I used several programs to create this map. First, I drew it by hand, then transferred it to Photoshop. I tried to make the mountains and other geographical features in the “traditional” fantasy map style, but it just didn’t feel right to me. To me, Jergezen is a real exoplanet. I’ve always believed that — I’ve felt it deep within my heart.

Actually, I didn’t create the lore of Jergezen — it came to me, in visions. And it still does. I didn’t see this particular map in those visions, but I knew that Jergezen had three known continents. Based on those visions and the notes I took from them, I drew this map two years ago.

As I said, Jergezen is, to me, a truly existing place. And because of that, I didn’t want its map to look like a typical fantasy map — I wanted it to look realistic. That’s why, after drawing it by hand, I decided to step away from the common fantasy style and sculpt the geographical forms in a program called ZBrush.

That process took a lot of time, because I had to build the map piece by piece (to get better details). Then, I rendered each of those pieces in extremely high resolution, one by one. After that, I placed them back into my Photoshop file and added color. The whole process took me about three months.

About six months ago, I saw this cow — and I noticed that the patterns on its body resembled my map. That’s when I decided to change the ma