The Sleepy Dwarf Inn [commission]

[Vhey]

Hello all. This is my first post to the site.

I'm new to cartography but not new to art. Also, not at all new to RPG and tabletop gaming either. I've seen very few dungeon maps on the site so I'm not sure if that sort of thing is considered "cartography" or not so I apologize in advance if this is posted incorrectly.

This was commissioned for a commercial product so I didn't use any token or icons. All was hand painted myself. I have other maps to complete so at least I'm building assets for future maps. And cross posting is fine too. Just can't use this in another commercial product.

Two things I wanted to achieve:
1. Let the map be as descriptive to the player as possible.
2. Not let the map get too cluttered in the process.

This was hard for me to do, a blank room isn't too descriptive. I tried to do this by using dramatic lighting and different textures.

I'd love to get advice from the very talented artists and cartographers on this great site, so don't hold back

[Jaxilon]

Well, first of all, welcome to the guild and might I say what a lovely entrance.

It's beautiful and thank you for showing us your work. I like how you indicated light coming in through the windows via the shadows. Very nice, have a big whack of Reputation!

Oh, and you posted just fine.

[Chick]

Hello Vhey, welcome to the Guild!

That's pretty impressive for a first map post, and even more so that it's all hand drawn. I have a feeling you will be a great addition to this community!

[J.Edward]

Hey Vhey, welcome to the Guild.
Great first post. Really nice work on the Inn.
I think you fully achieved your 2 points.
It conveys well but is not cluttered, yet also not too clean or sterile.
Really well balanced.
Love the fireplace light and the window light.
Suggestions for the future - maybe angle the light coming in the windows as if it's coming from a direction, rather than all directions.
And the fireplace glow could get a bit smoothed or blended at the edges, as the softer light of a fire probably wouldn't be as hard lined.
Now, that was just looking for things to suggest - because this is a splendid piece of work.

I love what appears to be dust twinkling in the light from the windows. That's just awesome to me.
Definitely hope to see more of your work Vhey. It's well done and well thought out.
Have some rep.
Cheers, J.

[Bogie]

Welcome to the Guild Vhey, great work, congrats on the commission.

While regional and world maps are very popular here there are several threads that are for battlemaps.

[arsheesh]

First off, welcome to the Guild! This is beautiful work. You've got a nice smooth painting style. The work you've done with light and shadow really brings the piece to life, giving it great depth. It might have been helpful to include a scale indicating how many square feet/meters a square represented. But the piece itself is fantastic. I very much look forward to seeing more of your work.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[xpian]

This is one of the best tactical-scale building maps I've seen! It has such a great, unified tone to the art and an inviting, uncluttered look. Great little touches with the light shining through the windows, selling the dimensionality even more than the shadows and highlights do.

[Carnifex]

Very nice. Remember that many map objects are free to use for commercial projects.
Regional and world maps are popular here but last year I made 111 detailed dungeon maps in 111 days - I like dungeon maps

Very nice details and great work on the objects/furniture. I have to draw all objects myself as well - I work in Illustrator and vector map objects are hard to find.

[Carnifex]

Not ok!
"All was hand painted myself."
Just put stuff into photoshop and paint them over are not ok if you want to have 100% legal content.

You more or less copied the meander carpets from me. It would have been nice to be credited somehow (instead of saying that you "drew" everything yourself). There are tons of free map objects (probably 500 carpets). Use those instead next time please. Or ask when you are going to copy sonething.

m3qnder.jpg
meander.jpg

[Vhey]

Not ok!
"All was hand painted myself."
Just put stuff into photoshop and paint them over are not ok if you want to have 100% legal content.

You more or less copied the meander carpets from me. It would have been nice to be credited somehow (instead of saying that you "drew" everything yourself). There are tons of free map objects (probably 500 carpets). Use those instead next time please. Or ask when you are going to copy sonething.

m3qnder.jpg
meander.jpg

Sorry, I don't know if you're joking or not. Is this how you haze the new person?
Just google image search 'greek pattern'. It's a VERY common pattern throughout history.

But if it was a joke. Sorry for replying.