Instagram story viewer> @charisloke> Posts

Charis Loke | Illustrator 🗺️ 🇲🇾

@charisloke

4.4K

followers

1725

following

✨ Fantasy maps & art for adult, YA, MG books: interiors, endpapers, edges. 💜 Ace
🗨️ Rep'd by @darleyanderson_illustration
(NS0168673-H)

POSTS STORIES REELS TAGGED

"But here, where the universe has slipped into sleep, there are no maps..."

I haven't stopped thinking about Nonstandard Candles by Yoon Ha Lee (@deuceofgears) ever since I read it in @morningtransport three years ago. It's a shimmering story about patience and care, mentorship and mapmaking in the darkness of space. I love it with all my heart, and not just because I draw maps for books.

So I made a personal piece inspired by it for my portfolio—it's meant as a cover illustration, for print and online. The background is painted with ink named after Malaysian tin mines, Diamine's Bijih Timah; the mapmaker and apprentice are drawn and painted digitally. Started this in a @visualartspassage class with guidance from Audrey Benjaminsen, John English, Sterling Hundley and Edward Kinsella—thank you for your comments and advice!

You can read the story on the Sunday Morning Transport website. Please do, it's so, so good. I'm now on a personal quest to illustrate more Yoon Ha Lee stories. ✨

#scifiillustration #bookillustration #yoonhalee by @charisloke

3

25

a year ago

🔥For @litjoycrate's (now sold out) box set of The Poppy War trilogy by @kuangrf, I got to design a map that spans the top, side, and bottom edges. The locations Rin travels to in each book are featured along that book's edge, while the Viper and Phoenix gods watch in the void.

I had fun coming up with designs for each city based on the text. Speer is in the margins, located on the bottom edge of the final book. If you know how it ends, well. You know. Sketches + additional notes are in the post before this.

This is a gorgeous set with lots of art including tip-in illustrations by fellow Malaysian and kawan @volapardus. I can't wait to hold the physical copies. Thanks to Amanda and Courtney at LitJoy for coordinating!

#mapmonday #spredges #sprayededgesbooks #fantasymaps #thepoppywar #LitJoyCrate by @charisloke

3

24

2 years ago

How I make a map, shown here with the stained glass map for @hwhittenwrites' The Nightshade Crown series, from @orbitbooks_us. I love working in a visual direction that's directly informed by the book's world.

The process:
1. Read the manuscript.
2. Research visual cultures and possible influences; assemble a moodboard.
3. Sketch ideas, gestures, icons, thumbnails on paper.
4. Do a layout sketch and notes to send to the art director. In this case I was proposing a specific style to AD @planetpinto that I hadn't previously worked in, so I wanted to do a tighter sketch and solve most of the compositional issues upfront.
5. Work in order of lines, flats, textures and shading.
6. Adjust text labels and values as I go along, taking care to maintain legibility and a visual hierarchy.
7. Draw. Paint. Draw some more.
8. Final checks and it's done!

I'm trying out portrait carousels as a way to show more details—intricate, landscape format pieces like maps are tough to display on IG. Let me know what you think!

#mapmonday #bookmap #fantasymap #thefoxgloveking #thehemlockqueen #thenightshadegod #hannahwhitten #cartographyart #thenightshadecrown by @charisloke

3

11

a year ago

New stickers, reprints for Hope Zine, and other goods—this Saturday only, @maxsterism and I will be tabling at POP, organised by the fine folks of @carminepencil. See you at Awegallery! This year there are different vendors for both days, so it'll be double the paper and fun. Bring your zines to trade at the trading table too.

📜 Paper Only Please! Zine + Sticker Market
📍 Awegallery, Taman Paramount, PJ
🗓️ 17 & 18 October 2026, 11am–6pm
🎟️ No ticket required, free entry by @charisloke

3

20

3 days ago

Artist Highlight #11: JUST WRITE CHARIS AND MAX

Charis and Max are an illustrator-comic artist pair whose friendship is built on the bedrock of love for visual communication and memes. While pursuing their own practices, they still squirrel away time to collaborate and make things that feed their collective brainrot, anxieties, and hopes.

Event Information:
🖨️ Paper Only Please! Zine + Sticker Market
📍 Awegallery, Taman Paramount, Petaling Jaya
🗓️ 17 & 18 October 2026, 11 AM - 6 PM
🎫 No ticket required!
#zines #zinemarket #artistalley #artmarket #awegallery #stickermarket #stickers by @charisloke

87

6

10 days ago

Tiny preview of my zine page art for @dragonageannual 2027. The physical calendar, zine, and merchandise can be preordered till September 30 while digital preorders run till January 31st; proceeds go to MSF Sweden.

So much amazing art and writing has been created for this project; I'm particularly looking forward to the bonus tarot cards unlocked as a stretch goal, as well as the A4 foiled art print!

