So, as you’ve probably noticed, most of my brush sets have been extracted from European sources. (Especially the prolific Dutch.) While I love working with old documents from anywhere, I’ve wanted to diversify my sets a bit for a long time. So, I’ve been searching for something different, especially for maps based on work from Central and East Asian cartographers. So, with that in mind, I’m excited and pleased to release my first non-European and Japanese-based brush set.



Ishikawa is a substantial 17th-century cartography brush set based on 日本海山潮陸圖 (Map of Sea, Mountain, Tide, and Land of Japan) by Ishikawa Ryūsen depicting the Japanese islands of Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshu during the Edo period. For the most part, this is a hill-profile set bringing Ishikawa’s ukiyo-e approach from the almost kanji-inspired flora to the elegant, calligraphic mountains, but there are also more modern iconographic touches as well for settlements and points of interest. What we end up with is a fascinating hybrid style, not precisely hill-profile and yet not fully “modern.” It’s super cool, and I’m excited to bring something “new” for you to use in your fantasy maps.



As with all my other sets, these are distributed under a CC0 license, which means they’re free to use for personal or commercial work, no attribution required! Let me know what you think!



You can read more about de Ishikawa and download the set over on my blog.



Detailed example:


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Some of the symbols:


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Ishikawa in use:
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