DevenRue

What's with my obsession over Skyrim?

Added 2018-11-11 23:15:50 +0000 UTC

Ok, so aside from it just being an amazing game and part of my favorite series of PC games, Skyrim actually has great significance to me and technically to you! The image you see above is why most of you even know me at all much less as a cartographer. See.. WAY back in 2011 when the game came out, I was still trying to figure out how to transition from a traditional surreal artist who painted on canvas to... well, actually at the time, I didn't know what. That was the problem.

I was tinkering with pyrography (wood/paper burning) and loved it but it still wasn't "the one". And as I got lost in the game, I started making props because that's what I do. I made a few books from the games, some tavern signs, etc.

Of course, it made sense to me that I needed to make the map. After all, that was a pretty cool thing to see in the game and I had always made maps from the games I played. So I did. And the rest, my friends, is what they call "history". My Skyrim map caught a lot of people's attention. I made gifts for friends obsessed with the game. I started getting TONS of requests to make people prop maps.

And then it started becoming other worlds like Faerun, Westeros, etc. I fought against it at first because those are all copyrighted designs that I am legally not allowed to sell products of. So there I was, making a lot of free art.

And that's when it occurred to me... free art was exactly what I wanted to do. I started doing some research to find the best way to do that. Meanwhile, I decided to show my followers why I shouldn't be limited to known worlds and created an original map. This launched me into my current career of making original fantasy worlds for patrons. All because I'm a complete dork and have to make props of my favorite game... Skyrim.