7 Maps that Blew My Mind

in this video seven maps that blew my mind hi everybody my name is nate and you are watching wasd 20 a channel about tabletop rpgs and fantasy maps about a year ago i made a video about various cartographers that you just have to know about some of my favorite cartographers however when i was making that video i did come across some maps that i really wanted to talk about that weren't really from well-known cartographers they might have been from artists who are really talented and just happened to make a map one time so this video kind of frees me up to talk about some of those maps individual maps some from cartographers some not that blew my mind that just wowed me the first time i saw them now i want to note that there are some really amazing maps that are not on this list that i absolutely love maps like the middle earth map or mapamundi for example these maps are excellent but i wouldn't say they ever blew my mind because i can't remember the first time i saw them it's like i can't remember the first time i saw star wars it's just it was the air i breathed growing up so i think for the most part these are all maps that i first saw after i decided that i wanted to draw maps that this is a thing that i wanted to be a part of my life so i do hope you enjoy my list of maps i would love to hear what you think too down in the comments below what are some of your favorite maps and hopefully there's some on my list that you haven't seen before before we get into the maps i do want to thank my sponsor for this video world anvil world anvil is a great tool for game masters world builders and storytellers of all types providing everything you need to stay organized and keep things looking great you can write articles about places characters link them to each other or to maps and it's a great place for rpg players to keep their own character sheet and notes as well they are always improving their service based on user feedback they've got a really active huge community and they've recently added new dnd 5th edition character sheets with even more automation they have a ton of other new rpg systems and so many great features so go try world anvil right now for free or you can sign up for a paid subscription to unlock even more cool features thanks world anvil starting us off here today this map of forbidden lands now i actually had a bit of trouble finding the artist for this map but according to one of the mods on the free league discord server it was nicholas brandt who also did some interior art in the books beautiful map i absolutely love this map i have looked at it so much and drawn so much inspiration from it over the last couple years uh it's the map that's in the cover of the core books and um man let's just zoom in here and take a little bit of a look um there's so much detail here i love the high contrast style of the mountains i love that there are some really big mountains and some smaller mountains i really like the amount of mountains and forests here it has this very kind of wild untamed feel that is just begging to be explored when you have so much mountain and so much forest you can see some little settlements here i absolutely love just kind of the sketchy line style just kind of criss crossing the terrain look at these clouds right here i think those are clouds or mist um just puffy looking and cool um yeah man there's just so much to like here and um yeah it really just fits the feel of forbidden lands and the art and the rest of the book as well so yeah one of my favorite maps of all time mind blown all right now this map right here is by an artist called cave geek i don't know his real name just cave geek and what he does is incredible he actually hand burns into leather this map is made on buckskin and it's an incredible process that he's actually documented on youtube and i'll put a link to the video where i saw this skyrim map being made first with the burning of the leather and then by painting with bone and with his fingers so yeah it's an incredible process he tries to keep it very primitive and true to the name cave geek and uh it's absolutely incredible he's got some that are even more detailed and mind-blowing in my opinion but i chose this one because it's the first one i saw and uh it just really stuck with me plus i love skyrim so yeah definitely check out his stuff if you want to own one of these it's gonna cost you several hundred dollars i've actually seen them myself in person at garycon and yeah i mean they are breathtaking to behold so definitely interesting to check out but he does sell also some paper prints of these maps for a much more affordable price so yeah incredible map just a really really unique process that did categorize for me as mind-blowing next up we've got the new map of hot springs island now this map actually won in any a couple years ago for best map and um yeah it's obvious why this map is just a lot of fun it's an incredibly unique style in terms of being just colorful and cartoony they actually sent me a copy of this map a poster copy of this map a few years back and i'm going to zoom in on that one just because it's a little more high res image here and you can just see all the craziness going on in these various locations across this map yeah it's just a lot of fun super unique i think we can all safely say no one has seen a fantasy map quite like this especially for an rpg setting so this map is done by jason thompson and uh yeah jason you killed it man well done uh i love this map now a lot of the maps i'm showing in this video are very kind of bombastic and unique styles this one right here is a really classic style this is the narnia map by daniel reeves and i think this one was originally made for the narnia films which came out about 20 years ago now maybe 15. and yeah i absolutely love this map it's really like the quintessential fantasy map in a lot of ways to me and it's one of the first maps i saw when i started drawing maps myself and just went around the internet looking for inspiration i really love the mountains just the jagged shape of the mountains the very nice shading on the mountains as well and i absolutely love the trees i would actually describe these forests as cute uh the trees are just kind of this rounded coniferous look they have nice shadows there's a variety of colors they just look really really great i think the shadows especially really add to this the other thing about this map is