Feb '19 / March '19 Lite Challenge: Skull Rock
First and foremost, my apologies for coming in so late to the competition and with a 1-and-done. Well not quite a 1-and-done, but with a map nearing completion.
I had a couple maps that were 90% complete that I needed to get up and posted before I could commit fully to this challenge. And after the last challenge I really didn’t want to start something I would get hung up on or not finish in time.
At first I wanted to do Hansel And Gretel, my favorite fairy tale, but I thought for sure everyone would do it, and realistically speaking while I felt I could have added my dirty, grunge to the fairy tale I couldn't see much use for a gingerbread house after the challenge. So I googled fairy tales and Peter Pan came up, not sure it really counts, but it has been around for over 100 years, and I love the book and all its renditions into movies. And since I find the most fun creating battlemaps, I knew I needed a small area that would make an impact, be fun, and challenge me. I ended up with Skull Rock – A rock outcropping to haunt the nights.
From the beginning I struggled, not getting a layout and the first draft of the Rock done until February 27th. Even then, the top down wasn't giving me the depth I wanted in the Rock formation nor the skull, so I cheated the perspective a little.
It wasn’t until the 3rd where I finally got the rock to come to life, a strange concoction of texture, paint, overlay, burn, bump(Thrown in with more than my fair share of GIMP locking up from a 6GB file). After that it flowed rather quickly, weaving in the moss, and deep crevices, cutting the Islands into the water. I resisted the urge to do more vines on the skull and vegetation, as I wanted the rock to be fairly bare. The tree is my rendition of the hanging tree in Peter Pan although I don’t believe it was on Skull Rock. I still might hang a body from it, out and over the water.
The rock landing was added as a battlemap needs some area to fight. And while I feel the battle can take place at sea, sea monsters, sharks, crocs, etc. I wanted a little bit of land to fight on before entering the Skull itself.
Where am I going from here: I don’t know for sure.
A lot of ideas and images are still flooding my mind. Probably just a simple fade for border, title at the bottom. The water needs work still. And the Dark spots on the water are missing rock outcroppings yet to be added and need more dimension. The tree, and landing area are just in the beginning stages. And I have a lot of cleaning up to do on the layers, and shadows still.
Only 1 week to go, so hopefully the weekend will be productive.
### LATEST WIP ###
SkullRockMarch7thab.jpg
Originally Posted by arsheesh
