Welcome back! I'm trying out a lot of new things for this map, the Jungle Fork (35x35), so many that I probably won't be able to remember everything I did that's out of the ordinary- how about we jump right into it while some of it is still fresh in my mind?
Nothing too crazy here, fairly stock stuff. A bit rockier than I'd usually sketch, maybe, but the only thing that's unusual about that is the size of the rocks, I don't typically plan on drawing them that huge.
Another point to note here is the bridge. In the past I'd make certain that the surrounding terrain was obviously raised in such a way that the bridge could conceivably dangle over the gap. This time I was lazy and decided not to sweat it, that bridge should probably be half submerged but I chose not to care, it looks nice to me.
Side note: I feel like it's obvious to me but can you tell I rotated this sketch? I originally had it rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise and changed it after drawing this sketch, but it feels like it somehow shows? I imagine it could be just in my head.
Holy cow, that's a lot of line-work. It reminds me of an art project I made back in high school where I took a large sheet of paper and tried to fill in every bit of space with little doodles (ultimately it wasn't a very good piece of art, no one really knew what they were looking at). Let's talk about what I tried differently here. I drew the rocks in a different style, somewhat topographical with moss on top for variety. The ground is mostly small pebble-like details rather than being 80% wiggly lines. I made a few more varieties of plants to help create a lush, jungly vibe. Overall I think I probably doubled the amount of plants I typically add to a map. Does it feel appropriately detailed yet?
I also tried to use a completely new palette for this map but that turned out to be a massive mistake since I was short on time this last weekend due to my child's birthday and I also hosted an all-day memorial day DnD session with my group (thankfully I'm not DMing right now so I was spared the planning). Tweaking this new palette was a trainwreck, I got so stuck trying to perfect the colors that I must have wasted 2 full days on coloring alone. When I got to my desk this morning I decided it would have been embarrassing to pass it on to you patrons so I started from scratch with something I had made previously and touched it up. This isn't the result I was hoping for but I think I had wasted too much time and I no longer had a choice but to move on. Maybe next week I'll have more luck or have a clearer head.
How was your holiday weekend, those of you in the States? Play any ttrpgs? My best friend and DM is moving across the country soon so this was a bittersweet occasion, but it was fun having an all-afternoon and evening gaming session again, it's not something we get to do often with 2 children under 5 in the house. The current adventure is something my friend assembled for us, it combines several of the official campaigns into a single grand quest, we started in Curse of Strahd, touched on the Tomb of Annihilation briefly, and are now in Ebberon. My character is an Eldritch Knight salaryman originating from my homebrew plane and is definitely the most optimized character I've ever played- it's fun to actually be effective in combat for once instead of being a silly little man like I usually play (i.e. a dirty old druid who spends all his time as a dog or an obnoxious wizard who just wants to be a calligrapher). Anyway, I don't usually use this space as an actual blog but I thought some of you might get a kick out of hearing what kind of tabletop gaming I'm getting up to these days!