{"id":1786276,"date":"2018-09-17T18:02:22","date_gmt":"2018-09-17T22:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1786276"},"modified":"2018-09-17T18:02:22","modified_gmt":"2018-09-17T22:02:22","slug":"maps-middle-earth-style-by-hand-and-by-arcgis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/09\/maps-middle-earth-style-by-hand-and-by-arcgis\/","title":{"rendered":"Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by ArcGIS"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
John M. Nelson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dan Bell’s career drawing maps of real-world places in the style of maps of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth<\/a> continues apace; a recent piece, a map of San Francisco<\/a>, got written up in the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em><\/a>, and his website is full of other recent works.<\/p>\n

But computer mapping may be about to overtake hand-drawn illustration. John M. Nelson has created an ArcGIS style that does the very thing Dan Bell does by hand: emulate the maps of Middle-earth executed by Christopher Tolkien and Pauline Baynes. The style is called, naturally, My Precious<\/a>: John explains it here<\/a> and here<\/a>, and demonstrates the style with this map of the Americas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, some flaws in this method: a mechanical representation of a hand-drawn style risks falling into the uncanny valley<\/a>\u2019s cartographic equivalent, especially when mountain and forest signs are clone-stamped over large areas. And to be honest I’m not a fan of the Aniron<\/a> font: those letterforms were used in the Lord of the Rings<\/em> movies, but never the books’ maps, and now they’re found on damn near every Tolkien-style map, and we hates it, precious, we hates it forever. But Nelson is basically emulating modern fantasy map practice: modern fantasy maps are invariably done in Illustrator, labels are computer generated rather than hand-drawn, and hill signs are clone stamped. Applying it to real-world maps, and GIS software, is new, but a difference in degree.<\/p>\n

Previously: Dan Bell\u2019s \u2018Tolkien-Style\u2019 Maps of the Lake District<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dan Bell’s career drawing maps of real-world places in the style of maps of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Middle-earth continues apace; a recent piece, a map of San Francisco, got written up in the San… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,29,28],"tags":[179,87,31,562],"class_list":["post-1786276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-art","category-cartography","category-gis","tag-arcgis","tag-fantasy-map-design","tag-fantasy-maps","tag-san-francisco","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1827730,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2024\/02\/one-map-to-rule-them-all-fantasy-map-design-elements-in-arcgis-pro\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786276,"position":0},"title":"One Map to Rule Them All: Fantasy Map Design Elements in ArcGIS Pro","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 February 2024","format":"link","excerpt":"John Nelson\u2019s One Style to Rule Them All is an ArcGIS Pro map style that applies fantasy map design elements to real-world geographic data. It does something similar to his earlier (2018) map style, My Precious (described here) only differently and with fewer assets (and 1\/60th the download size). John\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Screenshot of John Nelson's One Map to Rule Them All ArcGIS Pro map style to a map of the Mediterranean area.","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/one-style-to-rule-them-all-nelson-med-1024x576.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1837739,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2025\/03\/replicating-iconic-ocean-floor-maps-in-arcgis-pro\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786276,"position":1},"title":"Replicating Iconic Ocean Floor Maps in ArcGIS Pro","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"11 March 2025","format":"link","excerpt":"John Nelson John Nelson has found another analog map style to replicate in ArcGIS Pro: Heinrich Berann\u2019s iconic National Geographic maps of the ocean floor (which were paintings based on the work of Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen). Direct link to the video tutorial.","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nelson-seafloor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nelson-seafloor.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nelson-seafloor.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nelson-seafloor.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nelson-seafloor.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/nelson-seafloor.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1786354,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/10\/mapping-with-style\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786276,"position":2},"title":"Mapping with Style","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"4 October 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"John M. Nelson\u2019s ArcGIS style emulating the maps of Middle-earth is only one of several styles he's been working on recently. He's also created other ArcGIS styles emulating classic cartographic designs, including 19th-century physical geography diagrams, Eduard Imhof's topographic maps, and hachures. Five of these styles, including the Tolkien style,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/mapping-with-style-232x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1789658,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/11\/lord-of-maps-more-real-world-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786276,"position":3},"title":"Lord of Maps: More Real-World Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 November 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"Here\u2019s another map artist who draws maps of real-world places in the style of fantasy maps: Isaac of Lord of Maps has around 30 maps\u2014mostly of U.S. states, but also a few countries and one city\u2014available for sale as prints of various sizes. Style-wise they\u2019re dead ringers for Christopher Tolkien\u2019s\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/lord-of-maps-ky-1024x499.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/lord-of-maps-ky-1024x499.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/lord-of-maps-ky-1024x499.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/lord-of-maps-ky-1024x499.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":479,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/01\/online-map-updates\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786276,"position":4},"title":"Online Map Updates","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"22 January 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Yesterday's\u00a0updates to Apple Maps include four new Flyover cities, traffic data for Hong Kong and Mexico, public transit data for Los Angeles, and Nearby search for the Netherlands. Google Earth Blog reports on the mid-January imagery update for Google Earth. Google Earth Blog also reports that\u00a0version 1.0 of ArcGIS Earth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "GIS"","block_context":{"text":"GIS","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gis\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1789262,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/09\/dan-bell-the-ordnance-survey-and-fantasy-maps\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786276,"position":5},"title":"Dan Bell, the Ordnance Survey, and Fantasy Maps","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"10 September 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"Dan Bell, whose \u201cTolkien-inspired\u201d maps of real-world places have been a thing for a while now, makes an appearance on the Ordnance Survey\u2019s blog to demonstrate\u00a0how he uses OS maps in his creative process. Previously: Dan Bell\u2019s \u2018Tolkien-Style\u2019 Maps of the Lake District; Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786276"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1786280,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786276\/revisions\/1786280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}