Dusty Crossroad, Adept (Patreon)

Hello again, Adepts- this is the Dusty Crossroad (40x40), a new desert map I approached a little differently than usual, using colors and lighting on the ground instead of any outlines in an attempt to depict sand a little more realistically. Or, in your case, snow! Since sand and snow are fairly identical in my maps it was a kinda easy swap to go from one to the other with just quick color touch-ups, though fixing the lighting and shadows was a bit of an unexpected stumbling block. I think it looks nice though, it should be easily usable in lots of snowy adventures, like Frostmaiden for example.

I tend to look at a lot of reference when I start maps, especially looking at other mapmakers' work for inspiration, and something I noticed is how effectively many of my peers make desert maps where just color is used to depict paths through the map. I wanted to try my hand on something like that this time, so I made a nice and patchy stretch of desert.. but not like Dune desert but rather Fallout New Vegas desert, with rocks and reedy little plants (I like this style of desert much more than the kinds that are just giant sand dunes, it gives me more to play with).

I figured that, once the rocks and plants are placed, I could move on and focus on my colors and shading. Not a bad idea, but I forgot how busy the holidays get when you have kids, so I have been working with less time than usual to develop new palettes and alternate shading styles. Nothing to do about it but practice with the time I've got, I suppose!

I drew up new rocks again for this map. My old ones didn't feel 'desert-y' enough. Why do I do this to myself every week? I have no one to blame but myself. Then I drew new bushes (because the vibe was off on my old ones) and decided to draw up all those little reedy plants as well (but I couldn't let myself draw like 10 and duplicate them, they each needed to be unique for some reason). So, so much getting my schedule back in order before the holidays. Thankfully I could reuse my old dead trees, otherwise this map would probably be delayed another day.

Lots to talk about here, surprisingly. One of my favorite movies is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and something I love about is the environment, the variety in the deserts and towns depicted is really interesting to me, how distinctly different they feel. So, for this map I wanted to try out a different type of desert than usual (the type with big dunes that I usually draw). I wanted to try making the ground feel a little stonier, though with a dusting of sand on top. I don't think I exactly got there, it still feels very sandy, but certainly it comes across as harder ground than just sand.

To work on that, I decided to start integrating some overlays to save me some time. I overlaid a free dirty ground texture over the areas outside the path itself and blended in, which gives those areas a bit of a more rough and stony look. I also put down a rippling sand texture, blended it, and reduced the opacity to be very subtle. Honestly, I feel like I could have gone subtler, but that's what I settled on. I think the effect is nice though I feel I should have used this one a little more sparingly. The dirty ground seems good to me however, it will absolutely be returning in the future.