Isometric temple/stronghold

[Poison]

Haven't had much time to hone my skills, but I picked up a new project again yesterday! I love the look of isometric map and figured I'd give them a try.
The basic idea here is that this is an arid area, and the water from this spring is considered holy. A temple was built as close to the spring itself as possible - which happened to be inside the mountain. In times of war, which are scarce, it functions as a stronghold (the areas for this are not on the map, it's where the disconnected set of stairs leads). The antechamber will always be guarded. Other than that there will be something of a chapel, meditation rooms, storage and of course the well itself at the deepest level.
I'm trying to keep it from looking too neat and sharp by adding some scatter and texture to a simple round brush.
Comments and critique are very welcome! Especially on how to really give it that underground feeling.


Isometric_smaller.jpg

EDIT: I'll add the final version here, so you don't have to look for it when you come across this later
Isometric_final.jpg

[Poison]

Update: looking more inhabited now, and I redid the entrance hall. Remove the bridge, slide the stone door in place, and any enemy is going to have some trouble getting in.

Isometric_smaller2.jpg

[Rinsewjind]

Looks nice! One gets a pretty clear impression of what the rooms look like, and it is neat temple. The only thing that's a bit odd (and that's the because of the perspective I think) is, that following-up rooms are either lower-left or lower-right to the room before. Other directions will lead to several rooms lying over each other in the 2-dimensional sketch. Overlaying rooms surely have the potential to mess with the good looks, but they might give the setting more depth (pun intended). But since the holy water is on the lower right to the entrance, the general direction of this temple is quite natural and conviniently appropriate for an isometric view.
But hark who's barking - I shyed away from doing my maps in isometric perspective.

I like your work so far, and I'm looking forward to your progress!

[Poison]

Thank you, Rinsewjind! I did struggle a bit with the layout and with giving it enough depth. In the end I decided to keep everything a little further apart and the try and indicate depth more with shading. Getting a good colour palette is turning out to be the biggest problem!

[Kearnaun]

A nice isometric map you made there. I especially like all the details you added. Knowing myself, I probably wouldn't have the patience.

[Poison]

Thanks, Kaernaun! My problem tends to be that I add to many details, and then never finish it. Hopefully posting about it here will help; I might feel obliged to actually finish something for once.
In the end I went with a strong palette of browns, grays and purples. After having shaded everything I decided I wanted to have candles instead of generic upper-right light, so I had to redo it all. Opinions?

Two more snapshots of the WIP!


Isometric_smaller3.jpgIsometric_smaller4.jpg

[Kier]

Very nice. As another poster said, nice details. They can make all the difference. Well done.

[anstett]

I like how the plan for the temple is thought out for how it will work for those who use this place.

It does seem like it is a long way down from the kitchens and I would not want to carry hot soup across that plank but for a religious retreat is very nice.

BOB

[Larb]

I do like the lighting on the second one. I think this is looking great, can't wait to see the finished result. I do love isometric maps though!

[Poison]

Thank you! And I do think the priests would frown upon you if you were slurping your soup in the temple...

Do you think there would be any possible future interest in a version of this with a grid, so people could use it in their games? If so, I'll whip up a final version with a simple grid.