Maps of fictional places

I like maps as it is – of real places – but maps of lands found in works of fiction are all the more fascinating. The maps in the Song of Ice and Fire books certainly help to visualise where the characters are – as they’re always spread far and wide across Westeros. I guess that’s something the makers of the TV show (that’s Game of Thrones, if you didn’t know) thought important too as they based the whole title sequence around the map!

A couple of days ago I finished reading Fool’s Fate by Robin Hobb, the final book of a fantasy trilogy which in itself is a follow on from another trilogy – basically what I’m saying is, really it was the sixth book in a series. The books are set in lands called the Six Duchies, I found a map then looked up some other fictional realms…

The Six Duchies from the Farseer series

Westeros (A Song of Ice and Fire) has to be split into north and south it’s so big.

Finally, Middle Earth of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

I actually own a book of Middle Earth maps. It contains hundreds of places I’ve never even heard of, probably due to not having read The Silmarillion. Maybe I will read it one day…

Air Middle Earth

It’s a bit lengthy but you get the idea. Brilliant.

Hobbiton

On Tuesday, whilst in London, I visited the British Library's Writing Britain exhibition. JRR Tolkien is of course one of the great writers of Britain and his work featured in the exhibition – including one of his beautiful illustrations for The Hobbit.

You may remember my blog post from a couple of months ago featuring The Art of The Hobbit book, it was one of these illustrations of Hobbiton that featured in the exhibition. The illustrations really remind me of old British railway posters, so… I made it happen.

It could use a little bit more work but you get the idea.

Just in case you have no idea where this idea comes from, have a look at these. railwaystation.org is a brilliant archive of these classic posters.

  

  

The Art of The Hobbit

I got this book for my birthday, from Lindsay, and have been meaning to blog about it ever since. It's a beautiful book full of Tolkien's own illustrations, maps and designs for The Hobbit. With a detailed introduction talking about how he always wanted The Hobbit to include illustrations, and thus the first edition did, something that many of today's versions lack. Which is a real shame!

Tolkien was more than just an author.

JRR Tolkien, not just an author.

Some of the illustrations are simply stunning.

He knew how to draw/ink/paint trees that's for sure.

My first version of the Hobbit has/had (not sure where the book is) this cover.

Tolkien does some neat calligraphy/lettering too.

And maps - is there anything he can't do?!

And he even designed the book binding and dust jacket of the first edition!

So basically the man was a graphic designer too.

MERRY Christmas!

I had the idea. I made it happen.

The Hobbit trailer

I'm almost half way through reading the book, for the first time since primary school, at the moment. So looking forward to the film next year. Martin Freeman is going to be perfect.

Ent themed Kazoos poster

Frank of Dueling Kazoos contacted me last week about doing another poster for Toast. The Toast gigs have a general theme of fairytales, or at least they did until all of the fairytales were used up. So Frank told me to pick a book or film, and mine works for both.

I'd been wanting to draw some ents anyway so this was the perfect opportunity. I created the whole thing in about 3/4 hours.

Dueling Kazoos

Definitely my favourite poster I have done for Kazoos so far.

The Hobbit illustrations

After watching the final installment of extended Lord of the Rings, Dan and I found ourselves reading up in more depth about various characters - thus leading me to really want to read the books again. We some how ended up looking at illustrations from various editions of the books, The Hobbit as well.

These are my favourites, for The Hobbit, although it took me a while to make sense of the site and work out who the illustrator is. Peter Green. I think I just love plain pen hatched drawings.

Some more black and white The Hobbit illustrations, by David Wyatt. Maybe I just like the composition.

After digging around a bit more, here's a colour Wyatt illustrations.

Very, very different (aside from the circles) but hey, it's got ents. I need to draw some ents. This is a particularly good ent, by Rodney Matthews.