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Thread: WIP - Tower of Waiting

  1. #1
    Guild Artisan geamon's Avatar
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    Wip WIP - Tower of Waiting

    Project: Looking to flesh out and create battlemaps for Tower of Waiting located in Fallcrest.

    Source: Write up located on page 198-200 of the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide with small arial representation on the Fallcrest map.

    Concept: Plan on basing it off the dungeon layout created by Crazyred, haven't received word back if I have permission to flesh out battlemaps based on it. Link to D&D Doodle

    Approach: Planning on hand drawn layers and incorporating with post processing, texturing and colouring using GIMP and PS to stay true to the concept of Crazyreds imagining. Edit: Ended up switching to a purely digital creation.
    Last edited by geamon; 09-03-2010 at 09:08 AM.
    Cheers, Julien

    Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
    All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.

  2. #2
    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    Looks cool. I very much like those sketchy maps. Be good to see what you come up with!
    M

  3. #3
    Guild Artisan geamon's Avatar
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    I'm starting off with area 8 to figure out how I'm going to do this because the rest of the dungeon can pretty much be on the same floor layout. So basically what I've done so far is hand drawn a 1 inch grid on standard paper and drew my outline with walls and bricks including some shading with the bricks. Then scanned it and used the fill tool with a stone based texture in GIMP and then colorized, to reach this current step. Gonna try and add some more browns and earth tones to make the brick more realistic. Only one question though what kind of filters should i apply to make the end product more glossy less edgy in appearance and get ride of speckling. I know it still pretty dirty looking from the scan but just wanted to see what people thought.

    P.S. Going to edit this post throughout out the night.

    Edit 01: scrapped what I had and restarted a new trace out without shading per previously with pencil to avoid noise in texture or minimize at least and added earth tones. I'm generally satisfied with the colors and setup just need to find a way to make it look less frayed and pixelated.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	tower02.jpg 
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    Last edited by geamon; 08-28-2010 at 09:30 PM.
    Cheers, Julien

    Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
    All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.

  4. #4
    Guild Artisan geamon's Avatar
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    I got distracted on fleshing out the locale and writting it up for an actual adventure and omitted to doas much cartography this weekend. Going to try and get some revisions in tonight. Considering simply going digital because of the difficulty in handling handdrawn with scans due to not having a tablet.

    Which in turn reminds me I'm planning on actually making a pdf for the fun of it and distributing for free after I'm done the mapping I'm willing to share if wanted. Can also include with Map Tools campaign and addtional content in a .rar.
    Last edited by geamon; 08-31-2010 at 12:22 PM.
    Cheers, Julien

    Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
    All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.

  5. #5
    Guild Artisan geamon's Avatar
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    So I decided to scrap the idea and just go fully digital. Just a few questions I tried looking up for guides with GIMP but unfortunately didn't find anything concrete to help me with some ideas. Trying to make the wall have an edge that gives the impression of height. Tried using bevels but to no avail. Any ideas? Also should I keep the wall texture to the edge of the map or with a gradient to a black fill?
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Name:	room9 - 02.jpg 
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    Last edited by geamon; 09-01-2010 at 12:04 PM.
    Cheers, Julien

    Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
    All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.

  6. #6
    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    Bevel and shadow are the only way I can think of to convey the impression of height on the wall. It's not *realistic* to have an internal wall casting a shadow (i.e. there's certainly not a light source *behind* the wall to cast the shadow) but it fools the eye a little. Don't make it too long though...maybe just use your wall layer and create a dropshadow layer style so you can mess with it as you develop the interior. GIMP has layer effects/styles? Sorry, don't know the app.

    For the texture: I assume this is underground? If so I'd just have the wall texture to the thickness of the wall and use a dirt/rock texture filling the rest of the map. Make it nice and dark so it doesn't distract from the main content.
    M

  7. #7
    Guild Artisan geamon's Avatar
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    So after much fooling around and trying things out I'm now at this point. I think this might be where I'm gonna leave it at and start adding elements to the area i.e: objects and stairs. Any suggestions on improvement?

    Edit: Final version of this room, style textures and method used to complete the rest is set. I'll post it up when done. Again open for any suggestions on what I currently have.
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Click image for larger version. 

Name:	Room 9 - The Interrogation Room.jpg 
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ID:	28658  
    Last edited by geamon; 09-01-2010 at 07:57 PM.
    Cheers, Julien

    Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
    All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.

  8. #8
    Guild Artisan geamon's Avatar
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    Here's the final results without any unnecessary periphery. One of the steps I suck at is adding objects to my maps, they never feel true to the area.
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Name:	B1 - Room 8.jpg 
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Name:	B2 - Rooms 3,4,5,6 & 7.jpg 
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    Last edited by geamon; 09-02-2010 at 03:26 AM.
    Cheers, Julien

    Battlemaps, Town Maps, Tutorials.
    All my maps and content are posted and published under this Creative Commons License. Click Here for information on licensing.

  9. #9
    Community Leader mearrin69's Avatar
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    I think those are looking pretty good. I like your stairs and the wall->fade to black. Couple of suggestions:

    1) Might consider "dampening down" the floor texture just a bit. It's very repetitive and contrasty and it hurts the eyes a bit. You used a photographic texture for the walls. Got anything similar you could use for the floors?
    2) Those doors are *crazy* white against the darkness of the frame. Maybe drop them back to a light grey? Or, even better, consider a light wooden texture of some kind? If you do that I'd suggest putting them more into scale (thickness, width) because right now they're sort of at "abstract architectural symbol" scale. Also, several of the doors on the last map seem to need the wall cut away around them...a couple seem okay but.

    Now all you need is some grunge and "dungeon dressing"! Nice work on these. Have some rep! (edit: eh, okay, after I spread it around a bit more)
    M

  10. #10
    Community Leader Facebook Connected tilt's Avatar
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    looks really good. I'm with mearrin on the comments - the internal textures are out of style with the external (which look really cool). So some nice tiles, some wood for the doors and some dirt all around
    regs tilt
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