# Mapmaking Discussion & Philosophy (WIP/Critique) > Virtual Tabletop/Battlemap Mapping >  Czepeku's Battlemaps

## Czepeku

Hey everyone, I recently started a Patreon for battlemaps and I wanted to showcase what I've created so far. I can already see improvement in my work but I wanted to ask for critique here too. Always happy to learn new tricks and tips.  :Smile: 

Here's the first 5 battlemaps from oldest to newest. Thanks for taking a look!

----------


## Larb

Some really nice stuff - I love your colouring.

----------


## Azélor

Very nice. I like the lightning.

----------


## XCali

I really like the maps. Well done. You already have a good handle on setting up a scene and making it intriguing to explore.  :Smile: 

I can start by pointing you in the direction of learning more about Core shadows, it would really compliment how you are already using of cast shadows. Adding smaller quite darker shadows closer to the objects will make them pop out of the page even more. After that learning about Highlights will take that even further. 

There was a thread where I started outlining the idea behind core shadows with a fellow guilder, if you are interested, head here.
Though I am certain there are A LOT of tutorials online for tackling the spectrum of shadows and highlights to make art pop out of the page.

Again, you really have nice maps  :Wink:

----------


## Czepeku

Hey everyone, thanks so much for the feedback, it is much appreciated. And thanks for the tip XCali. I'll definitely take your advice about the shadows.

I've got a new map out tonight, it is for my Patreon as we completed our first goal of $25p/w and I wanted to give something for free back to my supporters. Here it is:



And here's a lineup of the variations we created for it:



If anyone has any smart ideas about post-processing for maps to achieve different lighting conditions or weather, i'd love to hear them. Usually i use colour balance and colour lookup layers in PS as well as manual editing.

I know this is a forum for map making but if anyone sees this post and is curious, here's a painting I made to accompany the map: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/0XElmE  :Smile:

----------


## Czepeku

Newest battlemap is here. Really curious to see what everyone thinks. Feedback welcome!

----------


## MistyBeee

Hmm, I'm a silent observer of this thread, enjoying your work without any constructive comment, but I'm totally in love with your colors and views. This lasst one is not an exception : it's amazing how you can give a sense of volume in a top-down map. Good job !

----------


## Kellerica

These look fantastic! The view at 100% is maybe a little larger than it really needs to be for online viewing purposes, but that is about all the criticism I can think of. As other have said, your color choices are just beautiful.

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks for the feedback Kellerica and MistyBeee! I appreciate it. As for the size, that's useable in Roll20 for anyone who wants it, or printable if that's what you prefer. I suppose I could have uploaded a smaller version for this forum though. Speaking of which, is there anyway to make the thumbnails here bigger? It can be quite hard to see people's maps unless in full view, which is a shame, as there's so much great work around here and most it is in the details.

----------


## XCali

Nice! You did a great job.  :Very Happy: 

I am wondering here, to make it even better maybe... That kind of misty feel of it adds a lot of mood, but I can't help but think the colour on the fog and the colour of the ground is too similar and thus only give a blurry look to some places. I can be wrong, but it is what I am thinking about  :Razz:  (Also, trying to add three shades of values to the mist would make it stand out more. If that was what you were going for.)

Keep up the good work  :Wink:

----------


## Bogie

The 3D cliffs in your last map are great!

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks for the feedback XCali, it's really appreciated! I hope you like what i've made this week.





Here's this week's new battlemaps! The theme was Wizard's Tower as chosen and voted on by my Patrons.

The second image shows all *118 variations* I designed for the theme! It was a huge undertaking but a lot of creative fun too.

----------


## Larb

Oh wow, that's really nice. Definitely gives people a lot of options for how to assemble their tower.

----------


## XCali

> Thanks for the feedback XCali, it's really appreciated! I hope you like what i've made this week.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Here's this week's new battlemaps! The theme was Wizard's Tower as chosen and voted on by my Patrons.
> 
> The second image shows all *118 variations* I designed for the theme! It was a huge undertaking but a lot of creative fun too.


Wow!!  :Very Happy:  Well done!
How long did it take to make that set?

----------


## Czepeku

Xcali, it took about 3 days but i work with my partner. On my own it'd have taken way longer. It was a lot of work but definitely worth the effort!

