Harrewyn: A Free 18th Century Cartography Brush Set for Fantasy Maps

Topographical elements are often focal points in many historical and fantasy maps. Mountains and rivers, shorelines and steppes, swamps and rolling hills, it’s easy to see why topographers found and still find these elements important. They shape the world around us. They influence lore, legend, and ultimately culture. They challenge humanity.

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Yet, in many parts of the world, these features are often nonexistent. Take Eugene Henry Fricx’s Cartes des Paysbas et des Frontieres de France—an incredibly detailed 18th Century atlas of northern France and Belgium that was first published in 1712, then improved upon over a period of twenty-one years before being republished in 1727. If you’ve been to that part of the world, you’ll understand immediately why those features aren’t present. Much of Northern France and Belgium is incredibly flat. I spent some time there earlier this year and while the countryside and farmlands (and beer) are beautiful, I can see how a cartographer would instead choose to focus on other details.

It’s with that introduction that I’m excited to share my latest brush set: Harrewyn. Named after the Dutch engraver Jacobus Harrewijn who may or may not have been dead when this atlas was finished in 1727. While a few landforms and flora symbols persist—hills, forests, and the occasional swamp—they’re not the focus. Instead, Harrewyn chose to emphasize towns and villages, cities and manor houses, farms and windmills, gallows and chapels. It’s a map focused on the developed over the natural.

Most of these signs were extracted from a pair of corresponding plates take around the Lille and Menin regions (‘10-‘11). The result is a unique brush set with a style that I hadn’t seen before. The traditional influence is apparent, but Harrewyn has added his own flair and it makes these brushes unique. Perfect for a wide variety of projects.

I took some liberties in the organizing—the concepts of Chateaus, Castles, Villages, and Bastides are rough ones and historical documents aren’t clear. Legends weren’t common and usage can be difficult to decipher. (If you have any insight I might have missed, please let me know!) That said, like all of my sets my organization is merely a rough guide. In fantasy maps, anything goes—these signs and symbols represent whatever you want. It’s your project.

Harrewyn is an enormous set, inside you’ll find over 500 brushes, including:

• 50 Farms
• 25 Mansions
• 25 Basic Hamlets
• 3 Mixed Hamlets
• 10 Chateaus
• 60 Villages
• 5 Mixed Villages
• 5 Elevated Villages
• 30 Castles
• 3 Unique Castles
• 22 Cities
• 3 Mixed Cities
• 15 Inns
• 20 Chapels
• 2 Unique Chapels
• 4 Missions
• 5 Abbeys
• 3 Walled Abbeys
• 5 Forts
• 5 Redoubts
• 30 Individual Trees
• 50 Forests
• 20 Swamps
• 20 Hills
• 4 Battlefield Markers
• 10 Crosses
• 20 Gallows
• 3 Elevated Gallows
• 25 Individual Windmills
• 5 Groups of Windmills
• 10 Elevated Windmills
• 10 Watermills
• 6 Unique Points of Interest
• 3 Cartouches

(I told you it was a lot.) The button below links to a ZIP file that contains a Photoshop brush set (it’ll work in GIMP as well) as well as a set of transparent PNGs in case you’re using a program that doesn’t support Adobe brush files. I’ve separated them by type, Settlements, Flora & Landforms, and Points of Interest & Cartouches. They’re black, and they’ll look broken if viewed in Chrome, but trust me, they’re all there.

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DOWNLOAD HARREWYN

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As with all of my previous brush sets, Harrewyn is free for any use. As of July 2019, I now distribute my sets with a Creative Common, No Rights Reserved License (CC0), which means you can freely use this and any of my brushes in commercial work and distribute adaptations. (Details on this decision here.) No attribution is required. Easy peasy!

Enjoy Harrewyn. Feel free to show me what you created by sending me an email or finding me on Twitter. I love seeing how these brushes get used, and I’d be happy to share your work with my readers. Let me see what you make!

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🌏 Harrewyn In Use

Want to see this brush set in use? I put together a sample map using Harrewyn and you can see a few variants below. Just click on any of the images below to view them larger.

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Support this Work

Brushes and tools released through the #NoBadMaps project will always be free and released under a public domain CC0 license. If you’d like to support the project and help me cover the cost of hosting, research, and tool-set development, I’ve put together three ways you can help, and all are detailed below.

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