Feb '19 / March '19 Lite Challenge: Skull Rock

[Kier]

First and foremost, my apologies for coming in so late to the competition and with a 1-and-done. Well not quite a 1-and-done, but with a map nearing completion.

I had a couple maps that were 90% complete that I needed to get up and posted before I could commit fully to this challenge. And after the last challenge I really didn’t want to start something I would get hung up on or not finish in time.

At first I wanted to do Hansel And Gretel, my favorite fairy tale, but I thought for sure everyone would do it, and realistically speaking while I felt I could have added my dirty, grunge to the fairy tale I couldn't see much use for a gingerbread house after the challenge. So I googled fairy tales and Peter Pan came up, not sure it really counts, but it has been around for over 100 years, and I love the book and all its renditions into movies. And since I find the most fun creating battlemaps, I knew I needed a small area that would make an impact, be fun, and challenge me. I ended up with Skull Rock – A rock outcropping to haunt the nights.

From the beginning I struggled, not getting a layout and the first draft of the Rock done until February 27th. Even then, the top down wasn't giving me the depth I wanted in the Rock formation nor the skull, so I cheated the perspective a little.

It wasn’t until the 3rd where I finally got the rock to come to life, a strange concoction of texture, paint, overlay, burn, bump(Thrown in with more than my fair share of GIMP locking up from a 6GB file). After that it flowed rather quickly, weaving in the moss, and deep crevices, cutting the Islands into the water. I resisted the urge to do more vines on the skull and vegetation, as I wanted the rock to be fairly bare. The tree is my rendition of the hanging tree in Peter Pan although I don’t believe it was on Skull Rock. I still might hang a body from it, out and over the water.

The rock landing was added as a battlemap needs some area to fight. And while I feel the battle can take place at sea, sea monsters, sharks, crocs, etc. I wanted a little bit of land to fight on before entering the Skull itself.

Where am I going from here: I don’t know for sure.

A lot of ideas and images are still flooding my mind. Probably just a simple fade for border, title at the bottom. The water needs work still. And the Dark spots on the water are missing rock outcroppings yet to be added and need more dimension. The tree, and landing area are just in the beginning stages. And I have a lot of cleaning up to do on the layers, and shadows still.

Only 1 week to go, so hopefully the weekend will be productive.

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[Bogie]

That is Wicked Cool Kier! Thanks for entering the challenge!

[TheWellDressedViking]

This is looking sweet, I’m excited to see the end result!

The other entries are looking good, but I’m a battlemap guy.

[Kier]

Thank you guys, I appreciate the kind words.

Some general cleaning up. Also spent some time cutting the rocks in better. Worked on the water a bit, the vines and the tree. Still have a couple more rock croppings to put in. The tree and the ground beneath it need a lot of work, roots maybe. Also need to work on the rock landing.

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[arsheesh]

That's pretty cool. Nice concept for a map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

[Kier]

That's pretty cool. Nice concept for a map.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

Thank you.

[Kier]

Brought the vines and tree to life a little more, trying to pull them a bit from the Island. Cleaned up the waterline throughout the map. Added the 2 little rock outcroppings. I worked on the shadow lines between cliff and rocky beach. Also started messing with the water levels, bringing in the shadows in the deeper water. Added the mast and shadow of a wreck.

I am nearing the end. I might even call it done. Anything left now will be minor tweaking and extremely hard to do as I have had to flatten the layers to work with it, as it kept locking up on me. I still might add a skeleton from the hanging tree, or 1 or 2 in the water or broken at the base of the tree.

Overall though, I am quite pleased with the result.

Its always a tough thing with battlemaps to capture the scene but at the same time make it playable. I could extend the rocky beach but that throws the entire map off making it not so much a rock out cropping, but an Island, so I will settle for this at least for the challenge. And to be fair, I have always considered nearly every inch of my maps as playable, the skull itself and surrounding rocks climbable, only limited to ones imagination.

Ater the challenge, I will move onto the surrounding waters, extending it for a couple more maps around the main Skull Rock with more rock outcroppings, and shipwrecks turning this into a sea adventure in longboats, fighting your way through the cluster of rocks to the Skull. And then of course I now feel the urge to map the inside of the skull. Is it just a hollowed out hole? 2 stories? 3 stories? And the back of the skull, is it an opening back there only reached by skiff? As you can see by the shadow, the back skull reaches out over the water and never touches it. There is a small channel in there, but to where, and how deep. I think its great place for a hidden chamber if adventurers truly commit to the campaign. Just a fracture underneath, just wide enough for someone to squeeze through. Treasures or death?

And thanks a lot Bogie ?! Like I really need more crap to flood my mind. I have enough ideas already, just not enough time to do them, lol.

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Edited: Did this come out too dark? And a little blurry? I am going to try a better upload tonight. Very dark on my work monitor.

[Kier]

Alright, so I wasn't happy with my last post. Too dark, a little blurry, and the border and title wasn't ringing true to me. Also the shadow under the skull was too dark and off.

So gave it another try, hated going back to an earlier file, but had no choice.

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Probably not the last one. I have spotted a couple things I would like to improve on.

Let me know your thoughts.

[Bogie]

Nice, it is a lot easier to see now that it isn't so dark.

[Diamond]

I agree; much easier to pick out detail now.

This is a cool entry; very foreboding.