Ongoing project to map...everything.

[Askren]

Yeah, I agree. The problem is, water is EXTREMELY hard to get right, and most of the time is just me mashing textures together (good, relatively flat, conservatively-lit water textures are hard to come by), and hoping I can stumble into the same effect I had last time, which I rarely can reproduce. I haven't used the cave map, so I may have time to fix it between now and then, since it was kind of rushed to get done in time for my session on Thursday (shame on me for assuming a simple cave would be easier to slap together than a house or something).

Personally, I like floor texture you used in your caves much better, but I couldn't recreate it.

[madcowchef]

I feel your pain. I want someone with an ultralight to fly around taking pictures of water from a top down view day and night! I set up templates with a layer for each texture and then set up a layer mask so I don't lose any of my textures and import them between files as needs be. The advantage of my battlemaps is their simplicity so I can take that time to get some nice textures without doing all the hard work of adding much in the way of features, unlike the higher detail work you're doing. If CG textures allowed it I'd gladly hand out any of the textures I've reworked from their originals.

[rook420]

The Thistletop maps are great and just what I was looking for. It was hard to find the outside map and you've done a wonderful job.
From one DM to another, thanks for the hard work!

[Askren]

So I've been really busy for the last few months, work and such, you know how it goes. Very little time to actually get stuff done.

But, I've gotten some new campaigns going recently, so I got back into mapping, especially since I have some really big ones I need to finish that I've been putting off forever, and more beyond them that just keep getting piled on. I've been testing out some new techniques, too, mostly in pursuit of a final product that's as visually nice as a lot of other people's that I'm envious. There's a few cartographers I'd love to workshop with to learn new things. So yeah, here's the last few days of work from me.

Anyway, I managed some new work on this basement/dungeon map for Jade Regent. A lot of the work here is mostly experimenting with textures on the right-hand cave-like side, as well as color matching the whole thing. The props haven't been blended or anything, still playing with them. Very much a WIP.
Brinewall Dungeon progress.jpg

And just a tavern I threw together for a game called War of the Burning Sky. It's set up for a fairly specific situation, but it could feasibly fill other rules. There's gonna be a second floor too. Obviously a WIP.
WotBS 1.jpg

And because I'm just generally an idiot and always want to re-do things better than last time, I decided to re-make Tomb of Horrors for what will certainly not be the last time.
Playing with new techniques and learning new things here, while trying to make a cooler visual experience for everyone. I actually like how some of it came out, the Mosaic Hall especially, though I don't actually like the patterns I used for it. It's supposed to be a colorful mosaic, and I don't like the black in the pattern. Maybe I'll find better to use. Also, I don't like the floor much, but I just can't find anything to replace it with, so I guess I'm stuck with it. WIP.
Tomb res.jpg

[Kennyt]

I really like your work on the top map,your choice of floor textures is spot on! would you mind sharing your cobblestone texture? Thanks!

My only critique would be to choose a different wall texture - particularly the "natural" cavern sections. the bevel seems to regular to be natural and the amount of emboss on the rooms vs the low amount on grey walls seems a bit distracting - maybe consider a light emboss on that?


also maybe take a look at after selecting you walls and before adding the bevel, to "distort selection" just a tad - then adding the bevel? sitting at my computer at the moment so just trying to dream this up but may be a viable option?

[Askren]

I'm not sure if you mean the bricks lining the wall or the actual stone, the first of which being an idea I had and put a ton of time into (Those round rooms? Yeah, those were made one brick at a time), but am kind of wishing I used a higher-res texture because they're too blurry for me. I'll try some sharpening filters and overlays to see if I can't salvage them, but I may just replace them altogether. The stone behind it, though, all placeholder. For me, though, the stone walls in dungeons is like, the very last thing I do. But walls are always a weak point of mine, I'm working on it.

The floor I used there is on CGtextures, I didn't do anything special to it other than some tuning to bring out details and get a color I wanted.
FloorsPortuguese0085

[Askren]

Like I said, I'm an idiot and I re-do a lot of things because what's an artist who doesn't hate his own work?

I went back and started my Thistletop Dungeon level 1 from scratch because my group is just about to get there, and I figure I should have a decent map ready for them. It's still a work in progress, I hate the beds and will swap those out, and the cave area is empty because I'm still messing around with ways to get the walls right. My current experiment (not shown) does the job, but it's not something I can readily repeat on other maps, so it's not really the one I want to go with. Also playing with some lighting here, not shown is my messing around with making the dungeon dark, but I scrapped those ideas because they kind of clash with the idea that players have light in-game.
Thistletop 1.jpg
I've got the second level in the works, but it's not remotely done. Also, an idea I've been messing with is leaving the doors off the map, or doing a door-less version, so that I can do the doors right in Roll20 so they can open and close. Maybe, we'll see.

Also, while I'm here, I'll throw up the progress I made on this Brinewall Castle map. I actually got most of the walls done a while ago, but didn't update with it. I had it on the back burner because the group I need it for keeps cancelling sessions, so at this rate I may never actually need it. The walls are actually pretty simple, just time-consuming and I'm thinking of upping the resolution of future maps to 200x200 to make them a little bit more crisp. It's weird, I haven't been back to this one in a while, so I kind of want to re-do huge chunks of it based on new techniques I've been using. Maybe I will, I don't know yet.
Brinewall.jpg

[Blinded]

Thank you for sharing your work - I love the changes in the new thistletop; the layout is the same but they are visually so different I know I will end up using both and changing the rotation. My bet is my players don't notice

[Forcas]

What are you using? Your maps look gorgeous.

[Falconius]

Like I said, I'm an idiot and I re-do a lot of things because what's an artist who doesn't hate his own work?

Bah, you only hate it because you know what's wrong with it, but no one else does so don't sweat it.