Woodland Crossroad, Adept (Patreon)

2Hi everyone, this week's map is the Woodland Crossroad (30x30), another simpler map coming off of the surprising popularity of last week's Forest's Edge! And, this time, your alternate version swaps out the road for a thin, forked stream. It's not exactly thin enough to stop someone from crossing it, but maybe it's enough of an obstacle to slow down someone trying to pass through it? Either way, it's a fun departure from my usual 'road through a forest' map, and I think it turned out well.

1. I wanted to keep this map short this week for two reasons: my wife was particularly busy with her work, so she couldn't keep an eye on our daughter as much has usual this week, and everyone in my house is sick. So I knew I'd have less time than usual and I wouldn't want to work, since I'm sick, so I decided to lean into it and make another straightforward forest map- a forked path through the woods. 

As a little extra twist I thought it could be fun to swap out the path for a stream, maybe as an additional bonus for all patrons, but again I'm sick and unwilling to give myself more work, so I decided it would do nicely as an Adept variant. 

2. Outlines! I've been making forest maps for a handful of years now and I'd say they're the ones that I have the easiest time making well. That is to say, I can usually whip up a nice forest map quickly and without too much effort, making it an ideal type of map to make when I'm sick. And, honestly, that's all I have to say about the outlines- I don't remember much of the process, but I do remember that it wasn't hard haha. 

3. One thing's for certain, I wanted this map to go well alongside the Forest's Edge map I made last week, so I color-picked directly from it and dropped in all the effects and overlays. The only thing left to do after all that was to add in the shadows, smooth out the lighting, and that's that! 

Making a map like this so quickly is only possible once you've been mapmaking for a while- many of the props, colors, and overlays were made for previous maps, some over a year old, and I have the luxury to use them when my day-to-day life gets difficult.  

Anyway, sorry for the somewhat strange Behind the Scenes! I'm hoping things will be more as normal next week.