Feb '19 / March '19 Lite Challenge: Sasquatch's Retreat

[TheWellDressedViking]

I thought I better at least get started if I wanted to enter
I was going through a bunch of ideas, but I decided to go with something very local. I live at the foot of the Olympic Mountains here in the Pacific Northwest. The Olympics are actually my favorite place to go hiking and although I have never ran into this legendary creature on any of my treks through the temperate rain forest. There are many who claim to have seen it. A tall humanoid creature covered with hair, living beyond the fringe of society. The Sasquatch! Bigfoot! An unbelievable creature, but listening to people talk about their sightings and describing the Sasquatch's diet, migration patterns, and all manor of detail about this creature does give you pause, that maybe, somewhere out there, is a distant primal relative to man living in the untamed mountains.

I have here a rough sketch of the primary features that I will be fleshing out and refining over the course of the contest, I may even scrap most of this and try again, we will see. I also plan to add some hot springs that the Olympics are famous for and the interior of the cave.

### Latest WIP ###
bigfoot.JPG

[Bogie]

Welcome to the challenge Viking, sounds like an interesting idea.

[TheWellDressedViking]

Alright, I got some time to work on this, I scrapped most everything and finally got something that's working for me. The trick is trying to fit all the features into a reasonably sized area. There's some rendering issues on the path and I haven't done the cliff and cave shadows but here it is so far:
### Latest WIP ###
bigfoot2.jpg

[Bogie]

Looks good, Very significant change!

[TheWellDressedViking]

Thank you, It's one of the reasons I am not a fan of doing WIP threads, my drafting phase tends to be a haphazard mess.

I shuffled things around a bit again, I really wanted to get a waterfall in as it's a feature I love to see on my hikes. I talked with LoopySue (known as Mouse here) over at the Profantasy Forums and got some ideas on how to better handle the rendering anomalies, she is also the one who made the cliffs I am using so much so I have to thank her for those as well. So I now have my map in the first final draft (they are never truly done are they?).

### Latest WIP ###
Sasquatches Retreat.jpg

[arsheesh]

Hey there Well Dressed Viking, you wouldn't happen to be from Poulsbo would you? If so we might just be neighbors!

The map looks pretty nice so far. Textures are good and the color is really nice. If I might make one suggestion, one thing that jumps out at me is the repeating nature of some of the textures you've chosen. If you are working with a graphics program like GIMP or PS there are ways of remedying this, e.g. by using a clone tool to copy bits of the same texture elsewhere that texture is used, thus breaking up the regularity of the pattern.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[TheWellDressedViking]

I’m currently in Puyallup (all you non-Washingtonians have fun pronouncing that) but originally came from the small town of Rainier. But I have lived all up and down the I-5 corridor. It’s been too long since I’ve been up the peninsula, it’s a beautiful drive up there.

I use Campaign Cartographer but use Photoshop for some touch ups. I’ve used that technique in the past to hide blemishes and it would work well for what you suggest. Thank you! I will go back over it when I get some time, and probably incorporate it into my map making routine.

[arsheesh]

Cool cool. We are a recent transplant to the area and feel so blessed to live in such an amazingly beautiful place. I'm admiring the view of the Olympics from my front window as I speak.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Neyasha]

This is a cool idea - I like the fact that it's not the "typical" fairy tale. The cave looks kinda cosy.