Madness at Gardmore Abbey Encounter Maps

[PaxVeritas]

Greetings Jacktannery,
After looking at your artwork/maps I was inspired to post my first comment here. You're very talented. I especially enjoyed the window lighting on the floor in the wizard's tower, and the way the town faded deep below the hero's tower battlemap. From a usability point of view, I was really inspired by your heated pool/forest map, as well as your excellent gatehouse and many others. I wish you good luck in your future endeavors.

[Jacktannery]

Thank you PaxVeritas - great to get such encouragement.

... your heated pool/forest map ....

You are the second person to say it, if you mean my Encounter 9 map with the spider webs. I whipped this out for my PCs a little while ago. I was really proud, and hoped that they would be suitably impressed. They say they pride comes before a fall...

After pointing out that the low cloud in the middle of the forest was unrealistic (I tried to explain it was supposed to be a small lake - but they kept thinking it was a cloud or something steaming) they pointed out that in the future I might be better off downloading free maps for use in the campaign. They even gave me a link to site where I can download 4E encounter maps! I still enjoy making them though.

[Vhex]

I've been following this thread and I think you're doing a fine job creating maps. I've been saving them for use in my own Madness campaign.

[Jacktannery]

I've been saving them for use in my own Madness campaign.

Great - I was hoping someone else would use them, not just me. Make sure to use the finished and polished maps in the finished map thread, not the rougher maps in this thread (see post 1 for link). I'll probably get back to this in March after I complete the mapping challenge.

[Jacktannery]

Starting the next couple of these - here is the first WIP for Encounter 20 the barracks:

Enc 20.jpg

[Jacktannery]

Possibly the finished version:

Enc 20.jpg

[Bogie]

Looks great, how do you make the walls?

[Jacktannery]

I am still experimenting on these. My current approach is as follows:

1) download a photo of a masonry wall from here: www.mayang.com/textures. I get this sort of thing:

stone_wall_lichen_4183008.JPG

2) turn the photo into a texture tile. I do this (in the Gimp) by cropping a square section of the texture, and then if I'm lazy using the 'create seamless texture' filter on GIMP or else, in this case, doing it properly (offset image by 50% X and Y, then clone/heal along the seams, then adjust the colours if needed - usually not needed if you are going to recolour as I usually do). Now I have this sort of thing (I've had to save this as a jpg because it is too big to post here otherwise - my file is 7mb, but this should work just as well):

stone_wall_texture.jpg

3) On my map, I make a layer with my wall texture (often I rescale it so the blocks are the size I want). Then I use a layer mask to block all parts of the layer except the wall. Then I go over each bit carefully with a HARD white or black brush respecting the stones (this bit takes long!).

Enc 20.jpg

3.5) Optional step. If you want to change the colour of the wall, desaturate completely and add a new layer on top filled with a block colour of your choice, then copy the same walls layer mask to it. Set this layer to burn and opacity at c. 50%

4) Make a new layer over that. Using the colour selection tool on the wall layer mask white bits, select your wall outline(s) then on your new layer fill this with black, then copy the same walls layer mask to it. Use a big soft brush and the smudge tool. Stroke away from the edges of the wall towards the centre roughly. This allows the walls to 'appear' - you can see the effects clearly on my Nightwyrm Fortress Maps.

5) Make a layer below and use a soft brush with black and smudge a lot to make under-wall shadows. This is crucial and makes the walls pop out - I no longer use drop shadows on my maps - I find they don't look good.

6) Cross your fingers and hope it works.

[Jacktannery]

Added some broken beds from the dundjinni forums

Enc 20.jpg

EDIT: And made the next map, which is the last one of the above-ground maps:

Enc 21.jpg

[Bogie]

That's a lot of work to make the walls, but they do look great!