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One of the things I needed to do for The Bleeding Realm was redo the map of Skara, which I drew myself. In this second installment of the Skara Trilogy, geography plays a more important role in the plot. There is a wider array of point-of-view characters and they’re doing stuff across a broader landscape. Some of the geographic details needed to be clarified and some mistakes needed to be corrected—like Kellstone not being right on the Tarrow River… what was I thinking?
I also changed a name. The fief of Fuornoc is now the fief of Ferroc. A reader pointed out to me that Fuornoc sounded a lot like the first two syllables of a certain English verb I really did not want to call to mind. It isn't that kind of book.
As with the original map, I decided to draw this one myself, and again, I am very happy with it. Well, I think the lettering could be a lot cooler, but at least it’s reasonably neat and legible. I have put it up in the Map Room and left the original for comparison.
When I was first working on publishing Sword of the Feara, I had the map entirely in my head and was kicking around having a real artist doing it. I don’t consider myself an artist; I have always had a knack for drawing, but I lack the patience to be any good. Still, when I found some YouTube tutorials for drawing fantasy maps on a channel called Maps by Owen, I decided to give it a shot and maybe save some cash.
With some good drawing pens and a sketchpad, I practiced Owen’s techniques and quickly found myself drawing some pretty cool mountain ranges and coastlines! The hardest part for me was stifling my natural impatience and going slowly. I achieved this by drawing the map over about 15 short sessions, first in pencil and then in pen. Same approach for the new map.
All told, I probably went from thinking about maybe drawing my own map to having a finished product I was very happy with in about twelve days. Even better, I had the feeling of accomplishment that comes from working hard on something.
I bring that up because I am more and more seeing people using generative AI for book covers, maps, and illustrations. Never mind that these images (it isn’t art) can’t be copyrighted; never mind that it steals and repurposes the work of real artists without consent, credit, or compensation; and never mind that generative AI is an energy pig using massive amounts of electricity and water—what really rankles me is when they call themselves “artists.” What an affront to real artists. I did a pretty good fantasy novel map in less than two weeks, and I don’t even call myself an artist. But these Gen AI “artists” type in what they want, let a machine generate the output, and claim the title artist for themselves. It’s sad that we’ve invented a cheap shortcut to creation, but nothing done with generative AI will ever have the character or soul of real art, created by a real artist—like my cover artist, Alex Albornoz--who worked hard to develop the actual skill to create on their own work.
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AI would never have come up with "In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit."