The Grinning Goblin..Riverhewn's Local Watering Hole..

Well I had to try this. This one is really important to me (They all are but this one is special) The Grinning Goblin was named by my mother about 10 years ago. I was writing a short story about an adventurer who had returned to Riverhewn after a long and successful career. To make a long story short I was stuck on what to name this tavern that said adventurer had bought. It wasn't much of a place 4 walls and a layer of dirt an inch thick. But he had big plans and dreams for the place. He saw it as a place where anyone could pull up a stool and drink a pint. Rich,poor, fancy, plain it didn't matter.There would always be a place by the fire and a friendly face at the bar. My mother who "participated" in my "other worlds" from time to time came up with the "Grinning Goblin" and it stuck. I have used the Goblin as a base for many written stories and even a few adventures. I see it as "my" tavern. My mother passed away in 2008 after a battle with cancer. I miss her terribly and I would dedicate this to her. This is why I really want this one to be good. Even more than usual feedback is requested and appreciated as I have never done any kind of building interiors before.

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Depending on the scale, I'd say your floorboards are a little large.

A little update today I fixed (hopefully) the floorboards they were large after looking at them some more. Thanks General for that. It's funny how you can look at something for hours and it looks fine but someone else can look at it and be able to see the problem right away. That's why I always ask for feedback..
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One more little update. I realize the tables are repeating (Rog gets them second hand and was lucky to find these from a burnt tavern.. :) I don't like the bar but am going to keep it as a placeholder for the moment. I also tried my hand at some "lighting effects" I'm not sure if they convey what I think they convey (another case of working on the map for a few hours and not seeing anything.. :) again as always feedback is requested and appreciated..Thanks!!
*Edit* WOW those are some big tables..whoops :)

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Unless there's a basement or upper floor, I think you need some kind of storage area or a kitchen or something. :)

Yeah. I think you need more spaces... Does the guy who runs the place sleep there? If so where? Where are the meals prepared? Is there a stable of carthouse? Where is the beer kept? Where are the other supplies kept? Where do people toilet? Is there a place 'out the back' where they rough up out of towners?

I see a lot of little things you can tweak. First off your layers organization can use a little shuffling and objects can be moved a bit. For example the bar on top of the room is on a layer above the wall which isn't translating very well for height, Lanterns on bottom part of room are not directly fixated to the wall and the lanterns should be a layer bellow the wall for accuracy as well. There is a clear edge that you can see from the lanterns which creates a box around them also may wanna take a look at removing that. The dirt/sand edging that leads from the road to the walls looks very odd because I can tell you used the freehand tool. If you're using GIMP I can throw up a small tut for you on how to blend textures together for this sorta thing. Also the door looks odd due to a section of it being not visible and masking behind the door on the inside of the tavern creates a weird semi translucent white section. Only other thing I can comment is all tables are the same, you can add variety to this. If it's a .png you used to can easily mirror the lower half of the tables to the top to clear them of any objects and then are free to customize whats located on top of them. Also you can change the orientation of the tables to provide even further diversity. I'm not sure if the fireplace/hearth is meant to be asymmetric. Those are things I see that can keep you busy on making it better.

Here's two links of object based databases I found for fantasy mapping feel free to use them.

Source 1

Source 2

First off let me say thank you to everyone that made suggestions. I really appreciate it. :) I think I will make a basement level for this as well as I didn't give myself enough space for storage and cooking and the like. I was kind of just hoping to "simulate" all of that but now I want to depict it. For my first time doing any sort of building interiors I'm pretty happy with it. But I will take the advice given to me and continue to work on this.

Things to fix: The front door (looks like it's hanging in thin air..) The tables (more variety) I'm sure there's more but those are the things I want to get to right away..

Also Thanks to Greytales Nook and The Dunjinni Forums for all the objects. Also the square tables are credited to torstan. At some point I'll start to make some of these things myself. :)

Here's tonight's update.. :)
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Here's the tut I put together for you jtougas included with pictures Click here.

Thanks to everyone that gave me advice on how to make this project better. Special thanks to geamon for making up a tutorial for me on how to blend textures in this style map. It wouldn't be a "me" project without multiple phases..(although if I was better at this I wouldn't need so many.. :) ) SO here we go The Grinning Goblin Phase II...

This one is bigger to give me more room for all the little things that a tavern needs
I used geamon's tut and the blending came out really good Thanks again !!:)

As always feedback is requested and appreciated..Thanks!!

Phase II

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