The maps that inspired in you passion for mapmaking

[Wired]

I don't know which map really started it, but it's probably one of the early fantasy novels I read after Lord of the Rings: the Midkemia saga by Raymond Feist or early The Wheel of Time novels.

[Greg]

I don't know if there was a specific one that started it. I always loved the maps from the Edge Chronicles when I was young, so maybe it was them.

Whatever, the case I know the maps that constantly inspire me are the ones I find everyday here on the Guild!

[Kellerica]

I was actually a really late bloomer when it comes to maps. Sure, I grew up with Tolkien's and Ursula Le Guin's novel maps, but I didn't really pay that much attention to them at the time. As I got more into worldbuilding, I started to try my hands at map making, just very basic shapes to use as a reference. It wasn't until I first saw maps by the Guild's very own and amazingly talented Maxime Plasse that I first understood that maps can be more than that, that they can be art. Of course there were many, many others among these forums, but he really does deserve credit as my first inspiration.

[ThomasR]

I was actually a really late bloomer when it comes to maps. Sure, I grew up with Tolkien's and Ursula Le Guin's novel maps, but I didn't really pay that much attention to them at the time. As I got more into worldbuilding, I started to try my hands at map making, just very basic shapes to use as a reference. It wasn't until I first saw maps by the Guild's very own and amazingly talented Maxime Plasse that I first understood that maps can be more than that, that they can be art. Of course there were many, many others among these forums, but he really does deserve credit as my first inspiration.

Thanks for putting this into words, Kelleri. For me, it was Max's and J.Edwards maps.

[MapMappingMapped]

I don't know what maps inspired me (might have even been stories?), but Max's maps both led me to the guild and inspired me to work harder on my own. I still remember my first map four years ago... It was... interesting. And Jon Roberts' tutorials helped a LOT, too. I'll always be grateful to these two

[Mouse]

I did rather like a Tolkien poster map I saw in the school library, but I didn't really think of it as a map. To me it wasn't a map at all but a painting, and it may have inspired me to do landscape paintings more than maps.

Later on I wanted to become a real world cartographer and even took a higher qualification in cartography, but failed to get a job. The urge to map things lay dormant for about 30 years till I decided I needed a map for the book I still haven't finished writing, and rediscovered map art through the Profantasy forum and then the Guild.

I have my favourites, but the truth is that you ALL inspire me to do different things

[Kalium]

I guess I'm unique in saying Redwall, which I picked up at around 11 or 12 on the recommendation of classmates at school. That was my first longstanding series with maps and even though they weren't consistent I loved how each book revealed different parts of the world. I later on discovered the more conventional mapped worlds (LOTR etc) but Redwall was the first introduction.

[Kellerica]

Mouse does utter the truth here, no doubt about that. Pretty much every mapper on this site can be called an inspiration in some form or another.

[Greason Wolfe]

For me it comes down to three maps. The Land from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the map from Sword of Shanara, and the map of Pliocene era earth in Julian May's Pliocene Exiles Saga. Certainly there were many other maps that built upun those early inspirations, but those three are the ones I always remember first.

Most recently, however, I would have to say that J.Edwards maps have been especially inspirational.

GW

[Daistallia]

Loved sitting down with an atlas as a kid. Kipling was absolutely spot on when he called an atlas "the finest picture-book in the world".

A myriad of fantasy and SF books with maps came next.

And games, both RPG and board.