Meet Ryan
Growing up with Ryan meant living in a house where the edges of reality blurred. A national park in Western Australia would, overnight, become Rivendell. Creatures, coastlines, and entire kingdoms slipped quietly into the mundane. For most siblings, getting lost meant wandering too far from home; for us, it meant stumbling across whatever world Ryan was building that week.
When he was sixteen, he spent an entire summer drawing a massive map of the national park behind our house. Every ridge, river, and trail was renamed after somewhere in Middle-earth. At the time it felt like a nerdy obsession; in hindsight, it was the earliest trace of Red Quills.
Watching that same imagination grow into a practice, and then into a community, has been incredible. What began as a teenager mapping fictional forests is now a place where writers, game masters, and worldbuilders gather to learn & create together.
Ryan draws every map by hand with the same intention he had back then: to make imagined worlds feel real. He approaches each commission with care, curiosity, and an eye for the details that shape a world’s history. Red Quills, to me, represents the joy of getting lost somewhere that didn’t exist until someone drew it.
Red Quills YouTube
A growing collection of tutorials for writers, artists and worldbuilders who want their realms to feel lived-in and real. Ryan shares the methods, choices, and tiny details behind his maps — the things that turn sketches into worlds.
His videos break down the craft in a way that’s clear, thoughtful, and grounded in years of drawing imaginary places. Ryan’s videos focus on the logic behind good worldbuilding; why rivers form where they do, how borders take shape, and what details give a place weight.
The channel exists for likeminded artists of all levels who want their worlds to feel intentional, grounded, and alive.
Behind The Maps
Patreon is where Ryan shares the quieter side of Red Quills — the early linework, discarded drafts, mapmaking notes, and downloadable worlds that never appear on YouTube. It’s the space where his process slows down enough for people to see how each map is shaped and why certain choices are made.
Members get access to weekly downloadable maps, private Discord channels, votes on future topics, live Q&As, and at higher tiers, direct feedback on their own worlds. It’s a small, thoughtful community built around curiosity, generosity, and a shared love of worldbuilding.
For those who want to go deeper and ask questions to a community of likeminded cartographers, this is where Ryan teaches the parts of mapmaking that rarely get spoken aloud.
Commission a World
For storytellers who want a setting that feels lived-in, logical, and real, Ryan creates hand-drawn maps shaped by the histories, tensions, and quiet truths of your world. He considers why a city was built where it was, how cultures meet, clash, or coexist, and what stories the land itself remembers.
Every commission begins with a rough sketch, a story seed, a fragment of lore, or even just a feeling. From there, Ryan works closely with you to understand the world beneath the surface — the rules, the rhythms, the conflicts — and translates that into a map with structure, intention, and heart.
The result is more than an illustration. It’s a place your characters can walk, your players can explore, and your stories can grow into for years to come.
What Red Quills Represents
Red Quills is built on a simple belief: imagined worlds deserve the same care as real ones. A coastline can define a kingdom. A fault line can spark a war. A single road can change the fate of a story. Maps aren’t decoration — they’re the quiet architecture of a world.
This space was created for people who understand that. Writers who chase coherence. Dungeon Masters who want their players to step into a world that feels alive. Artists, worldbuilders, and daydreamers who look at empty space and instinctively start sketching possibilities.
Red Quills exists to support that instinct — to give storytellers the tools, maps, knowledge, and community that help imaginary worlds take shape with intention and care.