Francesca Baerald launches UNBOUND artbook with more than 250 maps

The book is an oversized A3 edition featuring more than 250 hand-painted maps from her work on videogames, tabletop RPGs, board games and graphic novels.

According to the available reporting, the project was funded via Kickstarter and had already raised more than four times its £20,000 goal with weeks still left to go.

What happened

Francesca Baerald has a live Kickstarter campaign for UNBOUND: The Cartography Art Book by Francesca Baerald. In the project description, she is presented as an acclaimed artist and cartographer who has created maps for major fantasy and game franchises. The campaign is being pitched as a luxury release focused on her map work, with an emphasis on hand-painted illustrations and a large-format presentation.

The release is described as an A3 artbook filled with pages of hand-painted maps. The description says it includes more than 250 maps drawn from projects across videogames, tabletop RPGs, board games and graphic novels. The available reporting also says the collection brings together work Baerald has produced over the course of her career for a wide range of clients.

At the time of the report, the campaign had already raised well over four times its £20,000 target, with weeks still remaining. That makes the crowdfunding a clear success at the time of publication, although the final total is not confirmed in the source material. The prices listed in the source are €150 for the Standard Edition, €250 for the Premium Edition and €2000 for the Limited Edition.

Baerald says in the source that she creates her maps almost entirely by hand, painting in watercolour rather than using digital software. She also says that a good map should immediately draw in players and readers, acting as a decorated gateway into a world. That approach matches how the teaser frames the book: as a collection of richly detailed, handmade maps brought together in one luxury publication for the first time.

The source also notes that the Limited Edition is said to be hand-bound in Italy using traditional techniques, though the provided text is cut off there. As a result, the exact specifications of that edition cannot be fully confirmed. No exact release date for the artbook is given in the available information, only that the Kickstarter campaign was still running at the time of reporting.

Background

According to the source, Baerald has created maps for several well-known fantasy and game projects, including Dragon Age, Warcraft, Octopath Traveler, Diablo and Dungeons & Dragons. The provided description also says she has worked on other projects, but the full list is not visible and should therefore be treated as a selection of examples rather than a complete list.

The source also says the book gathers work from videogames, tabletop RPGs, board games and graphic novels. That positions UNBOUND not as a single-project retrospective, but as a broader collection of Baerald’s cartographic work across multiple media and clients. That fits the way the campaign presents the book as a luxury overview of her hand-painted maps.

The Limited Edition is described in the source as hand-bound in Italy using traditional techniques, but the text is cut off at that point. Details such as the print run, bonus content or any physical extras cannot be fully confirmed from the provided information. The available source does confirm that there are multiple editions and that the prices range from €150 to €2000.

The crowdfunding status is also only confirmed at the time of publication. The source says the campaign had already raised more than four times its £20,000 goal, but does not provide a final total. It is therefore unclear whether the campaign has since ended and what the final amount was. The available information does confirm that the Kickstarter was still live at the time and that interest in the project was strong.

The YouTube teaser included in the source mainly supports the context around the project: the description highlights Baerald’s work on Dragon Age, Warcraft, Octopath Traveler, Diablo and Dungeons & Dragons, and again stresses that the book is a glossy A3 collection of hand-painted maps. A second video description refers to her use of watercolour and physical painting techniques instead of digital software. Those details line up with the article text and reinforce the focus on craft-driven cartography.

Sources

• Eurogamer: article on Francesca Baerald and her artbook UNBOUND
• Kickstarter: project page UNBOUND - The Cartography Art Book by Francesca Baerald