# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Virtual Tabletop/Battlemap Mapping >  Last Torch Maps: A Golem in the Sand

## Meshon

Another map for a someday-to-be-release Last Torch adventure called Golem in the Sand. A rather ill-starred archaeologist and treasure hunter is attempting to assemble a golem to smash open the doors of an ancient vault. What could possibly go wrong?

This map has been pretty slow to progress. I'm doing a lot of the work in Photoshop (as opposed to my usual Illustrator), and using it in a way I haven't before. However I figured before I went too much further I'd put it up here and keep posting away as I get more things done.

A couple quick explanations, since a lot of this is just blocked in right now. The only area that is actually more or less done is the platform itself, and even there the pillar bases aren't complete and neither are the bits of rubble. Everything in the sand area is unfinished and has loads of work still to come. The dark brown areas near the ruined walls are intended to be stone slab floors, partially buried under the sand. 



cheers,
Meshon

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## Meshon

A little progress on the ruined walls and scattered stones. I still need to figure out a good way to make the flagstone areas (dark brown geometries) look like sand has blown over them.

Oops, I see I forgot to hide my colour swatches before saving.

I don't know of any particular feedback I'm looking for at the moment, though if anyone has ideas on how to blow sand in over those floors, I'm all ears. Also if you spot something particularly nastybad, let me know.

cheers
Meshon

_Edit: I just realized that I need to use a higher quality compression. Next time I upload I'll do it without the icky artifacts._

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## Chick

> ... though if anyone has ideas on how to blow sand in over those floors, I'm all ears.._._


Something like this?

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## Meshon

> Something like this?


Yep, something like that! Although it needs to be on the bits around the edges, the parts I called flagstone but don't actually have any flagstone texture on them so they really are not the flagstone part of the map. Whups, sorry.

Is that cloning you did there? I think it will be fun to work on this part. I like putting dirt all over my maps…

cheers,
Meshon

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## Chick

Oh?  Are you asking how I did that?  Silly me, I just poured sand there and blew some of it away  :Smile:  :Smile: 


I copied a big rectangle of your sand from the top center, pasted it on top of the stone area, then used a large eraser brush with hardness 0, opacity 40%, flow 20% to blow some away, er, that is, erase some of it.

Have fun getting dirty!  :Smile:

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## Meshon

> Oh?  Are you asking how I did that?  Silly me, I just poured sand there and blew some of it away


Like. 

I'd use a like button, for when rep is still on cooldown  :Wink:

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## Chick

I just happened to stumble across a picture showing a lot of sand blown over ruins, thought it might help a bit:  http://www.avalook.com/trip2004/wa15/imgp4871.jpg

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## Meshon

Thanks chick, like again! I was doing some research into models for figuring out how snow drifts around buildings which will help. I also see now that I should make some spots look like people have walked over them. Thanks for the picture!

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## Meshon

Continuing to plug away, mostly working on the ridge this time. Next up I'll need to make the sand look more like sand contours and such. That will probably be a whole lot of experimentation!

Any feedback is welcome! Although I'm very aware that I'm really only making micro-sized progress  :Smile: 

cheers,
Meshon

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## jpstod

I like simple maps

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## Meshon

Threw some sand on there. The first go the sand was too sharp. It's still kind of isolated ridges, rather than an undulating field, but I'm prepared to let it go. I struggled with putting footprints on for awhile and then dropped that endeavour. I'm not sure exactly how to do them so that they look good but I'm not drawing a thousand individual footprints. Anyway, here's where I'm at. It's possible this is as finished as I want to be. There's lots more that could be done, but I'm not sure I'm up to it just now. Besides, I still want to enter the lite challenge!


cheers,
Meshon

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## Abu Lafia

Hey Meshon, seems like your research on "sand behaviour" paid off  :Wink:  . This looks amazing!

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## Chick

Yes!  That looks really good!  I'd say throw a little bit more sand on the edge of the bottommost one, just to kill the visible edge a bit.

I'd sure love a tutorial on how you did the sand ridges!!

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## Meshon

Thanks! The sand was a learning process. I realize now that the ridges probably shouldn't have so much flat ground between them; when the downslope ends, the next upslope should begin. Thanks for the catch on that bottom corner. The original file has a crop area around the edges and when I was painting in the sand I was zoomed way in and just thought most of that would be cropped. I need to step back for the big picture more often!

There's nothing too special about how I did the sand ridges for this map, just lots of brush strokes. With a dark brown, I started tracing the length of where I wanted a ridge to go with a thin line brush at 10% opacity. For this map it was 10px, but the final image size is 6900x5100 pixels, so you would adjust accordingly. I switched the brush down to 5%, which takes longer but I'm not confident enough yet to go higher. Then I continued tracing the ridge line on the shadow side. Each time I traced the line again I drew a slightly shorter stroke and increased the brush size a step or two. Once I had good coverage I did the same thing in reverse for the highlights with an almost-white colour. I think if I had made the the ridges wider I could have stopped there, but it really looked like someone had come along and poured sand in little rows on the ground, so I blurred the lot.

Here's where the map is now, with a little extra sand.

You know, that explanation of the sand ridge was lacking something. A picture! I'll be back in a few minutes with that  :Smile: 

cheers,
Meshon

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## Meshon

Here's just some pictures of the process. I think I may have missed a couple between 5 and 6. I actually really like how it looks _without_ the blur but it didn't work for the sand map so I blurred it to cover mistakes  :Smile: 


Let me know if that helps, or if you have any other questions about what I did.

cheers,
Meshon

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## Chick

Are my eyes deceiving me?  You said you started with drawing the ridge line, but in this beautiful example, it looks like the initial lines turned into the troughs.  And the step from 8 to 9 -- is that just blurring, or did you remove the original line?

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## Meshon

> Are my eyes deceiving me?  You said you started with drawing the ridge line, but in this beautiful example, it looks like the initial lines turned into the troughs.  And the step from 8 to 9 -- is that just blurring, or did you remove the original line?


Sorry for taking ages to reply. I see what you mean. I think because I placed the starting lines closer together it ends up with an indeterminate elevation. If I squint hard I can switch it back and forth.

I'm pretty sure step 9 is just blurring. I think I actually like it better without the blur, but sometimes softer helps.

cheers
Meshon

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