Hand Drawn Weathered Map of Middle-earth

I have wanted a map of Middle-earth to hang on the wall for a while now. It’s probably something most Tolkien fans desire at one point or another. There are a few really great ones available for purchase but since I love creating things I wanted to make one myself. The problem with a project like that is that it requires quite a lot of time and once I start something I usually want to finish it without interruptions. Luckily, these last few days I finally found both the time and inspiration to start the project. You will find images and some comments about the process below.

I decided to base the map on the one Tolkien drew for the Lord of the Rings with some small modifications to the design and additions of features which were not on the original map. I drew the map using a Uni Pin fineliner pen (0.05 mm tip) which allowed me to get a lot of small details on there. This was a fairly time consuming process which probably took about 10 hours in total.

Since I wanted the map to look old and worn out, I used some Earl Grey tea to weather it. I wet the edges and scraped them with a knife to get a rough look. This also helped open up the fibers which allowed the paper to absorb the tea better and create some nice darkened edges. In order to get some variety in the weathering I added some splatter of red and green and a bit of coffee. As a last touch I folded it a few times to make it look used. The entire process took about two days and I am quite happy with how it turned out.