A Map of the Island of Biringan
In 2023, I took a commission from G.P. Putnam’s Sons to illustrate a map for Melissa de la Cruz’s YA fantasy romance book, The Encanto’s Daughter. It arrived in March, and with life being what its been throughout 2024, I am way overdue to share my work with you! Click on it to view it larger.
The world Melissa created is heavily based on Filipino folklore, superstition, and mythology and keeping that central was key. One of the other requests was to lean into the aesthetic of 18th-century Spanish colonial maps of the Philippines. Mimicking historical styles is something I have gotten pretty good at over the years, and I am pleased with the result here. I think I captured the historical aesthetic but with an added bit of mystery and magic.
Melissa and the team at G.P. Putnam’s Sons were all great to work with, and they gave me a lot of liberty to expand on original sketches. I packed the map with loads of tiny details you might not have spotted on the first look. Along with sharing the map, I thought it’d be fun to point some of them out.
Being good Catholics, Europeans loved erecting random crosses everywhere—and these are common in historical cartography. I liked that idea and wanted to riff on it but stay within the mythology of the Philippines. Instead of crosses, I placed little bulul statues everywhere. They’re easy to miss, but you’ll find the standing and squatting guardian statues along roadsides, at intersections, or near fields.
Besides the statues, you’ll discover that this map teems with life. A creepy pugot wanders in the woods beyond the wetlands. A canine-like beast can be spotted north of the Sigbin Palace. A boar can be found among the trees of the Tikbalang Woods. But there are many more: a monkey, a leopard cat, a bat, and a crocodile can also be found on Biringan; see if you can spot them.
Each of the four courts is intended to evoke a season, and some of that was requested to be shown on the map. Weather isn’t generally shown on historical maps, so I decided to imply each season through the landscape symbols, or the lack thereof. I kept the winter area of Sigbin bleak with drifting hills that could be interpreted as snow alongside evergreen forests. As you move clockwise, you encounter the lush hills and sprouting vegetation that establishes Lambana as the spring court. Sirena’s dry and warm lands are intended to appear like a late-summer landscape. Finally, the harvest implications of the open fields help evoke autumn for Tikbalang. It’s subtle, but I think it worked well without being too heavy-handed.
Cartographer Gabriela Roxas’ is the fictional creator of the map. Her post-nominals stand for “Royal Biringan Order” and “Society of Maria Makiling.” Adding names and characters to work like this helps a map feel more authentic; proudly claiming your work (and usually praising the king or queen) was common practice within historical cartography. Why wouldn’t it be in fantasy?
And that concludes my mini-tour of the map. I get asked a lot, but I don’t accept many commissions. I am glad I took this one. I had a blast mapping Biringan. I enjoyed working with everyone on the project and am proud of where we landed. I hope the map helps draw all readers into Melissa’s world. You can nab The Encanto’s Daughter from everywhere books are sold. The follow-up, The Encanto’s Curse, is due in March of next year.
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