Rocky Plains, Adept
Added 2025-01-15 20:43:45 +0000 UTCHello again, Adepts! This is the Rocky Plains (30x30), a fairly simple map but it's all I could make considering I was out sick last week. I'm much better now though so I'm going to try to play catch-up for another week before jumping back in with new, big, and interesting maps.
1. Since I've been playing around with maps set in plains recently I figured I could whip up one or two more to fill out the archives a little with simpler maps while I make up for the time I spent sick. Turns out drawing a bunch of giant rocks wasn't quite as simple a map as I had expected it would be- I'm not very good at drawing rocks, you see, and big ones are harder than small ones because a small rock can be a circle with a little wiggle inside, whereas a big rock's wiggles have to make a bit more logical sense since you can make out more of it.
In the sketch above you can see I started with a few more boulders than were in the final product. I did draw all of them but later felt that the arrangement looked a bit awkward so I played around with the spacing and numbers of rocks, eventually cutting a few of the bigger ones so as to make them look a little more naturally placed and not quite as regular.
2. Yup, rocks. Big ones, which I tried to look a little more angular than my typical stuff. I figured more flat faces would make for easier and more satisfying shadows. I also wanted to make sure they looked like they were viewed from above and not at an angle, which I didn't completely succeed at. Partially I think it's easy to perceive the image at a 3/4 angle due to how all the little ledges are facing the same direction, but also some of the boulders do look angled as well. Tricky stuff, no time to fix completely.
3. This Autumn palette is starting to wear on me, it's getting harder to look at with fresh eyes. It's also a bummer how I keep using this palette for maps without any trees, which add a necessary pop of color and bring it all together. I just imagined this map with trees and I got a little feeling of regret that I didn't give it a shot, it probably would have looked really nice. That's art for ya, you win some and you lose some.
