Ogre Cave

[Larb]

I didn't really have much time to make many changes to it. The person who needed it sorta wanted to use it right away. I've attached the final version though.

The backstory and the reason for its shape I have no clue about. I have a friend who runs a 4e campaign using maptool and he occasionally asks for maps. Me often being bored and liking any practice I can get, I just ask for the details of what he wants and then try to make it.
He asked for a 8x12 cave inhabitated by an ogre, with a firepit, straw bed and box. And a jar of red spice. The cave was in the side of a hill. I tried to make the straight edges look a little more random, and I did the rocky edges of the cave just to try it out.

The straw was just done on a seperate layer. Well two. I just used yellow lines drawn randomly, and they were stroked with brown using a style layer. I did two layers of it to make it look piled.
The rocks were just grey lumps with a stroke style layer and an outer glow (well, more like an outer shadow). Then I just used a low opacity brush to draw in the highlights and shadows.

Basically, I'm trying to introduce more hand drawn elements into these kinda maps.

If you wanted to make it more obvious.. I don't know really. maybe place a grid over the hill that shows the squares distorted to follow the slope? that might be too busy though, I really do think it's great the way it is.

That is a really good idea, I think I'll try playing with that for next time.

[CartoGeo]

I didn't really have much time to make many changes to it. The person who needed it sorta wanted to use it right away. I've attached the final version though.

The backstory and the reason for its shape I have no clue about. I have a friend who runs a 4e campaign using maptool and he occasionally asks for maps. Me often being bored and liking any practice I can get, I just ask for the details of what he wants and then try to make it.
He asked for a 8x12 cave inhabitated by an ogre, with a firepit, straw bed and box. And a jar of red spice. The cave was in the side of a hill. I tried to make the straight edges look a little more random, and I did the rocky edges of the cave just to try it out.

The straw was just done on a seperate layer. Well two. I just used yellow lines drawn randomly, and they were stroked with brown using a style layer. I did two layers of it to make it look piled.
The rocks were just grey lumps with a stroke style layer and an outer glow (well, more like an outer shadow). Then I just used a low opacity brush to draw in the highlights and shadows.

Basically, I'm trying to introduce more hand drawn elements into these kinda maps.



That is a really good idea, I think I'll try playing with that for next time.

How did you layout the stone work along the edge of the cave wall... also, how did you create the stone work... and one more question, how did you create the grid? I guess this was photoshop?

[Larb]

Yeah, this is all done in photoshop.

I did the basic shape for the cave wall (the brown bit) on its own layer. Added a slight texture, then stroked it. Added some drop shadow and an outer glow. Then on a layer above with, only the stuff on that layer selected, just drew in the outlines of rocks by hand with my tablet. Then I coloured them in on a layer underneath, and added a bit of shading.

The grid I make by just creating a new image (with transparent background), stroking the image with black and defining it as a pattern. So if I want a 50x50px square grid, I just make a 50x50px image and stroke it.

Then I create a pattern layer on my main map using the newly defined pattern and adjust the opacity to suit.