Marshford - A Town Practice Map

[Ilanthar]

Nice one! I love the details of the roofs.
The slightly blurred shadows have my preferrence, but I also think you need shadows for the roofs and probably in the forests/land topography too (to break the "flat" sense of the trees, especially). That's why I often have 2-3 layers for the different shadows on this kind of maps.

And I would have another critic. As your line art is really nice, right now, I think the texture cloudy effect of the water looks a bit weird. But that could get interesting if you add colors and a layer effect, though.

[Wired]

Nice one! I love the details of the roofs.
The slightly blurred shadows have my preferrence, but I also think you need shadows for the roofs and probably in the forests/land topography too (to break the "flat" sense of the trees, especially). That's why I often have 2-3 layers for the different shadows on this kind of maps.

Yes, the longer I look at it, the more I am convinced that it really would help the map if I added more shadows inside the forest for those singular trees I hinted at there, and probably for the hill on the eastern side.

And I would have another critic. As your line art is really nice, right now, I think the texture cloudy effect of the water looks a bit weird. But that could get interesting if you add colors and a layer effect, though.

Using the cloud render for the water spaces was a late addition to the map, and one born out of, well, I wouldn't directly say desperation, but more out of a sense of I can't think of any other option at the moment. The reason here was that I used the lineart to indicate height on the land layer, and adding coastal features/lines again would have made it extremely dubious to distinguish between the two because the lineart would have been so similar.

[tainotim]

Lovely map Wired. I agree with most of what Ilanthar said in the above post. Hope to see more maps from you like this one soon.

Also, thanks for the mention.

Cheers,
Tainotim

[Sanderling]

This is a great map, with a lot of excellent detail, and I immediately want to use it for a game session.

My main concern is that the shadows are distractingly strong, even on the second version. This is downright confusing for the shadow at Spearpoint Ridge, which at first glance looks like a random inkblot rather than a natural feature. Even knowing it’s some sort of projecting rock, the shadow doesn’t really feel like a natural part of the setting.

I’d also wonder if the volume of the river could really be funneled through such a narrow millrace. I’m no expert on mills, but that’s a lot of water for the width of the channel.

Apart from these points, I really like the map—a lot of the details have been nicely thought out, and I especially like the patched-together walkways between islands.