Wake of Vultures Map

[TimPaul]

Today is the release of Wake of Vultures, by Lila Brown. A novel set in alternate Earth, 1800's wildwest Texas (called Durango County in this world). Amazon says tomorrow, but the release date is today.

I got to read the book before working on the map, to see if I could come up with any ideas. As I read the book, which I also really enjoyed. I thought, I'd love this map to be an actual artifact from the world.

The main character is a mixed race girl bronco buster, who goes on a vision quest, and joins up with some local rangers, who hunt monsters in the area, keeping people safe, and ignorant of the monsters.

I came up with the idea to make the map appear as if it was torn from an Atlas, where one of the rangers had noted the location of where the monsters could be found, and then noted Nellie (the main characters), route of her vision quest.

I was able to put in a couple inside jokes, like my name and the name of the art director at Orbit books. There's going to be a corresponding blog post on Orbit's site about the making of the map.

The map will be black and white in the book, but these days, I do my maps in color, so they can show them like that online, and get more impact.

WoV-Map.jpg

[Chick]

Wow, that is so awesome. Everything about it is special!

[J.Edward]

That's pretty cool Tim.
I does look just like an atlas page.
Only qualm for me is that the hand writing doesn't look like hand writing.
Otherwise it's spot on.

[TimPaul]

That's pretty cool Tim.
I does look just like an atlas page.
Only qualm for me is that the hand writing doesn't look like hand writing.
Otherwise it's spot on.

Well, it's my actual handwriting. I just know I have very neat handwriting.

This is one of those moments where you make a choice based on readability. I researched handwriting samples from the time period. Let me tell you, it's pretty nice looking. And very unreadable at times. There's also the consideration of who would actually be able to read and write. So me and the art director agreed more block, easy to read handwriting would be acceptable. I had originally made it more crude, but it looked to childish.

I considered trying to come up with something as a cross between the samples I found and something readable. But deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

In the end, I'm very happy with this. It's lead to a collaborative effort between me and the author to do a kids books. Which is my other line of illustration work, kid lit.

[Bogie]

Excellent!

[Ilanthar]

Excellent map, with just everything required by the theme and story. Really "wild west" and fun.

[J.Edward]

Well, it's my actual handwriting. I just know I have very neat handwriting.

This is one of those moments where you make a choice based on readability. I researched handwriting samples from the time period. Let me tell you, it's pretty nice looking. And very unreadable at times. There's also the consideration of who would actually be able to read and write. So me and the art director agreed more block, easy to read handwriting would be acceptable. I had originally made it more crude, but it looked to childish.

I considered trying to come up with something as a cross between the samples I found and something readable. But deadlines, deadlines, deadlines.

Well, there you go.

[- Max -]

Nice job, I think you found the right balance with the handwriting!

[Diamond]

Is that South Padre Island with the Mermaid colony? LOL!

[Jayharchitect]

I was going to comment on how black the text and linework was... then I read the bit about it being black and white! It has a great feel for the time period.