[WIP] Second Map Ever: Village on the back of a Colossi

[TavernMage]

Starting with an Apple iPad with an Apple Pencil and the apps Concepts and Procreate...

This is the cover of a module we are writing:
Cover.jpg

We wanted to create a medieval, fantasy world version of the village on the colossi's back.

Here's our latest:
Bedine Village v7.jpg

The process and progress is below.

We were inspired by Caeora's desert village:
Camp painted.jpg

Our first version was uninspiring to us:
Bedine Village v2.jpg

Then we tried clipping out the tents from Caeora's map. We tried to add blur to the edges of the tents but the results were disappointing.
Bedine Village v3.jpg

Then we started with a new outline for the beast from an elephant drawing:
elephant.JPEG

We then retraced the buildings ourselves which gave this:
Bedine Village v3_5.jpg

We were still unhappy with the tents. Then we found Caeora's uncolored drawings of the buildings and so we combined them, to get this in Procreate:
Bedine Village v4.jpg

But the lines were very fine and clipping art left white borders around everything that had to be colored. We also tried coloring the beast in ProCreate with a corrugated pattern which gave this:
Bedine Village v5.jpg

As a result, we decided to move everything back into Concepts so it was all vectors. We traced the village elements so they became vectors as well. Then we were able to add the shading that we wanted. This gave us this result:
Bedine Village v5_5.jpg

Then we tried adding a shading layer. Because everything was vectors, the shade went right through the buildings - so we had to color the village as well. We only wanted a partial grid, so we had to draw that as a separate layer as well by hand. Which gave this:
Bedine Village v6.jpg

We then added more color to the village. We discovered at that point that we don't know how to make Concepts create a flat masking shadow layer. As a result, when we put the shaded layer to have some transparency (so objects below it show through) - the shadow isn't smooth. Every brush overlapping brush stroke is seen. As a result, we had to go back and remove all the overlapping brush strokes in the shadows so the color worked fine. This gave this result:
Bedine Village v7.jpg

We are now trying to decide what to polish next. We seem to have reached the limits of our craft. The beast? it would be great to make it match the map a bit more but we are unsure what to think of trying. The village? All the objects have very abstract flat colors - which we think balances well - but we are wondering what would be the "next step" to think about for what direction to take this.

We thought this is reasonable for a second ever created map - but I guess we will leave that to you to decide. Our one question is - does anyone think this is reasonable enough to use in a DMSGuild.com published adventure? We have been quoted $500 to polish this and we are trying to decide whether to pay for that or just go with our own maybe with some additional work by our hand.

Lastly, which do you like better of the last two - the black and white or the color?