France – K. M. Alexander

September 22, 2021January 14, 2023

de Fer Settlement: A Free 18th Century Brush Set for Fantasy Maps

It’s been a while since I’ve share any new tools for fantasy cartographers. I released my last brush set way back in January. Since then I’ve been a little busy. I launched Gleam Upon the Waves, the fourth novel in my cosmic horror series (you should buy it!), expanded my “Old Haunts” project significantly, and since I was fully vaxxed I took some time after the launch to travel a bit. It was quite an eventful summer. But autumn has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere, and I want to get back into the swing of things and continue supporting the community of fantasy cartographers—I’m long overdue for a new brush set.

All my Map Tools will always be free. Want to help support this work?
Click here to learn how.

Nicolas de Fer in all of his wiggy glory

Let’s fix that! Today I’m releasing the first in a collection of sets all coming from the same cartographer. Nicolas de Fer was a famous eighteenth century French engraver who eventually becoming the official geographer to the Spanish and French court. His work is stunning, and his styles varies depending on what he was depicting and/or plagiarizing. He also wasn’t the most accurate of cartographers. These days most of his work is viewed for its artistic merit as opposed to its historical accuracy. Think of him as a quantity over quality guy. Lucky for us, when it comes to fantasy maps, historical accuracy isn’t something with which we concern ourselves. Instead, we’re looking at signs and symbols that are unique and can help our work stand out while still feeling period-authentic, and de Fer’s work serves us well in that regard.

de Fer Settlement is the first of three planned sets I’ll be releasing. Each will highlight a different aspect of cartography. As the name implies, this first set is focused on settlements. Taken from La Banlieue De Paris—translated “The Suburbs of Paris”—the map is an 18th-century map of the homes, towns, and villages that sprawled across the Parisian countryside in 1717. It’s a diverse set with a lot of little details. While there isn’t much in the way of landforms or flora, the set will work well with any other brush sets I’ve released, allowing for a bit of variety in your fantasy maps. Don’t be afraid to mix-and-match to get the look you want!

The de Fer Settlement set features 300 brushes, and includes the following:

50 Homesteads
13 Mansions
25 Villages
50 Towns
9 Combinations of the Above
7 Unique Settlements
12 Chapels
2 Abbeys
7 Churches
10 Ferry Landings
10 Water Mills
10 Tiny Windmills
35 Windmills
6 Gallows
2 Gibbets
20 Crosses (The French loved erecting random crosses along the roadside.)
5 Fields
3 Big Trees
20 Forests
3 Map Elements

The button below links to a ZIP file that contains a Photoshop brush set (it’ll also work with GIMP and Affinity Photo) as well as a transparent PNG in case you’re using a program that doesn’t support Adobe brush files. Remember, they’re black, so they’ll look broken viewed in some browsers, but trust me, they’re all there.

DOWNLOAD DE FER SETTLEMENT

As with all of my previous brush sets, de Fer Settlement is free for any use. I 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. No attribution is required. Easy peasy!

Enjoy de Fer Settlement? Feel free to show me what you created by sending me an email or finding me on Twitter or heck, leave a comment below. I adore seeing how these brushes get used, and I’d be happy to share your work with my readers (let me know in your message.) Let us see what you make!

de Fer Settlements in Use

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.

Buy My Books→

I’m not just a map enthusiast. I’m also a novelist! The easiest way to support me (and get something in return) is by purchasing one of my cosmic horror urban fantasy novels.

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Buy Me a Coffee→

A simple and quick way to support the #NoBadMaps project is through a one-time donation of any amount via ko-fi. Your support helps keep this project going and is appreciated.

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Join my Patreon→

If you want to continually support the #NoBadMaps project through a reoccurring monthly contribution, consider joining my Patreon and get sneak peeks into what’s coming.

