Underdark Bridge, Adept

I'm back again with a new one- the Underdark Bridge (35x40)! This bad boy's got one big ol' bridge in it and little more, and that's just the way I like it. Despite that, your alternate version of it has a little less bridge than usual, adding an additional choke point to the middle of the map that isn't there in the original.

 1. As you can tell, I changed some things as I worked on the map. I was torn between several potential layouts for the bridge in conjunction with the land, such as 100% bridge with no land at all, 1/2 of the map being land, a little land on one side of the map, and finally a little land on both sides of the bridge. The amount of land shown alters the way the map reads, changing a ridiculously long fantasy bridge into a more realistic bridge that spans a smaller gap. Both have a time and a place, but I felt that a reasonably-sized bridge probably would be more generically useful.

I also decided to cut the little islands below fairly late in the map. These guys would have added a whole additional layer to combat in this map, which I loved, but their presence implied that the water is fairly shallow while I wanted to ensure there was some danger implied here. And anyway, I wanted there to be some downside to tumbling off the bridge- just landing on a lower level and having a worse vantage point doesn't feel like a steep enough downside to me.

 2. This bridge was a pain in my butt. I hate it when I draw a bridge and it ends up looking boring and plain, so this time I tried to build in some additional details that would make it a little more visually interesting. Multiple brick textures was my first trick and adding in changes in the bridges width was my second, giving a small amount of cover to anyone crouching behind the railings and giving the bridge a shape more interesting than a few straight lines. While these don't seem like details that should have taken up so much of my time, I really wanted to do this right so I spent a while detailing everything carefully, minimizing how much copying and pasting I would have to do.

 3. While it goes against my instincts, I have been leaning on softer shadows and lighting for these Underdark maps as I feel like it feels more fitting for shadowy cave lighting. Feel free to disagree, but I don't think the end result is all that bad either, so I'm sticking with it for now. Otherwise, due to the low amount of actual land here the coloring/shading was blessedly easy and quick, which is amazing considering I wasted 2 days on just sketching and detailing bridges and took a day off in the middle of the week to go to the Shedd Aquarium. I think I'll stick with something a little more typical for my next map, maybe some nice ruins in the Underdark?