Big changes at a small village in the woods

[Chewiecide]

Well, this is my third and for the first period last map attempt within my DSA (german roleplaying system) campaign.

There´s a small village deep in the woods at a bigger lake, but in the last weeks there were dramatic changes:
- a big worker camp made out of tents and several new houses was built up
- lots of trees where used as building material
- the two hills nearby are under heavy construction: in one of them the workers are digging deep - perhaps to find some gold or even more expensive metals?
- the other hill seems to be used as a place for a huge castle - allthough there´s nothing more to see than some preparations at the foundation

camp2_final.jpg


I love editing CD3 maps in PS afterwards - imho the points to do:
- rework the mine if possible (no idea to do better yet)
- rework the shadows of the hills (i´m just trial & error it out how to do it well)

[Melvin]

Hello!

Love the colours, it looks clean and tidy!

I'm no expert, but I guess the white structures are the tents? And if they are they may look a little bit too organized? Maybe change their orientation a little, to make it look more "organic"?

Regards,
Melvin

[FallenImmortal]

I agree with Melvin. A lot of the structures seem too cleanly organized. The cluster of brownish reddish coloured buildings on the right seems a lot more natural. I would also expect a few more spotty tents or houses more isolated, rather than the only non-camp dwellings being in still small clusters. I would expect one or two people to build a little distance away. But everything else looks spectacular.

[foremost]

I'm glad you said "dramatic changes", cause that looks like a lot of tents! They outnumber the buildings at a fairly decent ratio,
so you might consider having further development (in terms of housing) at the village if you're aiming to support a bigger population.

I did note the organized-tents thing as well. If these tents are the result of a "big-worker camp", as you mentioned, they probably
would not be as organized. However, that's already been mentioned and covered.

Another thing I noticed, this one having to do with the border. For the most part, it looks like the actual map (within the border) has
bumpy edges, and I like that. However, the nicks are nowhere near as dominant on the right side of the map, giving it a strange
look. Not sure if this was done on purpose.

At any rate, I love the colors, and the map looks very much like art! So nice job

[Korash]

Actually, I can see where an organized company, or at least site manager (esp. if he/she is an engineer) might have all these tents arranged in an orderly fashion. I have spent enough time in military tent cities where all the "ducks" were lined up all prim and proper. It all depends on how much planning or prep time they had for the influx.

[Chewiecide]

Thank you for your great responses,

i´m proud that you like my general map style. I´m working at a 2nd edition, so let me give you some further information about the map:

- it´s rather a military driven operation. There are lots of workers to build up the mine as well as the new castle, but also many soldiers protecting them. The image of driving the older inhabitants out of the area within their old, few buildings naturally placed in the countryside is intended. But perhaps the contrast is too strong? Maybe i should make a graphical difference between the extremely structured soldier-camp and the slightly more chaotic workers?
- the map border was a preset, I didn´t like it, too - there will be a new version with really beautifull boarders thanks to a really nice tutorial found in here
- I´m still working at the shadows of the hills - i just want to have some more heigth-differences in it, so hopefully it will work...