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More Map Brushes

This is just one of many brush sets and map tools I’ve released. You can find it and other free brushes covering a wide variety of historical styles on my Fantasy Map Brushes page. Every set is free, distributed under a CC0 license, and open for personal or commercial use. I’m sure you’ll be able to find something that works for your project. Click the button below to check them out!

view more Fantasy Map Brushes

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August 20, 2019January 14, 2023

Gomboust: A Free 17th Century Urban Cartography Brush Set for Fantasy City Maps

Since embarking on my cartography brush project, I’ve gotten several emails from creators asking about city maps. I get the appeal. I love a good city map. While city cartography is as old as ocean charts and landmass-focuses atlases, the reality is that creating them is nowhere near as forgiving as riffing on the physiography of natural landscapes. Unlike the natural world, cities are both rigidly planned (sometimes poorly) and yet still vibrantly organic. That duality comes across in their cartography. No city is the same. Few buildings are the same. For that reason, I was hesitant to adapt some of the early city maps into a brush set—that is until today.

All my Map Tools will always be free. Want to help support this work?
Click here to learn how.

Meet Gomboust, my eleventh free maps set and my eighth of 2019! Unlike the previous sets, this one is entirely focused on urban cartography. Buildings! Hospitals! City blocks! Churches! Cathedrals! Gardens! Palaces! Windmills! Fields! Pillories! Houses! Barns! Wells! Towers! Guard Posts! Even bridges! There is so much in this set, and with it, you can quickly create engaging and vibrant cities—I think you’ll discover it was worth the wait.

The elements within were extracted from Jacques Gomboust’s 1652 map of Paris. Rendered in an off-kilter isometric perspective that often shifts into… honestly, I don’t even know what you’d call it, it just occasionally gets weird. I mean the map is 367 years old, it’s allowed to get weird. But it’s a good weird. Feels authentic. The map features significant points of interest for the discerning Parisian of the mid-17th century. It’s beautiful—if not a bit strange—with a heavy focus on the religious presence within Paris, its gardens, and palaces.

Wielding these brushes is tougher than landmass focused sets. To capture your vision, you’ll want to plan or at least have a decent knowledge of your tools. Spend some time with the brushes, learn what’s available. Be willing to edit and adjust them, it’ll allow you to make critical decisions and help fully realize your vision. It doesn’t hurt to study the original just so you can understand how each element was used.

I realize the odd shifts in perspective makes things harder—but if utilized properly, it can make for a compelling piece. It works in Gomboust’s original map, and I believe it’ll work in yours. For this reason, I’ve also included textures along with my more traditional “stamp” style brushes. Combined together I think you can get real close to recreating a faux 17th-century urban map and keeping Gomboust’s style alive for years to come.

Gomboust is a large set, maybe my most extensive ever. It sits in at just over 600 brushes total, including (and this list will get long):

70 City Blocks (Multiple buildings)
10 Unique Blocks
15 Barns
50 Houses
10 Farms
5 Mansions (Bigger Houses)
5 Hospitals
10 Towers
10 Gatehouses
5 Palaces (Bigger Mansions)
40 Generic Buildings (Individual buildings, well… kinda)
15 Unique Buildings
10 Chapels
15 Churches
5 Cathedrals
5 Monasteries
5 Unique Religious Buildings
20 Horizontal Walls
10 Vertical Walls
10 Unique Walls
10 Fences
10 Hedges
20 Small Gardens
20 Large Gardens
5 Vertical Rows of Trees
10 Horizontal Rows of Trees
10 Orchards
5 Groves
20 Fields
5 Unique Flora Brushes
10 Bridges
15 Windmills
10 Fountains
10 Wells
10 Crosses
5 Cemeteries
10 Guard Posts
10 Unique Points-of-Interests
10 Ground Texture
10 Untilled Land Textures
10 Water Textures
10 People
10 Horseback Riders
10 Boats
5 Carriages
10 Map Elements
10 Unique Cartouches

The button below links to a ZIP file that contains a Photoshop brush set (it’ll also work in GIMP) 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 City Blocks, Buildings (1), Buildings (2), Natural Elements, and Points-of-Interest & Cartouches. They’re black, and they’ll look broken if viewed in Chrome, but trust me, they’re all there.

DOWNLOAD GOMBOUST

As with all of my previous brush sets, Gomboust 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 Gomboust? 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!

🌏 Gomboust In Use

Want to see this brush set in use? I put together a sample map using Gomboust. There are three versions, a black and white version, one colored, and a decorated sample. Click on any of the images below to view them larger.