Hi there, Adepts! This is the Jungle River (40x40), a winding riverbend below some looming rock walls where you'll find the remnants of some ancient structure, though it's up to you to decide if the locals have found any use if it recently.
A river, some rocks, lots of trees, and some sort of round ruin, that's what I had in mind this time. I tend to dislike how I draw rivers/streams- they just don't end up feeling realistic to me. I used some reference this time and workshopped several shapes before landing on this layout, which I hope comes across as believable. At the very least it's more satisfying to me than many of my past rivers, so that's a start!
I also tend not to frame my maps as much as I did this one, using trees to block off the edges of the map. This time I wanted to really give the impression of a dense forest off-screen without filling up the entire map with treetops (which are my least favorite things to add to a map, they just cover up the important stuff underneath and don't look all that nice really), so I packed the edges here in a way that I felt was still somewhat natural-feeling.
Outlines, you know. Honestly, not much to say here I think. I'm getting a bit better at quickly whipping out this tiered rock walls, which is a huge time saver, though I think I need to put a little more thought into their shape before I start working on them. I drew much of both of the upper and lower ones here before I felt like I needed to rework them to add more and wider tiers on the lower sides. I feel like I'll get a real good feel for these in one or two more maps and then I'll be really truckin'.
I had some real trouble coloring this one, my head was just not in the right place for it, you know? I had no ability to settle on any colors/lighting choices and I toyed with levels, contrast, and vibrancy for several hours longer than necessary. This is one of those cases where I'll look back at these colors in 3 days time and know exactly what I needed to do to fix it, but for now this is sausage to me. Hopefully you think it's passable because I have no clue.