Explore fantasy art: Francesca Baerald
Ever since I was young I have always loved maps. Poring over them, picking out the details, and of course drawing my own. So I was amazed when I saw Francesca Baerald’s work.
Judging from her ArtStation page, she is in demand, and has illustrated maps for board games, novels, and computer games.
I first noticed her work in the Black Library Siege of Terra series, and was intrigued to know more. Her maps for that series had me reliving my childhood, pressing the maps almost to my nose to pick out every detail. Ultimately is was easier on my ageing eyes to find her ArtStation page to look at larger versions!
Maps of cities can be quite boring, but add enough detail and there’s plenty to look at, as exemplified by the map above. What is that interior city wall protecting. Why is there only a single bridge across the river, and who gets to cross it. Is that a barracks at the southern end, or something else? I really could spend all day looking at these maps.
I love her work, too. She is one of the best map illustrators out there.
If you love maps, you might find the Cartographers Guild forum of interest:
https://www.cartographersguild.com/forum.php
Thanks for the link!
Those really are nice maps! 🙂
Yes, really eye-catching
Wow, these are gorgeous! Thanks for sharing.
Glad you liked them!
These are all beautiful but obviously, the Middle Earth is my favorite of the bunch. Thanks for sharing Francesca’s work, Dave!
Happy to share!
Those are stunning! Thanks for pointing her out.
No worries, Ben, glad you enjoyed them
I right with you on loving maps. It’s probably one of the things that drew me to fantasy books as you almost always have world maps. It’s one of the things I’m liking about the old world teasers. I’ll definitely be perusing that link.
Yes, I’m one of those who would spend time before reading a novel just looking at the map at the start of the book.