Moronobu Gansai: A Free 17th Century Cartography Brush Set (Over 1140 brushes!)

[KMAlexander]

Hey everyone. I hope all your map-making projects are going well. Been really enjoying what I have seen shared over the last few months.


I have some new free assets for you.

Today, I am releasing Moronobu Gansai, the first in a planned duo by the same creator. This set is based on 東海道分間絵図 or Map of the Tōkaidō, a 17th-century watercolor map painted enormous scrolls by Hishikawa Moronobu.

This is my most extensive set to date, with over 1140 free brushes! These are still symbol-based but with a more painterly approach that allows for work that feels more like picturesque landscapes than the traditional pen-and-ink hill-profile approach common to many historic European maps. The history of the Tōkaidō is fascinating, and you'll find a lot of unique objects specific to this route. It's perfect if you want to create something that evokes an elegant Edo-Period style.

Moronobu Gansai is my first set to launch with a separate pack of individual PNGs organized by folders the same way I organize the ABR files. This should make using these with tools like Wonderdraft much more manageable; no more extracting symbols from an enormous PNG!

You can read more about Moronobu Gansai and download the set on my blog.

Some of the symbols:






Moronobu Gansai in use:



(A higher res version is available on my site.)

[ChickPea]

These are gorgeous! It's fantastic to see brushes in a quite different style from most of what's out there, and I'm sure many people will enjoy using them.

I'm sure I've said this in the past, but I really admire you for taking the time to make these wonderful brushes and offering them freely for others to use!

[KMAlexander]

Thanks! These are fun to put together, and it's a good way to keep history alive. Finding unique and different approaches to map making is part of the fun.