Western OZ - Commissioned Map
A commissioned map for a writer, this map depicts a heretofore unknown region of the lands of Oz (a setting which is now in the public domain). The Emerald City anchors things in the upper right corner, from whence the characters of the story set out to cross the great nameless gorge. One path is by air, floating above it all in a balloon launched from the Eye o’ the Witch airport. The other is darker and perhaps more dangerous, descending along the path known as the Devil’s Walk. The broken lava fields of Hell’s Hearth must be traversed before one can brave the terrors of the Monkey’s Jungle. Who knows what strange things will be found in the Valley of the Vegans before at last reaching the idyllic safety of the farmlands surrounding Cornucopia?
I worked with the writer of this story for several months, through many rounds of revisions, exploring different looks and concepts for the various terrains. After all the back and forth, you see the final product here.
Most of the map is hand-drawn, digitally, in ProCreate on the iPad using an Adonit Jot Touch stylus. The map was assembled and composited in Adobe Photoshop, which is also responsible for the text labels. Some touch-up work was done in Manga Studio with a Wacom Intuous and folded into the Photoshop file.
The resolution of the final file is quite high, at 7200 by 5562 pixels. It’s intended to be printed as a large poster—a reward for kickstarter backers—and also to exist as a map page in a large-format printed book.
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