John is a full-time cartographer and an academic historian who, as the name suggest, not-so-surprisingly devoted his career to eels and their influence on the old world. This time we take a bit on a scholarly coat to discuss John’s career as a cartographer-of-choice for the publishing house at the university gnawing through 50+ maps per year.
Where to find John:
Maps & Shared Artwork from this episode:
In this episode with Arturo we talk through his overnight leap to the forefront of Instagram fantasy cartography scene, growing his map business from a side hustle to full-time job as well as forever unfinished, garanguatan, personal projects. We mention some business side of cartography and pricing, Filip's and Leander's big projects in the making and of course the ever-present, risinf influences of AI on our niche field of fantasy cartography.
In this battle of the timezones, Leander and Dominique dive directly into project pricing, client work, dragons and compass roses and work through Dominique's history and current set up as an artist, her process, cartographic journey and recommendations on drawing maps on MS Paint using decommissioned trackpad.
In this episode we discuss the plans for 2025 as well as our personal projects and a bit of some behind-the-scenes of our mundane existences. Enjoy!
Our unplanned Christmas special featuring Tom — cartographer well-known for his distinct style featuring magic mushroom villages and googly-eyed seamonsters. He supports the community greatly and we’ve all stumbled across as well as learned from his mountain tutorial (or any other) on YouTube.
Besides map-making, Owen is also a YouTuber, talented photographer, father and an overall life balance superhero and we were incredibly happy he accepted our invite to join our show as the last guest of 2024.
A GMT-based artist-slash-physicist with incredible portfolio of art styles. We talk dark client-works, thickening lines in Photoshop, wordlbuilding robot gnomes and making money as a DM for online TTRPGs.
Follow Chloe
🔗 Instagram | 🔗 Web
This episode we dive in to the realms of dragons and mythical beasts and how they can be used in the not-so-fantastical contemporary world entangled by processes. Karin is a long-time cartographer who managed to sneak a great deal of her mapping creativity into her professional career.
Chapters EP!
When you read a story, you’re taking the reader by the hand and showing them your world. Give them a map and they are free to go wherever they want. To quote our fourth guest, Rodney Elliot of @wyrmwoodmaps — a master storyteller, who spent over 30 years building his fantastic world of Ithia. We dive into his creative process and explore the ways to tell stories through maps. Leander & Filip get inaugurated into the Guild of Free Cartographers and talk about the life devoted to storytelling through the art of a map.
Where to find Rodney
Chapters EP!
Resources & Highlights From This Episode
In this episode we bring back the good ol’ Micron pens and share the story of inktober-to-master-cartographer Paul. We talk all about the classic top-down dungeon maps, doodley cities as well as Leander’s favourite isometrics and working with unusual perspectives. Our guest also gives us, the TTRPG rookies, a walkthrough of the classic gaming systems and solo dungeon crawlers which he also talks about on his ever growing YouTube channel.
Where to find Paul
@ways.unseen on 🔗 Instagram | 🔗 Patreon | 🔗 Itch.io
Resources & highlights from this episode
Where to find Leander
Where to find Filip
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Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated and feel free to reach out to us via our Instagram pages or via e-mail at fantasymappodcast@outlook.com
In this episode we chat with veteran cartographer & world-builder Scott Mayfield about his work with Atlassian & Valiantys, using Inkarnate as well as diving deeper in personal artistic expressions. We briefly touch on specifics of drawing and developing personal style, creative process, inspirations for our works as well as some practical advice for working with clients on commission. Last but not least we do some name dropping of other industry icons like Map Effects and discuss Scott’s big project show — Kram!
Where to find Scott's work:
Chapters EP!
Resources & highlights from this episode
Where to find Leander
Where to find Filip
Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated and feel free to reach out to us via our Instagram pages or via e-mail at fantasymapspodcast@outlook.com
