Alchemist's Lab, Adept (Patreon)

Welcome back! This week's map is the Alchemist's Lab (24x23), where normally you'd encounter all kinds of glowing potions and unusual magical implements but Adepts only find a roomy half-collapsed ruin. That's right, it's yours to do with as you will- put your own dang props in there, I don't care! Maybe even use some of the Dungeon Props I made a couple of weeks ago for Adepts if you're feeling spicy. 

1. I had a very hard time designing this map, so much so that by the time I finished the rough sketch I was already 2 days behind schedule. The several other layouts I had made were all fine, but my main issue with them was their scale and flow. I'm fine with big dungeon maps, but at some point I feel like they're pointlessly meandering and I'm adding unneeded spaces that don't add anything to the map (half of which I added with the intention of filling with rubble or crates anyway). I ended up taking the largest of these sketches (a 35x35 monstrosity) and cut into pieces which I stitched my favorite parts of together into a more compact and tidy dungeon with an exit in the center that allows for branching paths. Essentially those other layouts were the same as this map but with lots of unessential spaces that I was rapidly running out of time to draw.

If you're curious, this was the map that inspired me to simplify the layout into something a bit more compact and satisfying. 2-Minute Tabletop's maps are an excellent source of inspiration for anyone looking to make their own, like me 1 1/2 years ago. 

2. Remember last week when I mentioned I'd made a tileable PNG of the brick texture I had just made for the Fighting Pit? Turns out it gives dungeons a nice 'urban' vibe that I really like, kinda like something you might come across in a sewer or in someone's cellar. Pretty neat, I think! 

This map was the first in a long time that I got to draw rock walls again, I felt like I had almost forgotten how. Hopefully they're not too obviously different, but I did notice I was drawing them with a slightly different style than before- a little less cluttered than before and with less variation in line thickness (stuff that only I would ever notice, probably). I got the feel for it eventually, but I hadn't realized it was a month since the last time. Someday I'll draw another of my favorites- vibrant grassy maps with rocks and trees and some ruins, but for now the people demand urban maps, so that's what I'll do ;)

3. The inspiration for this map's coloring was the Cultist Lair, a map I'd drawn with pretty over-the-top shadows. It has stuck in my mind and I remember fondly, or at least more fondly than Mountainside Dungeon, a map which I like much less in hindsight. I wanted to get back to the Lair's style, so I tore apart its files and figured out what about it I liked so much in particular, the messing lighting and shading which captures the dingy cave and dungeon vibe so well. I did rein it in a bit, but I think I really like the result, enough so that I think I'll keep trying to replicate it for future dungeons.