Island Path, Adept & Expert (Patreon)

Welcome back Adepts and Expert patrons, your alternate map this week is a nice and sunny version of the swamp path! The intent for this was to imitate the style of my Crumbling Fort map from a couple weeks back, and while the effect isn't quite the same I think it still will make for a ridiculously happy battle to the death.

Let's talk about how the map developed, shall we?

1. Hey, looks pretty similar right? A couple small islands missing here and there, but overall that looks just about like the finished product. 

Not pictured however are all the discarded sketches for this map that didn't make the cut, none of which had the right flow. At the end of the day, I want my maps to have a number of different potential paths to travel with obstacles to bypass or exploit and many areas for the fight to congregate. What I like about the map I ended up with is the arrangement of islands and choke points. There are several ideal places for ranged-focused monsters and players to set up, a couple open areas with bits of cover here and there for melee combat to take place, and verticality if you feel like climbing a tree. Overall, I think it's a solid tactical map.

2. As you might have noticed, I drew the grass differently this time. The way I normally do didn't feel right for a swampy map so I improvised something between the way I draw dirt and the way I used to draw grass for my early maps. I think the effect is fine, it did the job at least, but it took me 4x longer than normal to draw, paint, and shade. Overall, a huge pain. I'll keep this style in mind in case it seems necessary again but I'm not looking forward to it.

I tried something a little different with the trees as well, a very small change in the leaves' lines. I connected various bunches of leaves into swathes of leaves, and it came out looking excellent I think. Like a said, it's such a small change but the feel of the trees is much better now. Not perfect, but better.

I'm not sure what happened to the logs to make them stand out so much in the outlines-only pics, but what can you do. 

3. The colors were tricky. As always I wanted to make a somewhat colorful map, but nothing I did felt right. After that I tried a very gray and brown palette which was a mild success though not exciting to look at. I don't see the point of making maps for RPGs if they aren't exciting, so I cut the difference while trying out a palette I always enjoy: turquoise and yellow. I dulled them down a lot, but with mottling of shadow, light, and a foggy effect it popped better than I expected! Pretty pleased with this one, it has some vibes I quite enjoy while still feeling swampy.