Part of that is my involvement in writing the game books for Project Selene, which is a copyrighted d20 gaming system, mentioned briefly on the Biography page. While the book project has died from Publisheritis, the project itself is still in the works, and may re-emerge as a web site of sorts. Another part is that I do almost all of the art, including the maps (I love maps). And globes are just spherical maps, so I've painted a few fantasy globes.
I began with an experimental world that combined several worlds from fantasy milieux. I began with Middle-Earth (as did almost everyone of my generation) and then added on to it as I needed more detail later. I'm not super-happy with the end result, but it also didn't completely suck.
If you look carefully, you can see the (second age) coastlines and the island of Numenor in the first frame, and the land of Mordor in the second. The Middle-Earth shorelines are based on the book "an Atlas of Midd;le-Earth" and much of the Endorian detail is from there, but the rest is a conglomeration of a bunch of different books I had sitting around while I was painting the globe.
After a while, I asked for, and received, permission from Anne McCaffrey to do a globe of Pern. I developed better technique doing this one, and am happier with the end result. Given to Anne McCaffrey on 18 August, 2006.
It's a bit more naturalistic than the first one, but is also more than half ocean, so only a few shots are needed to show it.
When that was done, I began consolidating the maps for my world, and did a globe of Pracyleen. I'm generally happy wth the globe, though there are still some elements I'm not entirely satisfied with.
Pracyleen is Copyright 1990 by Carl Dershem and Anthony Quirk.
These pictures are taken at 60 degree intervals, followed by pictures of the north and south poles, in that order. Some of the fantastic elements are more obvious than the ones we took from realistic geography, but it still works fairly well. Pracyleen still isn't as lush or green a world as Pern, but that fits its description rather well - it's a small, poor world, struggling to get by, rather than an old, established one.
I've spoken to Raymond E. Feist about doing a globe of Midkemia. I've begun the work on it when my writing isn't going well, and am showing the steps as I get to them for those who may be crazy enough to consider doing something similar themselves. The techniques I use are practiced, but not perfected, and while you might know of tricks I don't to make things look better, I'm including the basic ideas I've developed that keep me from messing up too often or too badly.
Stage 1
of painting a globe is to get a pre-made globe, and cover over
the features that are already included. A flat primer works best.
Make certain the frame and stand don't get sprayed over, or it
can get ugly later. One trick that's getting harder every year
is finding globes without any relief features (as you can see,
I couldn't find one here). Most globes you can find any more have
raised relief where there are mountain ranges, some of which shows
up in the picture at left. This can be distracting when the terrain
doesn't match.
Stage 2
is to draw in the meridians. I prefer to use 15 degree separations
for the lines I use for several reasons: Most globes are built
using 30 degree wedges of cardboard, so half of the lines are
practically already done, but that's too broad a scale for drawing
in detail, while ten degree intervals are too time consuming,
and don't generally provide enough advantage in time savings to
be really practical. Also, 15 degree meridians are very common
in Mercator-Projection maps, and are familiar enough that they
look "normal" to the eye.
Stage 3 is
to draw in the outlines of the continents and large bodies of
water. It is sometimes interesting to notice how different a map
looks when translated from a flat Mercator Projection to a spherical
globe. The proportions of the landmasses can change drastically
this way, and your perception of them is sometimes shocked. For
example, the relative sizes of the Empire of Kesh and the
Kingdom of the Isles gets a re-thinking when you see them
actually mapped onto a globe. I always start in pencil, and only
ink the lines when I'm sure I have the proportions and details
close to what was intended at first. In this case, I scanned in
the maps from the Midkemia books (which can be seen under the
globe in this picture), compared them to resources available on-line,
and then got the scale from a comment in the most recent book
(King of Foxes) that established the scale.
Stage 4 is to
fill in the oceans and seas up to the outlines as previously drawn.
I prefer to use a deep, reflective blue for this (ModelMaster
Arctic Blue Metallic) as it is pretty close to ocean blue as seen
from orbit, and reflects light as water does. As you can see,
I'm only putting in the landmasses I have distinct and clear maps
for, and also those for which I have a scale. I have some rough
outlines of the rest of the world of Midkemia, but not detailed
enough for me to feel comfortable with setting it down in any
final way. The northern part of the main continent (Triagia) has
detailed coasts now, while the southern part is just roughed-in.
(The red spot is a reflection)
After that, I have some ideas I'm playing with, but those will likely have to wait until the complete 7-volume d20 set of rule books for Pracyleen is done. At present (autumn of 2006) I have volume two finished, and the project has been cancelled, but I think I may set it up as a website. The work on the novel is going better, and music and illustration (and housework, alas) take up a lot of time, so the painting has been put on hold.