Feywild Pond, Adept (Patreon)

Hi Adepts! This is the Feywild Pond (30x30), a furrow in a magical forest where you can find a small pond and a creek. I think you'll be sure to encounter all sorts of nefarious creatures lurking here!

Your alternate variant for this map is Shadowy, which is a sort of more subdued night variant which I intended to be an equivalent of a Shadowfell, or a sort of bleak take on my Fey forest maps.

Forest, pond, and some little ledges, that's the plan here. When making straightforward maps like this I like to keep the layout somewhat simple- with the focus of the map located right in the center. If I wanted to make the map more about the route to the pond then I'd probably expand the map by 15 grid squares downward and include some sort of winding trail or large path cutting from left to right. However, I'm still in the trial period for my new Fey maps so, typically, I like to keep the layouts straightforward at this phase.

The outlines here were simple enough, I'm still sticking with the slightly more structured style of grass lines that I began using with the recent swamp maps. It works here too but, as I've said repeatedly this style, which features a little more contouring than before, takes waaaay longer for me to draw since it requires a bit of foresight and creativity than just putting down the same little squiggles everywhere they fit.

Ok, so I actually ended up disliking last week's map, the Feywild Pass's colors. I was trying to go for something a little more grounded and less oversaturated, but I obviously went way too far in the other direction and the result is, unfortunately, very bland and pale. This time I was much more moderate, still using some of the the bright colors of my old Fey maps but without the blown out highlights and shadows- this one is more cohesive. Unfortunately I know how I am so I'll probably hate it come next week, but for now it's lookin' pretty good.