Loke explains that unlike cover art commissions that usually provide the artist with only a short description to work from, map illustrators are sent entire manuscripts to dissect.
“For maps, you actually have to work with the author as well as the art director. I’ll usually take notes while reading and email them clarifications because sometimes, for example, the book might say a journey took two weeks by horseback to a destination, and so you’d have to calculate the distances so that it fits.”
The illustration process usually begins with up to twenty thumbnail sketches pencilled by hand before one is refined as a digital sketch, enabling the manipulation of finer elements in layout and composition. The digital sketch is then approved by the client, printed, transferred by hand onto printmaking paper using pastels, and inked with a brush pen before scanning it back into digital to be rendered in Photoshop for colouring, texturing, and further refinement.