Frequently Asked Questions

---

Stone Quest is the company I created to make and sell my bouldering maps and fantasy art. The focus is on the maps, which showcase the locations of  each area's best and most popular bouldering routes. I'll also be offering prints of my fantasy art, stickers, and hopefully T-shirt and tank tops down the road. 

The Fantasy Art prints are of the highest print quality I could possibly find. I was set to do photo paper but as I researched the highest quality prints, I discovered a different print process called Giclee fine art printing. I ran a few test prints and was immediately sold. I tried the three highest quality papers offered and chose the premium which offered 12 inks compared to eight for the other two. The details were as clear, bright, and detailed as my zoomed-in cintiq screen. Each is printed to order which can take up to two weeks.

The map posters were ordered in bulk with the specific intent to keep costs down as much as I could. I have those in stock and can ship within a couple days.

No, we do not offer framing. Despite the natural shapes of the areas mapped, I've stayed to the standard poster sizes of 18x24 and 24x36 specifically so that you would have an easier time framing these should you decide to do so. The Fantasy Art prints are not in a standard size and would require their own framing. If you live in Souther California, I'd like to offer a nod to Best Framing in Costa Mesa for their high end, professional framing services. 

My availability to work on commissions will dependent at any given time depending on my animation work schedule, climbing season, life, or other. Let's talk though. Email me at frank@stonequest.net. For anything animation or film related, please reach out to my agent Donna Felten at Natural Talent Inc. nti@naturaltalentinc.com

I am currently planning to work on my Black Mountain maps. An 18x24 version with 180 lines covering Corral to Group Sites. And a 24x36 masterpeice covering over five square miles with 240 lines, with Trailside and Deep Black included! I can't fly drone up there so I have to foot it to a lot of rock still and can't promise I'll finish this season before weather limits my search efforts. That one is more likely to be done next Spring

I have maps for The Happys (140 routes)and The Sads (120 routes) built and I'm hoping to get back up to Bishop soon to finish the work we started there. I have 68 of the 120 at The Sads locked but the great rains of 2023 canceled three planned trips. The nice thing about Bishop is I can get up there in the winter... As long as Chalk Bluff Road doesn't get washed out again!

We'll see after those. I'd like to hear the feedback from the climbing community and see how this venture is received before I plan too far ahead. While designing the logo for Stone Quest, I realized how cool some of what I was working on would look on shirts. I may dip my toe into the apparel realm. But the maps and art will always come first.

I pledge to resolve any issue as logically and rationally as I can using the best information I can find from the most trusted sources.  Consensus and multiple confirmation is important to me whenever and wherever I can find it. One area of concern is that sometimes people who post on one source may post on others as well.  I never double checked to see if I was getting double confirmation from the same source. Not an issue for climbs with over 10 votes on Mountain Project, but might be an issue for some of the fringe climbs that made the list or didn't. For instance, I'm came to find out at the writing of this page and while the project was out for print that "George of the Jungle" might have been traded out of the Tram Select 200 in favor of a few others. Those are the kinds of things that keep me up at night. There will no doubt be debate on some of the decisions I've made but I hope you accept my work in the spirit intended. I plan to produce updated poster versions periodically fixing any mistakes, updating ratings, and adding new climbs etc. Please reach out in the contact us area below. 

The idea is that I'd make a special logo sticker for each map I build that will go out free with each map sold. The only way to get that specific sticker is with the maps. They are not available separately. When you see that specific color logo on the back of a car, you'll immediately know that's a badass climber from Tram, or Joshua Tree, or wherever based on the color. Display them proudly!

I will also be offering other special edition stickers on the site like my Stoner Rock logo edition. I had a lot of fun making that one!

Okay, maybe not a "Frequently asked question" but an opportunity for me to relentlessly bash AI images nonetheless. 

There is no such thing as "AI art". AI does not and cannot create art. It plagiarizes actual art to create images. It is and only will ever be a plagiarizing image-making machine. Soulless and empty. It's a shortcut tool for the talentless. END. OF. STORY. Any "artist" that uses it should feel intense shame! 

No matter what words you tell it, no matter what parameters you give it, there is no connection to the human heart other than stealing those feelings created by other humans and panning them to others for profit. Solve cancer, solve global warming, solve other ills of modern life. Don't ever call it art in front of me lest you want an earful of bashing. 

AI will never know what it is to connect to others on an emotional level. It will never feel any satisfaction from learning and growing as an artist. It will never stay up late at night and into the early morning hours trying to improve and master a craft. It will never have moments where it doubts its ability or sheds tears because it momentarily thinks it's not good enough to do what it's doing . It will never experience the joy of leaping up from a chair triumphantly when it gets a small thing right like the perfect shape of a dragon claw. None of it. It's an empty vessel that can spit out thousands, even millions of soulless images in minutes or seconds. I reject any form of so-called creativity from AI or its users.  Scripts, portraits, animation, film, music, and any other form of art.  And if AI could have feelings, I hope I hurt them real badly.