I got smart and asked first, and that's what I've consistently been told.
So the only double page ones I've done (three total) were all for ebooks where the author could do the pages as s/he wanted. I warn my clients that if they ever hope to publish on paper, they should do the vertical single-page format, and most of them listen to me
I've also done one "turn the book" single-page with horizontal shape map, and it came out nice, but it will still be a pain for readers, and since it was an ebook, I don't know if a paper publisher would be ok with that or not.
Last edited by Chick; 08-12-2015 at 02:14 PM.
Ah, I see what you mean. Thank you, chick - I learned something new and helpful today. The two paper published book maps I've done were both double page, but also self-published, and I've seen maps of that sort and sideways in novels from publishing houses before so I never thought it strange or special.
I'm sure you're right, and I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions and publishers who do things differently. I guess getting burned once made me twice shy
Very nice job Chick! Overall very crisp, clean and playful. Only one piece of criticism, the city icon is really blurry.
Cheers,
-Arsheesh
Hmm, I hadn't noticed that, but you're right. It's a brush I made a long time ago, probably at lower resolution. I'll bop that up to a clearer one, thanks for pointing it out
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