Hangman's Courtyard, Adept

Hi Adepts! This week's map is the Hangman's Courtyard (30x30), and you're getting one of my favorite variations I've made in a while- one with misty effects and more subdued, night-like lighting. In fact, I'd say the lighting effects are sorta a mix of stormy and night effects, though really I was just trying to imitate the ambiance of WoW's Duskshire. My wife and I have been re-reading the Mistborn series, and I think this was partially brought on by thoughts of them, and in hindsight, I think this would fit pretty dang well into that universe (in case any of you are running Brandon Sanderson inspired campaigns). 

1. The most important thing about my city maps is that they are similar enough in design and style that they can be used together for a series of combats under the assumption that they're in the same city. That means I like to use the same types of roofs, the same cobblestone streets, and the same jumbled/disorganized layout that has come to be a major aspect of these maps.  

With that in mind, I just wanted to get the layout right so a decently sized crowd could fit into this center of this map with enough extra space beyond it for player hijinks. 

2. I've done a good job at streamlining city maps, I think. The cobblestone texture is a large chunk that I saved out as a PNG a couple months ago, stitching together into the shapes of streets as need be. The buildings, while not exactly 'newly drawn', typically require cutting and stitching into the proper shapes that I've set for myself, though if I was the kind of person who was forward-thinking I probably could have had quite a large library of isolated buildings by now. Beyond that, trees and grass are quick and easy, never taking more than an hour typically to put in place wherever seems appropriate. 

3. Bam, colors! With my previous city map as an example, I set out to replicate that (relative) success.  The key things that I wanted to imitate were the roof colors, the contrast between rooftops, and some changes in tree colors which I rather enjoyed. However, I did make a few alterations as well, such as the rooftops' wood accents' color, the cobblestone color itself (which was a little too washed out last time), and the depth of the vignette (the darkening around the edge of the frame) on rooftops as opposed to streets. 

The changes I made seem pretty solid overall, and I'm hopeful that when I look back at this map in a couple of weeks I'll want to use it as my newest reference for urban map coloring.