Fantasy Map Making: A step-by-step guide for worldbuilders

I have been a fantasy and science fiction cartographer for almost 25 years. This was a very simple read, lots of whitespace, done in a casual, hands-on folksy manner with examples. This is for the absolute beginner Gamer or Fantasy novelist who is curious or wants to design a basic map, but has no idea how or where to start. If you are already using Gimp, Photoshop, Campaign Cartographer 3(+), Hexographer, or Inkarnate, you can skip this text as you already have the tools this author recommends. Not really in depth, the author covers the basics of continent outline, climate bands, groundcover very basic tectonics, more or less at an early high school level of overview. So if you have a teenage child starting out as a GM, this would be an okay starter. If you are an aspiring novelist looking for a really deep worldbuilding resource, this is not that sort of in-depth treatment. It is nice that the author goes step by step, with some color graphics examples showing how to do a basic continent, some forests, cities, mountains, and rivers, with Campaign Cartographer at a very very introductory level, ending with a very simple map. The author is also encouraging, and seems to be actively promoting the community, via twitter / social media.

I'll give the book credit that it does have some useful perspectives like tectonic plates and climate implications on the realism of a world map. However, This book fell way short of my expectations. There is no good step by step DETAILS of actually MAKING the map itself. For example, I'm looking at including a forest and desert region on my map, what icons or graphics should I use to represent these? Nothing even close to that is in this book. In fact there aren't ANY GOOD examples of actual fantasy maps. And definitely not enough information for someone to actually sit down and draw a good map. The book gives you tips for THINKING about what a good map should have in generalities, but in my mind it really missed the mark as far as an actual Guide for map making. I also purchased "How to draw Fantasy Art & RPG Maps" by Jared Blando which I found to be much more helpful. Although it still lacked the samples I'm looking for like a legend / sample of different forest types, landscapes, and various ways of drawing certain features. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend Fantasy Map Making for people who want to actually draw their own maps. You can get all this same high level info off of a few youtube videos and free online reading.

OK as far as it goes. A brief intro to the intellectual processes involved in designing a fantasy world map. For the price, i would have liked more. For example, a more extensive list of software, and some work-in-progress illustrations showing how a map can be built up step by step, and the consequences of making one choice rather than another.The book is also a mechanism for marketing the author's software. I don't have a problem with that. What I do have a problem with is including a link inside the book which doesn't work, also having to search through many webpages for over ten minutes to find out what technical platform the software requires (it is Windows).There are also some minor typographic issues.This book has good bones and there is nothing wrong with the basic approach it takes to the topic. The problem is, it's a bit rough and ready, and ultimately I was disappointed by what I got for the money.

As a major worldbuilder for my novels, I have always strived to learn more and to try and be as professional as possible in creating worlds. I picked this book up as an affordable resource because you never know when you might learn something new.Overall the book is fairly decent. There is a lot of “common sense” stuff, but it is stuff I have seen other authors overlook or make mistakes on, so it is good not to assume everyone knows the basics.While it does seem to be geared more for amateur worldbuilders, there is also some decent info in here for more experience folks too. The section about wind patters and climate bands was very enlightening, which is why I decided to give the book the round up to four stars.The loss of stars, though, is because there were some “absolutes” given as rules by the author that are inaccurate. The one that bugged me most was along the lines of “rivers merge, they don’t divide”. While that is generally true, river bifurcation is possible with the right conditions. I actually researched river bifurcation before having a river split in the world I created for my Chadash Chronicles. I think it would behoove the author to do some research on river bifurcation and flesh out his section on rivers with that more complete and accurate information.I found the above doubly irritating because right after saying that, on the author’s own example map, he has a river split TWICE before reaching the ocean. The irony of that flub cost a star.The other half star came from his absolute that “forests can’t be next to deserts”. That also is not true. There are a number of real world examples of this, although generally this is because the desert is overtaking forestland. In fact, the Sahara used to be lush green land, according to some scientists. So while desert nexts to forests are not the norm, again some more fleshing out of the exceptions and conditions under which this general rule might be violated would make this a much stronger, better, and more complete book.All in all I would recommend it to beginning worldbuilders as for the most part it does have some good general rules to make more realistic worlds/maps. With the fleshing out I mentioned above (perhaps in a Second Edition) this could go from good to fantastic as far as worldbuilding resources go.

Got as a present for my girlfriend so that she could draw her own map for her book, predominantly to help with distances and time scales.Huge waste of money. A child learns most of this in school and the tone of the writer is patronising.Cut down example from the book:How to make a map1. Pencil and paper2. Computer3. Hire someone!!!Has gone straight into the bin, we are so disappointed for a price of £25 i expected alot better.

I truly love this amazing book as it's filled with great useful information that any fantasy author would love.I would recommend this book to any fantasy author!

Amazingly helpful and full of good advice. Encourages you to focus on the details and how to dig deeper for the benefit of story telling. I am convinced that what I learned will help my book writing venture

Changes a daunting task, into a step by step, easier to follow project that's a valuable addition to any novel, or game.Will enrich the readers experience.

Superb book for any D&D fan. Great quality and value