Feywild Crossroads, Adept (Patreon)

Hi Adepts! This week's map is the Feywild Crossroads (40x40), a nice and big forest map with plenty of mystical elements to play with- giant mushrooms, vividly vibrant water, fairy dust, you name it. It's been a while since I've gone and made a solid Fey map, so I figured I'd go hard on it.

Your alternate version of this map is Cheerful, and I've swapped out the colors and effects to feel more storybook, with strong greens, blues, and reds to make everything feel painfully cheerful, perhaps to the point of implying that something isn't quite right here.

1. So, I had a change of heart halfway through this map. After drawing the outlines for just about everything it suddenly struck me that this layout is lame and unexciting. Honestly, I don't know why I was fine with it for long enough to draw it all. Acknowledging that, I deleted the ruins and played around with what was left, seeing what I came up with. 

The little island underneath the ruins felt fun, and I thought it could be interesting if paths joined on that island, which meant that I had to alter the rest of the map so that it would make sense for a road to cross onto the island instead of going around the pond.

2. That all meant that lots of things needed to shift around and make room for streams. I also ended up drawing lots of extra mushrooms to fill in some gaps that needed filling, though I did decide to save myself some time and take roots and lily pads from previous jungle maps. I figured that they would be far from the focus of this map and so didn't need my attention yet. 

It was about here that I wasn't looking forward to drawing intricate Fey-themed bridges, with lots of swirly designs and fairy lights. And you know what I decided felt even more Fey than filigree bridges? Plain ol' stepping stones, perfect for slipping off into the water. Many Fey are very nimble or can fly anyway, so why make a bridge? I don't know, it felt right to me and justified my laziness. 

3. Looking over some of my previous Fey maps, I was feeling like the colors were getting a bit uninspired- washed out and simple, nothing particularly interesting, just cyan and magenta with some sparkles. This time around I wanted to make sure that it actually felt like a wild place in the Feywild, which is why I added so many mushrooms and roots in the first place, to help build on that cluttered and wild feeling I was aiming for. 

But, of course, crazy colors like these are a huge gamble- it's very likely that I'll look at this map in a week and despise it. Honestly, it's rare that I look at a map I made a month ago and don't hate it. I guess that's what's pushing me to improve, but it would be nice to like one my maps occasionally.