Snowy Altar, Adept (Patreon)

Hello folks, your map this week is the Snowy Altar (25x20), and your extra content is a Snowstorm version with much more dramatic lighting and reduced visibility. I always love the effect the stormy versions have on a map, the atmosphere is drastically different and there's an added sense of anticipation that I try not to overdue in the regular maps. 

1. I wanted the layout for this map to be nice and simple, a ledge for a villain to look down upon the players from with a couple options for the ascent. With boulders, ledges, and trees mixed in I was confident there would be more than enough cover to make the battle interesting.

The walkway over the ledge didn't feel right after I started working on outlines. The way I draw rock walls makes them feel like they're being looked at at an angle, so when I place another prop near or on top of them then it just looks like a mistake or bad perspective. In the end, the walkway was an interesting addition but certainly not vital to the layout. 

2. Tell you what, I've been getting a lot of practice drawing snowy terrain recently. I'd like to get to the point where I could quickly whip up wintery alternate versions of old maps like I did for a Revisted post a couple months back, and I think I'm getting near the point where I could put them together more consistently and quickly. I haven't got many recommendations for the next Revisited post, so maybe I'll try to whip up a couple of those. 

3. I have a great time coloring these winter maps, the color palette is just very satisfying for me! I did have a little bit of a hard time balancing the vibrancy of the trees against the more subdued blues of the rest of the map, but a little tweeking settled that pretty quick. The only other issue I ran into was the 'glare' I layer on top of the shadows to bring it all together. I was struggling to even it out so that the snow didn't become too blinding (a little blinding is fine, that's just how snow is) while making sure the shadows didn't become too dark. Looking at it now, I still think I could have lightened up some of the shadows near the edges of the image and evened out the glare on the trees in the center, but it's not nearly a big enough issue to jump back in for.