Sept / Oct '17 Lite Challenge: Caves of Chaos Section 1

[Bioluminescence]

Hello everyone!

So I decided to be inspired by old school 80's secret decoder filters (like this GI Joe Sticker Album), and try to represent the surface and the dungeon on the same map.
It's a high risk-high reward strategy! (That's what I'm telling myself anyway, with such an odd tactic).

Not sure what I mean? Here's my scale check and proof of concept image:

### Latest WIP ###
CofC_Seg1_01-proofofconcept.jpg

Now, this is just to get the rough layout, and hopefully get the right scale (I've never had to care about dpi before - this is all kinds of new to me) - my plan is to go heavy on the surface detail so that most of everywhere has some of the blue or red showing. A bit like the artwork/wallpaper by Carnovsky.

There'll be careful use of black for details that I want to be present in both versions, and is important enough to pop. It may be that this is going to be super overkill for the whole map, and I only do it for some small bits of the map, but heck - let's see how it goes! Get your decoder filters ready, secret-solvers

[Bogie]

Interesting concept Bioluminescence. Thanks for joining the Challenge.

[Redrobes]

I dont remember these in the old D&D and old school maps but its a great idea. Maybe it was just that I was not into GI Joe...

[Bioluminescence]

I tried a few different wall shading effects, and I think I like this faceted 'rough hewn rock' effect that I've got here.
Still not sure how to shade the wall from top to bottom (you can see a scribbled test in one section) nor am I sure if I want to put a thin white stroke around things like furniture etc. yet.
I.e. lots still to experiment with!

### Latest WIP ###
CofC_Seg1_02.jpg

[Tenia]

I like your walls too. Do you want to shade them uniformly or have a lighting effect ?

[ladiestorm]

Now this is going to make for an interesting challenge! It seems you and I had the same idea... kind of... but we are each taking a different approach. I like where you are going, so far... let's see what happens!

[Bogie]

Coming a long nicely Bio! But a quick correction for you. the 2 portions of your section do not actually connect to each other. Rooms 7,8,9,10 are further up the hillside than 3,4,5,6. They are on different levels and have separate entrances ( A & B )

[Bioluminescence]

Good call, Bogie - I had that on my notes, but the rough outline I'm mostly following had that early mistake. Those sections are very almost overlapping so I'll be sure to try to put special effort into differentiating them.

Tenia - I'm hoping to have the walls shaded from pale at the 'top' to the same mid-gray as the floor to give a bit of depth to it. Also, probably try to vary it by facet a little to make it feel more hewn from the rock.
The description of the areas doesn't feature much in the way of light (hobgoblins mostly have darkvision, I'm guessing) and if this were used for a Roll20 game or something, having 'baked in' lighting wouldn't work if players brought their own light sources, or extinguished existing light sources. So I may not include light sources and instead keep it fairly neutrally ambient so that DMs could light as required. Can you tell I'm a level designer in real life?

[Bioluminescence]

Doesn't look like much, but those cave walls take a while to do. Which is my own fault, of course.
I think I've made the corridors too narrow now, so I'll have to do a bit of scootching them out to make room.

### Latest WIP ###
CofC_Seg1_03.jpg

[industrygothica]

Looks pretty neat, but my mind is playing that cruel perspective joke on me again. I think it'll look fantastic when it's finished.