Dreary Forest Stream, Adept & Expert (Patreon)

Hey Patrons, welcome back! This week's map was a fun one and I'm very pleased with how it turned out, mostly because I was happy to be back to drawing things that aren't camps. The normal version of this map ended up looking so happy and sunny that I wanted to see how far I could flip it in the other direction, and so your alternate version this time is a spooky color swap! You know what, it's probably just overall more a realistic color palette rather than spooky, but either way it looks pretty rad and has a totally different vibe than my normal maps. 

1. Someday the day will come where I make a map without rocky ledges, but that day isn't today. This might have been a strong contender for a mostly flat map but where's the fun in that?? I consider elevation changes to be an easy way to make a map more interesting to move around in, and better yet it makes it way more fun to shade. 

I think the only other significant difference between my initial sketch and the final product is I cut out a handful of rocks and boulders that were scattered around the map. I struggle with placing props and landmarks too symmetrically and evenly spaced, and I didn't realize how unnaturally placed the rocks looked until I was practically done drawing this one. It was an easy enough fix to cut some at random, though if you see any shadows lingering where a rock once was, my bad.

2. Not the most exciting outlines this time. It's a forest, so I started off thinking real hard about things you might find in a forest. I came up with trees, bushes, and rocks. I'm pretty sure the landscape is more important than the trees, bushes, and rocks scattered around it anyway. Right? 

Anyway, I've been working on making my trees look leafier; last week's Big Camp had a number of trees which, in hindsight, have some oddly symmetrical leaves that I'm not digging. As I mentioned above, I'm to not make things look unnaturally symmetrical or posed, something I'll be prioritizing above all else for a while. 

3. That's a sickeningly happy color palette, right? It was inspired by Toussaint, the region from Witcher 3's Blood and Wine expansion, which may just be the most beautifully colored video game location of all time (just my opinion of course). 

I'm sure many won't be very into the palette, but it just looks so damn happy that I can't help but love it. I think these colors make this map my favorite yet, but I usually think my most recent map is my favorite so take that with a grain of salt.