#dragonage #dragonageannual #dragonagetheveilguard A crop of an illustration showing part of a massive dwarven statue in the background, and two armored dwarves standing in the foreground. by @charisloke

3

6

a month ago

Board art for books 1-3 of the Dresden Files, from @thebrokennbinding. It's been years since I read them, so this was an opportunity for a reread. The concept I pitched was narrative collages anchored by key items from each book: Harry's pentacle necklace (with lightning chain), police handcuffs, Amoracchius (with embedded nail). Each illustration shows locations—the lake house, Marcone's estate, St. Mary of the Angels—and comes with little references to the plot and characters for readers to pick up on.

I've also used shapes that tie in with each story. Fool Moon is all about circles: binding circles, the moon, the handcuffs, the different werewolf groups. Storm Front has the jagged clarity of lightning and the Sight, with the lakefront trees and buildings of the Chicago skyline mirroring each other's tall, vertical shapes. Grave Peril has twisting smoke and nightmares and flames. The spines have no text on them, so instead we have a little visual summary plus creatures which appear in each book.

Thanks to AD Petrik Leo and @agent_becca for all the help on this! Slightly nerve-wracking to be working on such a well-known series, but I'm glad to know Jim Butcher gave full approval for the artwork!

#thebrokenbinding #dresdenfiles by @charisloke

3

37

2 months ago

We are delighted to finally reveal our set of Books 1-3 in The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher! 🥳🎉

Follow Harry Dresden, a private detective and wizard, as he investigates supernatural disturbances in contemporary Chicago 🕵️‍♂️🧙‍♂️

We are currently working on upgrading a few of the specs, so will announce the full list and costs soon!

New Cover Art by @micahepsteinart
Typography by @jeffbrown_graphics
PLC Boards by @charisloke
Digital Edges by @park_sunga
Illustrated Endpapers by @jeffbrown_graphics
3 Black & White Interior Illustrations by @mikaelbourgouin

Costs & Sale Dates:
- We will be holding a presale for Tier 1 Fantasy subs on Friday, 25th September 2026, at 12 pm BST.
- We will be holding a presale for Tier 2 Fantasy and SF&F subs on Saturday, 26th September 2026 at 12 pm BST.
- We will be holding a presale for those interest list on Sunday, 27th September 2026 at 12 pm BST.
- General sale will take place on Monday 28th September at 12 pm BST.

More details to come soon! 💚 by @charisloke

2k

225

2 months ago

Visual diary for the week: printmaking galore, possibly my new favourite gallery label of all time, a speculative literature festival, and transformative works of art at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre and the Kunsthalle. This was the first time in seven years that I've been to Bangkok, in excellent company, and I definitely need to return more often.

#seajourneying by @charisloke

3

14

2 months ago

A look behind the scenes: colour choices, hidden faces, and how the two endpapers for @sunyidean's The Girl with a Thousand Faces are composed to flow like parts of an infinity symbol.

AD: @claymorecovers

#thebrokennbinding #girlwithathousandfaces #illustrationprocess #endpapers by @charisloke

3

11

4 months ago

Front endpaper for TBB's edition of The Girl with a Thousand Faces, the May SF&F subscription pick. A stunning story by @sunyidean, and the perfect book to go all out with the brushwork for.

No spoilers, but a couple of details I wanted to include in the art: having Mercy look like a fifty-something-year old aunty who's lived through war and tough periods; the omniscient gaze of the goddess Kwun Yam (a mix of Guanyin and Mazu); patterns from Hong Kong architecture—iron grilles, antennae, lanterns, signboards—as beads on the goddess' headpiece; some body horror; and seeing how many faces I could fit into one piece. And calligraphy for 九龍城寨, based off an actual sign from Kowloon Walled City.

Thanks to AD @claymorecovers for letting me run with all the ideas, and @yubabasbooks for the photo of the physical endpaper!

#bookillustrations #endpapers #gothichorror #girlwithathousandfaces #specialeditionbooks by @charisloke

3

24

5 months ago

Back endpaper for The Girl with a Thousand Faces by @sunyidean, done for TBB's May SF&F subscription box. It's one of the best books I've read recently: a genre-bending gothic horror and historical fantasy set in WWII Hong Kong and later decades. Revenge and reconciliation, trauma and healing, cycles of death and life.

As a counter to the front endpaper, which shows the claustrophobic interior of Kowloon Walled City where the book begins, I chose a more hopeful scene set in the idyllic waters around the island, another major location. Keeping things vague here: the two faces hidden in the cliff brushstrokes are sisters.

Thanks to AD @claymorecovers for the art direction, @agent_becca, and @moraeuknow for the shot of the physical book!

#thebrokenbinding #girlwithathousandfaces #endpapers #bookart #specialeditionbooks by @charisloke

3

22

5 months ago