it's clearly a map for a story it is not just trying to show the major cities of this world it is trying to show significant points in the history of this world or in the story of the lion the witch in the wardrobe because you have the wardrobe right here and you have the lamppost the beavers dam these are not major locations in terms of being great cities and things like that but they made the map you've also got this really nice red calligraphy here it looks like it might have been done on paper originally i can't tell but yeah this map is just beautiful i love the border too anyway i could go on and on dungeon maps i i don't have any dungeon maps on this video so far so here we have one so why is this so mind-blowing it's really all about the bombastic style here it's very metal in a lot of ways and that's true of a lot of art for dungeon crawl classics so this is a doug kovacs map and he does a lot of the maps for dungeons craw dungeon crawl classics modules this one is from let's see it is the doom of the savage kings book and i first saw doug kovacs maps in this one right here from free rpg day he has tons and tons of cool maps this one however is just one of my favorites i love the look of this i think it's a lich on the throne uh you've got the entrance that over on the right side the crawl space entry uh you've got a side view of the map you've got the top down view of the map you've got all kinds of smoke around the edges it's just really in your face it is visually a loud map you cannot ignore it and in some ways it's not a great player version of the map like i don't think i would put this on my virtual tabletop and actually use it in that way but it's meant i think to inspire the dungeon master and it does so very effectively just kind of conveys that feeling and that mood that you go that you're going for in dungeon crawl classics so love this map and uh really like a lot of doug kovacs maps all right now this map right here is from maxime place or max's maps and i think this is the only one on the list today that actually is a cartographer who made my list a year ago on that uh one about the map makers so this map right here is absolutely mind-blowing to me just because the first time i saw it it was the colors the rich deep colors this like dark navy blue for the water and then this kind of beautiful yet ugly yellowish green on the land it's it really works together and um yeah and he's an amazing artist but the actual color is the thing that really caught my eye the first time the green of the forests here as well it's just beautiful so as we scroll around this map here you know it's in some ways a pretty typical fantasy world map but it's one of the i would say it is the best executed classic looking color full world fantasy map check out the crucible lands here um it's just yeah man it's got this rich texture there absolutely love it let me get up in here and we get some white in the colder regions of the world yeah i don't know what else to say about this map it just looks really really good very well executed the border the compass rose everything just works really well together in this one this next map is one i'm guessing a lot of you have not seen before this is a map by brandish gilhelm of runehammer games he is a renaissance man behind the index card rpg as well as a whole bunch of other cool products and this one comes from index card rpg worlds i see rpg world's book it has three different settings in the book i believe and this is one of them this is ghost mountain it's kind of a weird west setting now there's a couple remarkable things about this map a it's just a really cool style it's got this kind of twisted line art look to it that i really love and b he drew this all live on stream in a single day eight and a half hours i remember tuning in somewhere near the beginning of the stream as i often do on runehammer videos and uh just really enjoy seeing him do art i've learned a lot from him myself not just in terms of art techniques but also in terms of kind of the mindset of an artist i've found his stuff immensely helpful it's had a big impact on me as a cartographer so anyway the stream itself was really just like one of those youtube moments i will never forget it is forever etched into my memory i just really enjoyed watching the master at work here and uh wow yeah it got silly it got a little crazy at times as you might expect when you're staring at the same photoshop document for eight and a half hours by the way if you do buy ic rpg worlds which i'll put a link to down in the video description uh you get a copy of this map as well as the alpha map and these maps are so so detailed they're extremely high resolution and you can go and take these to a printer and get them printed into posters uh he gives you permission to do that and yeah just such an incredible amount of detail on these maps so definitely check them out all right those are my maps now there are so many others i could have thrown in here and i really think i probably need to do another one of these in the future because there are so many incredible maps out there now i want to give a quick plug before we go there's going to be a new mapping contest on the wasd 20 discord server i think it's going to start this friday christmas and the theme for this contest is the edge of the world so that's the theme a lot of creativity can happen within that theme so i'd love to see what you guys come up with i'll put a link to the discord server down in the video description i also want to thank the wasd20 patrons before we go here patrons are people who support the channel on a monthly basis these people are amazing if you want to become a more intimate member of the wasd 20 community i do weekly map drawing streams with patrons i do campaign diaries there's all kinds of cool stuff you can get go over to patreon.com wasd20 and check it all out so thanks to these amazing people i really appreciate it alright that's it take care of everybody you'll see me again very soon [Music] you

Channel: WASD20

Views: 98,258

Keywords: d&d, dungeons and dragons, Fantasy maps, cartography, runehammer, hot springs island, marina, cave geek, ghost mountain, mapmaking, drawing maps, best maps, rpg, tabletop rpg, ttrpg, game master, dungeon master, DFC, wasd20, map drawing, d&d maps, rpg maps, runehammer maps, best cartographers

Id: XWZudinK9us

Length: 13min 59sec (839 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 23 2020