Marshford - A Town Practice Map

[Wired]

Tainotim's excellent Stonewall practice map prompted me to try my hand at doing town maps myself. This is what I came up with. It's a small town in the Forgotten Realms setting, but really, it could be anywhere.

I didn't add roof shading as I feared that would make the map overall too dark. Maybe I'll add that lateron in a colorized version.

Marshford Upload 75pc.jpg

After some of your feedback I've uploaded a version with a slight blur and lower opacity:

VERSION 2

Marshford Upload 75pc.jpg

[ThomasR]

I really love your setting and the linework is great. I've got an issue with the hard shadows. They really give relief to the city but it almost seems like it's a paper town with really hard edges, as if the walls themselves are blocks without windows or texture. That's a personal feeling, not truth of any kind. I guess texturing the rest of the map with other shadows and reducing the sharpness and opacity of the building shadows would have softened the map bit.

Don't get me wrong, I really like the map and in a way, the shading gives a timburtonesque feel to it that is great, I was just proposing another way. Rep worthy without a doubt.

[Wired]

Ah crap, I forgot to run a Gaussian blur filter over the shadow layer! Did it for all the WIPs, forgot it here.

[DanielHasenbos]

This maps is great! Nice to see people try out town maps. It makes we want to join in as well! I would suggest still adding shades for the roof and reducing the sharpness and opacity of the ground shadows. Without shading on the roofs it looks like they're all flat roofs at first glance. That's the strongest for the towers, even though they actually have very pointy roofs. Otherwise really great work (:

[Mouse]

That's a really excellent first village map.

Congratulations, Wired

EDIT: The contrasting textures on the rooftops work really well.

I think the shadows are better being as sharp as they are rather than blurred. Blurring causes that pale gap between the building and its shadow, and makes the building seem like its glowing... but that's only my opinion. I do agree that the depth of the shadow only really needs to be about half what it is, which will actually make everything pop even more than it already does

[Wired]

Thank you, my friends!

I've uploaded a slightly corrected version with a miniscule blur and a lighter shadow layer. Take a look at the first post.

[Mouse]

Oh yes - that's much better

If you do a roof-shaded full colour version one day, you may even find you can take the shadows even more transparent, but they look really great on this black and white version

[DanielF]

Very nice! I like "The Chanting Goose".

I actually think I like the original shadows more - to me it creates a more dramatic atmosphere, but it also depends on what kind of mood you're going for. I think either way adding roof shading would be an improvement, especially on the round towers.

[Wired]

Okay, fine, you've all convinced me (read: nagged long enough :p ) to add roof shading. I wanted to add a few crippled tress to The Bog anyways, so why stop there?

[ChickPea]

My vote goes to the original shadows too. I like the impact they have on the map. They really make a statement! I'm glad you're going to shade the roofs, as I think that'll be an improvement, and I'd also love to see a coloured version too. You can't walk away from this one just yet, Wired.

It's great work and I'll rep if I can.