How To Draw a Fantasy Map

Over the past couple of years I have been painting dwarfs, undead, vikings and goblins with a vague idea in my head about how they would all live together. Names and backgrounds come to me, mostly from my local surroundings or from my travels, from reading history and mythology, occasionally from popular culture such as Skyrim. I have jotted a few of these ideas down in previous blog posts, as a little bit of flavour to accompany the miniatures. There's a lot of stuff whirling around in my head, so I wanted to get it down on paper before it disappeared. I thought a good place to start would be a map.

I have been studying different map styles for a while, and came across a book dedicated to this very subject. I am a bit wary about How To books, as in my experience they never seem to convey the subject as well as, say, a youtube video would. However, we all have to start somewhere and so I thought I would give it a try.

The book cost me less than £10 on ebay and I have to say it has been a good buy. The author goes through the various stages with good, clear diagrams in a reasonably logical sequence. It's quite a short book, with lots of diagrams, which are useful. I did find that the suggested sequence of doing things did not always work for me, but maybe that's just me. The last chapter is probably the best place to start! This chapter is a bringing together of all the theory as the author moves through the processes he would go through in drawing a map (not all of it matching the sequence of previous chapters of course).

As I expected, theory is all very well, but the real value of a book like this is in giving you a starting point. You can get past the dreaded blank page by referring to the techniques, then practise them, then refine, then finally put them on your paper. And that's what I have been doing for the past couple of days - the ideal way to spend a typically British cold, damp and dreary bank holiday weekend.

The main thing I have learned from this process, and it's not going to surprise anybody, is that you have to practise, practise, practise. I have a few days under my belt now, and already I have learnt quite a bit on how to do things. Or more accurately, I have made plenty of mistakes and moved on from there. From preliminary pencil sketches, to inking and watercolours, I have had a little try at many things. I have designed my own icons to represent the dwarf holds. I have developed a very basic dwarf language and scratched out a dwarfish font of sorts, heavily influenced by viking culture.

It's starting to come together now and I have an almost completely pencilled map. I still have to add some features, when I have practised how to draw them. Then I have to move on from the pencil version, by inking in the whole thing. It's surprising how long these things take, but it will be worth it in the end. Hopefully, I can get it all finished in the coming week.

Cave Goblin Shaman

As their name suggests, cave goblins spend most of their time underground. As a result, they are a little different to other goblin folk. They tend to be smaller, paler and less well equipped, often with little more than a crude club and a set of filthy robes. However, they do have an affinity with the other creatures of the dank underworld realms, and will often drive these before them into battle. When a goblin warlord recruits the cave goblins into his warband, he does so expecting them to bring along trolls, spiders or other beasts from the dark caverns. The cave goblins also have a greater tendency to practise magic than their overground relatives, perhaps as a result of their diet of mind expanding fungi and hallucinogenic mushrooms.

This is the doom goblin shaman from Knightmare Games. This was one of the first models from that range that caught my eye. The fungi staff is just a brilliant touch. I changed the name from doom to cave to fit my own vision of goblins and how they live. I wanted to give them a pale skin, as I imagine their pigment would naturally fade after generations in the darkness. The red around the eyes could be due to the stress of controlling the magical forces in his mind, or maybe it's just a reaction to the hated daylight. It gives him a nicely manic appearance.

Here is the shaman with a small group of the black goblins, to illustrate the size difference. The bulk of the goblin force will be more like the cave goblin in size - smaller and runtier, as you would expect. Next in the queue, I could paint up a handful of old GW goblins I managed to collect over the past couple of years, but I do now have a preference for these Knightmare figures. I just have to get some more!

Dwarf runesmith

This is the dwarf runesmith that was originally released as part of the Grudge of Drong campaign, around 1997 I believe. I picked it up in a joblot on ebay recently along with a few dwarfs for my Oakenheim collection. Sadly, this figure is not one of my favourites and is surplus to requirement, but rather than toss him to the back of the drawer, I have painted him up and tossed him into the shop instead. So you see, it is possible to toss a dwarf.

For reference, I have included a catalogue page from the rather excellent Stuff Of Legends site, a must visit for any Warhammer fan wishing to track down old figures, or just see what things were like back in the day. As well as photos of miniatures, there's often some lovely old artwork to admire too.

Incidentally, I have stocked the shop with a few older painted minis from my glass cabinet. There's a couple of Imperial Guard psykers, a Scots/Irish warlord and another dwarf.

Taken from Stuff of Legends without permission

Sargob The Old

This is probably the oldest figure in my collection, certainly the oldest goblin. It's so old I cannot remember where it came from, possibly gifted to me by another player years ago when I was a club member. I painted it a few years ago, possibly about ten years back.

 Looking on the Stuff of Legends website, I have identified it as a Citadel C12 goblin, named Sargob, from around 1987. Judging by the style, I would guess it was sculpted by one of the Perry twins, he looks a bit too serious to have been sculpted by Kev Adams.

The first thing you might notice is the moustache, which is a bit strange on a goblin. The shield is a modern addition, a plastic from the chaos marauders set. I have recently rebased the figure from square to round, to better fit the new goblins warband I am building. All I had to do was paint the base and he fits right in.

Nord's Painting Shop on Etsy

***Drumroll*** I am pleased to announce, in my most impressive announcer type voice, that I now have a shop on Etsy. Stock is a little sparse at the moment. And by sparse, I mean there's just one figure. But, like the plants erupting all around in the lovely spring weather, it will grow.

This is an Irish warlord by Footsore Miniatures. It came with a Saga book that I had ordered a few months back and it's a really nice figure, though not one I can readily use in my armies. It could easily be used in a Scots or Norse army I would have thought, maybe even a viking force. More pictures on the shop page - yes, pathetic isn't it, that's my cunning plan to get visits to the shop :).

And while I am in marketing mode, here's a link to my facebook page, where I post a fair few WIP shots and step by step diagrams, so worth a visit if you have not already.

And one last plug, I also have an instagram account. Yep, I am fully embracing all the social media sites. #nordspaintingsaga should get you there. Or use this link.

Black Goblins

The Greater Goblins of the Black Vale, or Black Goblins as they are more commonly known, are the biggest of their kind. While most goblins are small, wretched, scrawny creatures, Black Goblins are much larger, some as tall as a dwarf. Consequently, they tend to be leaders, bodyguard or even warlords. They are the best armed of their kind, as they have the pick of  the loot from the battlefields, and steal arms and armour from their compatriots at will. Few goblin warbands go to battle without these bruisers leading the way.

These are the Black Goblins from Knightmare Games. When I first ordered the figures, I had no idea that they were such a large scale. I dreamt up the concept of them being the larger, elite troops of the race - not an original thought I admit, given the role of Black Orcs in Warhammer and black uruks in Lord of the Rings. You can see my first impressions of the models in this post.

I googled images of black orcs to get a few ideas for darker skinned goblins. However, I found it hard to break the mould and started with green skin tones, intending to shade them down quite darkly, but made a bit of a mess of it. I added too many different shades and it just did not turn out as I would have hoped. In future, I will stick to my tried and tested base coat and glazes routine. In the end, I decided to leave the skin and move on to other areas, see how it looked with all the other bits painted. It's often better to get an idea of the overall picture before obsessing on one little bit. With the rest of the colours on, the figures came together and they don't look too bad. I probably spent longer on touching up the skin than I would usually, lesson learned for next time.

The figures are not sold with shields or bases. I used my default system of two pence coins for the bases - they add a bit of weight and stability and are also magnetic. The shields are more of a problem, should I add some, and if yes, what should I use? In the meantime, they will just have to rely on their armour.