[WIP] Elsir Vale (from D&D 3.5s adventure Red Hand of Doom)

[NedS298]

I think this piece has a more striking composition. The dark landforms are concentrated towards the top, unlike the other map - many of the landforms were different colours, yet had very similar values which left the eye wandering. On this piece the colours are also muted, as you said, and less overwhelming; this has worked more effectively for your map than the saturated effect. The general feeling of the map is far more interesting. Also, your use of shadows on the mountains gives your map a light source and serves to balance it. If you can find a way to continue improving all these aspects then the map will be both easily read (aside from the fonts; I couldn't read them) and of higher artistic merit.

[mgilbrtsn]

I like both versions of the map. I would be hard pressed to decide what I would want.

[Antariuk]

Heyy everyone,

Hard to believe a year has passed... I haven't abandoned this project, although I am way behind my imaginary schedule. Nevertheless, there is an update for the original map version that I'd like to share with you. Nothing big, it's all details and fine-tuning, but I think the result looks a lot better now.

I toned down the color of the grass, put highlights onto all open areas, sort-of inverted the colors of mountains (I thought it looked weird to have almost white mountains surrouned by dark hills, now it's the other way around), replaced the parchment texture with a different one and made it look a bit 'burned', bended the name tags for a more organic look, and fiddled with a few details here and there. The only custom part of the map now is a small town in the far south-west, which is a feature a GM who used my map wanted to have and I liked it enough to just keep it - since there is nothing else going on in that corner.

As before, I made variants with the original names from Red Hand of Doom and a Forgotten Realms version.

Cannath Vale (Forgotten Realms) GM Version (all visible)

Elsir-Vale-FR-GM.jpg

Cannath Vale (Forgotten Realms) Player Version (no Vraath Keep, Ghostlord's Lair, Fane of Tiamat)

Elsir-Vale-FR-Players.jpg

Elsir Vale (Original) GM Version (all visible)

Elsir-Vale-Original-GM.jpg

Elsir Vale (Original) Player Version (no Vraath Keep, Ghostlord's Lair, Fane of Tiamat)

Elsir-Vale-Original-Player.jpg


Let me know what you think, and enjoy!