December/January Challenge : Cavern behind the waterfall

[Jaxilon]

I have always done these from top dead center overhead so I'm going to try doing this from a slightly different angle. I'm not sure if I can pull it off because I haven't done it before but that's what keeps it interesting.

The party has found a lovely cavern behind a waterfall to spend the night. Unfortunately for them, they aren't the first to discover it. Muahaha.

PS. After viewing it on here the grid lines bug me. I'll have to see about them.

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[SandmanNet]

That's really cool. I'm guessing it's hand drawn with some form of photoshop layer effects such as textures and such?

I would get rid of the grid which doesn't really fit a map that isn't top-down.

[tilt]

a good start jax, perhaps you should "lay the grid down" to fit your perspective ... hand drawn iso map perhaps.. or just good-old-perspective (although that would be hard to play on - you'd have to draw the map on a battle map in addition to your map

[RecklessEnthusiasm]

This is beautiful! Jax, this is great! I would recommend you lower the resolution when you are done. The only problem I see is that when you zoom in, it gets a slightly muddy look that is occasionally problematic in some of your images. But! in thumbnail and in the slightly zoomed out version, it is perfect. Honestly, one of the best I've seen from you. I can't wait to see what else you add. The perspective is great, too!

[moutarde]

It looks really good so far Jax! Maybe try off-setting the grid for the upper levels from the lower one a bit. It would probably look better if they didn't line up exactly.

[Jaxilon]

Thanks guys. I will pop my lines so you all can see the original drawing (I did it with my mouse so it's rough). I tried tilting the grid at about a 65 degree angle so it lined up just right with the cavern entrance but it sort of looked wonky.

@Sandman: Unfortunately I have to have the grid as it is part of the challenge requirements this time around. I'm hopeful that I can make it work for the map but I'm not 100% confident. I agree though that it does look better without it.

@RE: I know what you mean with the muddy look I sometimes get. It happens most often when I try to get layers to smoothly merge (I'm still trying to perfect that). Oh and I can at times get a little wild with the smudge tool because it's just so much fun!

@moutarde: That's a great idea. I think I'll try that.

[jtougas]

Ah yer killin me Jax.. It already looks awesome...

[jbgibson]

Hmmm - well, the rule says there has to be a grid - doesn't say it has to cover the whole map sheet. Say your hapless campers are well and truly stuck on the lower level... "climbing the cliff succeeds on 4 or less, on a 5d10 roll.... sorry, FAILED." Agreed the vivid, sharp grid looks off, but how about a subtle gridding of just the cavern floor, and MaYbE the terrain just outside?

[Jaxilon]

I chilled the grid quite a bit and tried what moutarde mentioned. I think it helped a lot but when I posted as jpg it was back to crap so I'll just share the lines I drew with my mouse to start this project (told you they were rough). Somewhere along the way I got into them a bit with the blur stick too :-/

[Jaxilon]

Ok, I think I got the grid thing worked out so it doesn't overwhelm the map. I may have to change it again because I think I'm off on the number of pixels I made it at...which sucks because I don't really feel like jacking around with the grid to be honest. I want to get on with setting up the camp

Anyway, here we are.

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