Cave Dungeon, Adept & Expert

Welcome back, Adepts/Experts! This week's map has been a doozy, I 100% underestimated how much more work it would take than my average grassy or dungeony map. Who would have thought that water + caves + dungeons (the 3 things I spend the most time on) would add up to a gauntlet of revisions? Yeesh. Anyway, it's done now and looking pretty nice if I say so myself, so let's get into how it came about. 

1. I feel I say this a lot, but this map went through many many iterations before I had a layout I was somewhat happy with. My list of necessary features was as follows: 1. An obvious source of water (preferably a waterfall) 2. Multiple paths to any part of the map. 3. A couple dry areas, or areas raised above the water (for resting, treasure, etc.) 4. Use up nearly all the space within the frame. Having a self-imposed list like this is helpful for me, as it keeps me focused on the aspects I find important. Too often I'll lose track of what I wanted the map to be initially and realize too late what I've done.  Anyway, I think I checked all my boxes with this one and it's looking mighty fine as far as layout is concerned. 

2. The linework of this map felt to me like a culmination of several of my recent maps, and honestly couldn't have been made before the others. As I mentioned in the this map's regular post, I've been thinking about how I design my dungeons and how I can improve, but this one itself looks nothing like how it would if I made it 2 months ago. It goes to show how beneficial it is to be drawing nearly every day and making a map every week. 

Anyway, the rock walls are the next step from last week's Forested Canyon walls, whose outlines also trailed off without necessary details. I'm confident that this will be a style I'll use for a long time to come, not only because it saves on time (which it does) but because it prevents overcomplication and gets the idea across perfectly well. What more can you ask for?

3. Now, one thing that I'll be working on is the lighting in these dungeon maps. I've given up loon realistic lighting as that would be way way too dark and doesn't convey changes in elevation, but I struggle to shade without an obvious light source to pull shadows from. It's a little tricky. So, this time I just shaded things as if nearly every room had a light hovering in the center. It's a step in the right direction I think but it's not quite right. I'm going to have to continue to try different things out, but I do think I'm getting closer to a method I'll be happy with.