Caravan Camp, Adept (Patreon)

Here's the Caravan Camp (30x30), as well as the Open Plains (30x30)! According to my schedule I was supposed to make the Open Plains this week, but after thinking about it for a couple days I decided that nothing I could do would make the map worth charging you for.  Thankfully the next map down, the Caravan Camp, is by definition a concept that can be brought anywhere, so I felt that this combo would be worthwhile if I put in the extra work. 

Also, your alternate version for this map is a much-needed Subdued recoloring, which will be perfect for Curse of Strahd campaigns! I felt it would have been a missed opportunity if I didn't make this map appropriate for CoS, since this is already a much-needed map for that game, so here you go. 

1. As you can probably tell, my sketch didn't actually end up being very useful this time. At every stage I felt that the layout of wagons was too even or too symmetrical or too unexciting, so I continuously shifted and rotated them until I got something just uneven enough that there's some finesse in how a stealthy attacker would approach. I think somewhere along the way I neglected to include larger gaps in the circle, like the original sketch, but I suppose you could argue that the people who set up the camp did that intentionally. It would have been a little more pleasing to the eye though, I think.

2. Grass grass grass. It took me twice as long to draw all the grass than it did to draw the wagons. More so than anything else I draw, grass can so easily appear to be too evenly spaced or too regular, transforming from a semi-detailed background to an eye-catching prop. For me, it seems that there's no way to do this without taking several passes for breaking up patterns and erasing whichever lines stand out the most, but I dream of a day where I draw it just right the first time. 

The wagons were fun though! I got to do a bit of research into Romani wagons, which was interesting. They're extremely detailed beautifully-made wagons, but all the detail is on the sides, meaning there isn't a lot I can do to spruce up the roofs. Still, it was the highlight of this map. 

3. I don't know what my deal was this week, but I kept finding myself making the most eye-poppingly colorful map possible. Even compared to many of my recent maps, this bad boy would be way out of place. I think it felt right considering the colorful wagons I wanted to include, but I can't be going around making maps that don't fit with the rest of my archive. I kept a little of that vibe though, since it's not often I get to make a map of almost exclusively grass.