My name is Hamish M. Turnbull, and I’m a Scottish-Canadian fantasy writer born and living on Vancouver Island, in beautiful British Columbia. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been telling stories and likewise consuming them. I’ve always been a big reader of books, particularly in the Fantasy genre.
The Dawn of hmturnbull.com
When I was eight I started writing what I thought then was to be my magnum opus, a Portal Fantasy story spanning around eight hundred pages, which I have since scrapped. Through writing it I slowly improved, and looking back on the earlier chapters revealed a sloppy and unrecognizable style compared with my writing by the end of it.
It wasn’t till I read “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien that I saw the true extent of what fantasy could be. Since then I’ve tried to improve my own writing; it’s an endless process. Along the way I’ve read many Fantasy stories, some good and some not, and soon I felt the urge to share my thoughts on such stories. At the same time, I realized I needed to have a website if I was ever to publish a book of my own. For both purposes I started hmturnbull.com, where I regularly wrote reviews of books, films, and television.
Fantasy Mapmaking
Since scrapping my first attempt at a book, I’ve written more stories and—I hope—gradually improved. At first, I struggled with plotting characters’ movements, as I lacked a map of whatever world a story happened to be set in. And since no one else knew what my worlds looked like, I had to figure out how to draw my own.
At first I tried to draw a map using pencil and paper. The problem is that I’m not particularly good with pencils and paper—and graphite gets everywhere! I’m more comfortable with digital media, so I played around with photo-editing software. Somehow it still wasn’t working, and eventually I learned about the medium of vector graphics.
It took me a while to get comfortable with this new medium. Even just getting my brain around how a “path” works was difficult, but eventually I felt ready to start making maps. Through mostly trial and error I began to develop some techniques for drawing maps using vector graphics.
I had to learn these techniques on my own, since I couldn’t find any tutorials on how to make maps using vector graphics. I wanted to help others who might be struggling with fantasy mapmaking, and so I began writing a book explaining my method.
It took a year or two, but eventually I self-published How to Make a Fantasy Map: A Writer’s Guide to Otherworldly Cartography. With that done, I began writing more resources, which I hope will help other aspiring fantasy authors to make their worlds feel alive.
Fantasy Writing Resources
In early 2020, I decided to shift the focus of hmturnbull.com from reviewing films and television to providing other fantasy writers with resources that I hope will help them. I focus mainly on linguistics, morality in fantasy, and on how technology can help keep a writer organized.
Logo
After learning a great deal about vector graphics, I took an online course on logo design. This led to my designing a logo for myself. I played with a lot of ideas, but none of them felt right until I had the idea to combine the nib of a fountain pen with my family crest: a bull’s head.
When planning the design, I looked at a lot of different varieties of cattle. Predictably, none of their silhouettes looked right for my logo except for the iconic highland coo. It took several hours of work in the fantastic vector software Inkscape before I was happy with the result.
I sent the logo to a few friends, and after a great deal of positive feedback I began to use my new logo on both my website and social media.
The Faeringmen
Later in 2020 I published The Faeringmen, a short story about a prince who travels to another world so his younger brother will become king. After writing several drafts, the proofing process began. To keep myself sane during that time, I put a great deal of work into designing the cover and illustrations.
I wasn’t sure at first how I’d go about making the cover. I wanted to do a digital oil painting, but I usually have a photo for reference. Luckily I’d been learning the very basics of a 3D graphics software called Blender, and a friend of mine had recently published his own fantasy novel.
My friend told me about how he’d made a cover in 3D software, and that gave me an idea. I decided to render a scene in Blender and use that as reference for a digital oil painting. It took days of toiling over a drawing tablet, but eventually I had a cover I was happy with.
For the illustrations, I used my vector graphics software of choice. I decided on a rather simple, black-and-white style, but I tried to make the illustrations feel somewhat like heraldry.
In the end, I’m really proud of The Faeringmen. In time I hope to publish more short stories, and maybe even some novels eventually.
Paintings
I was born in Victoria, British Columbia, and when I was young I did a fair amount of painting with watercolours. Tragically my paternal grandmother’s health began to wane, and my family moved to an Alberta oil town to be closer to her. My parents had planned only to remain there for five years, but it soon turned into fifteen.
As one might imagine of a prairie oil town, there wasn’t much to paint and I stopped. When I finally moved back to my birthplace on Vancouver Island, the beauty of the place was such that I found myself moved to begin painting again, this time with oils. All of these paintings can be seen on my Oil Paintings page.