Village Green, Adept

Hello there, Adepts- this one is the Village Green (35x40), a rarely seen village map! This one is a little less cramped than many I've made in the past and features a less nonsensical layout as I have bothered to use reference for a village map for the first time.

 1. Looking back at my old village maps, it seems to me that I tended to just place buildings at odd angles to each other and threw in roads and paths between them.. or maybe I drew in the roads and fit buildings into the gaps between? Hard to say, but they look a little crazy. This time around I looked into how medieval villages were actually laid out and tried to imitate that type of design- larger roads winding through town with buildings bunched up closely to them and smaller paths branching off. I'll be working on layouts with my coming maps.

 2. Next up, thatch roofs. I haven't drawn a thatch roof in a really long time, but I remember finding the process annoying and the results messy and unexciting. They usually had the same texture as both the grass and trees with the addition of some amount of straight lines. This time around I tried to give them a texture different than grass/trees and also a bit more structure, sharper edges and corners as you'd see in real thatch roofs, which actually looked much tidier than I've given them credit for past maps!

Next up, the grass and dirt. I continued last week's work of giving both a less detailed look while making sure they still look textured. I'm pretty happy with the level of detail in the ground now, though I think I need to step up the level of detail in the colors to make up for the lower detail outlines. The grass could probably use a bit more outlining though, or at least more little tufts, pebbles, flowers to help fill up the space. It's a little thing to quibble about but here I am as always, quibblin'.

 3. I'm genuinely very pleased with what I'm doing here with this autumnal palette! The greens are lovely, the orange glow is very pleasant, the vaguely purplish gray vignette somehow brings out the more vibrant colors perfectly, it's really working for me. The only issues I have are with some balancing in the shadows here and there, but that's something I can try to be a little more vigilant about in future maps. Overall, very happy!