----------


## Czepeku

Hey, I've got a map of the Feywilds this week. It was a lot of fun to make, lots of glowy light effects. Really wanted to create a great atmosphere with this one. Hopefully I succeeded. To see the variations, check here.

----------


## XCali

Lovely!  :Very Happy:

----------


## MistyBeee

Amazing atmosphere, and the variations are stunning as well !

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks everyone for the positive replies, glad you're enjoying them. I've had a two week hiatus moving house but just finished my newest map. Check it out!



Patrons asked for a city marketplace but I wanted to give it a bit more context so I added in a city wall and a dock too. You can see the variations here.

----------


## rdanhenry

I really like the fountain.

----------


## Czepeku

> I really like the fountain.


Thanks! Tried a dragon at first but had to go with the beholder.  :Very Happy: 



Next map complete! At 26x50 this one is HUGE. Maybe the biggest one yet? It was a lot of fun but definitely glad to be finished. It was created as a free gift for my patrons as we completed another goal over there a few weeks ago.

----------


## MistyBeee

Hmm... Incredible ambiance and splendid details. I especially love the ground textures and paintings  :Smile:

----------


## Czepeku

> Hmm... Incredible ambiance and splendid details. I especially love the ground textures and paintings


Thanks MistyBeee, always appreciate your comments. Making the floor patterns and icons was a lot of fun.

Here's this week's battlemap, the Adventurer's Guildhall.

----------


## XCali

Can't rep you again so soon, but great job with those maps. I love the little details you put into them and that Maze... Looks great but creepy at the same time. Well done.  :Very Happy:

----------


## Adfor

I'm just astonished by how you manage to keep a somewhat rough line quality, and make it look so good with your light fashioning. Really big fan of your perspective work, the level of depth you are able to achieve is impeccable. Keep them coming, we want more!

----------


## arsheesh

These are all excellent!  You've got a very distinctive color scheme.  Also the lighting on the... Minotaur den? map is perfect.  Well done.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

----------


## ThomasR

I love the whole map but the shading is simply amazing !

----------


## SteffenBrand

Great work, as ThomasR already said great shading! =)
Repped!

----------


## Czepeku

Hey everyone, thanks for all the kind words, it really means a lot to me. Trying to improve with every map but it can be difficult.  :Smile: 
Anyway, here's my newest battlemap. Hope you all enjoy.

----------


## Czepeku

A new week and a new map, this time the Underdark Drow Manor.

For those who don't play DnD, the Drow live in stalagmites way under the ground in a place called the Underdark. These are the top three floors of one of those stalagmites. The Drow also worship an evil spider deity called Lolth and we've used her motif throughout.

The other 8 floors of the stalagmite are available here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/underdark-drow-25936246

P.S. Going to try some pirate themed maps this week and hopefully enter them into the competition...

----------


## Larb

The spider goddess looks pretty cheerful. =P  Great map.

----------


## arsheesh

You've come up with some really neat and unique looking encounter maps.  I love your colors and lighting as well.  Fantastic job on these.

Cheers,
-Arsheesh

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks for the nice words everyone, it's always appreciated. Yeah the spider goddess is a bit cute looking, we got a lot of feedback on that. Maybe she could have been a bit more dour... But what's wrong with cute AND evil?

----------


## Czepeku

This is our pirate tavern with secret smugglers cove. We call it The Roc Nest. The theme was chosen by and voted on by our patrons. It seems everyone is excited about the new Saltmarsh DnD module being released next month.

This is the ground floor but there’s an upstairs with a clifftop as well as a basement level that allows for a lot of sneaking around. We’ve made a lot of variations for this one in case your party wants to keep returning to this island: several night versions, moonlight with beached mermaid, a ghost ship and cursed treasure chest, a bloody shipwreck with sharks, a sunset, a stormy night, a bioluminescent shore, a nesting Roc and some forgotten Roc eggs on the clifftop above. Here's a link to those if you're interested: https://www.patreon.com/posts/port-pirate-26110080

----------


## Czepeku

Newest battlemap out today. The theme was a Floating Sky Castle. The image above shows the 'ground' floor (although it's floating...). We did 7 floors in total, you can see them lined up here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/floating-sky-26311716

Hope you all enjoy!

----------


## Czepeku

Had a week off but now back at it, here's my newest battlemap:



Kind of Ghibli-esque in a way. The theme was Zen Garden Monastery but I wanted to avoid it being overtly Zen-like. Let me know what you think! It was nice to do something a bit more scenic and peaceful for a change.

----------


## MistyBeee

Always a pleasure to see your work. I'm especially fond of the colors you used on this one.
And... the fishes look super cute.

(Always remember you, Little Bobby...!)

----------


## ThomasR

This is getting better and better *crunches some pop-corn*  :Smile:

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks everyone! I try to make them better each week. It can be hard sometimes when the theme changes so drastically. But the ghibli-like map was a lot of fun to do.

This week I made a 3 floor vampire mansion. The main idea was to make it look 'normal' so no one would suspect the vampire presence until it was too late.



Variations are here if anyone wants to take a look.

Thanks again for all the kind words, the support here is always phenomenal. MistyBeee I've been looking at your work a lot recently. Your borders/presentation is just phenomenal.

----------


## Adfor

Creepy! I love the organ. Your work is always a pleasure to behold, Czepeku.  :Smile:

----------


## ThomasR

Nice ! Can I suggest a little blur for the lower floors appearing like the tree ?

----------


## J.Edward

Beautiful work and a nice color scheme.  :Smile: 



> Nice ! Can I suggest a little blur for the lower floors appearing like the tree ?


That's a good idea. It would add a nice touch to this.

----------


## Czepeku

Newest battlemap! This is for pitting your players against gladiators, slaves and captive beasts. Hope you guys like it. This one is a bit boring but we wanted a large space for the action to happen. There's some variations with more interesting scenarios. You can see those here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/colosseum-of-26970437 if you're interested.  :Smile:

----------


## XCali

Wow! That is one of, if not the best Arena battlemap I have seen. Well done. I love the texture, may inquire into which one you used?

I also thoroughly enjoy the finer touches of the map. The Line work with the statues is especially nice. All in all a great piece of work. (Ugh, can't rep you again so soon.  :Razz:  )


EDIT: Ah, I just spotted a detail, just if you want to correct it. The Wizards hat has some of the arena's line work overlapping inside the hat. (It is a small thing)

----------


## Czepeku

Hey XCali, sorry for the slow reply. I appreciate you pointing out the mistake, I'll get around to that. There's no texture layer, just different brushes, some of which are textured. Hope that helps. I'm really glad you like it!

----------


## Czepeku

This is my newest map. The theme was 'Realm of Dreams' so we went with this pastel wonderland type theme. This is by far the biggest map I've made. Hard to see the scale without the hi-res file though, but the whole thing is 90x90. It's got giant swords, unicorns, broken clock towers, sharks, mega bonsai, beholders, pirate ships, all sorts. Enjoy!

See the starry night variation here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/realm-of-dreams-27523351

----------


## Adfor

Astonishing, this has to be one of the coolest maps I have ever seen, absolutely wicked!

Cheers!

IR

----------


## Czepeku

I seem to have missed some of the earlier comments, thanks to everyone who commented, I will definitely try blurring in future for the separate floors, that's a good idea!

----------


## Czepeku

Here's my newest map. The theme this week was Ancient Battlefield. I wanted it to feel like you were walking on the ruins of an old palace or castle, with the ruins and bones of old slowly sinking into the earth, like nature was reclaiming the land.

As always variations like night and winter and hellscape can be found here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/ancient-25x45-27816330

----------


## Czepeku

This was a really fun map to design! It's in the style of a European village fête, with all the usual games, beer and cheese and pies and other festivities. We've given everything a slight twist though and tried to include the monster theme wherever we could, including our spit-roast Giant Spider, Owlbear petting zoo, Griffon rides and more. We want players to have fun spotting everything, so we've included a bunch of DnD easter eggs throughout the map.

If you want to see more, here's my Patreon post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/medieval-monster-28017793

----------


## Czepeku

This week's battlemap was a collaboration between ourselves and two other artists: Griffon's Saddlebag and IADnDMN. We made the map and they made monsters and items to go along with it. You can see that content and get it for free here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/antlion-canyon-28484291 (the zip file is at the bottom, just above the comments). A lot of people have said this reminds them of Golden Sun and other jRPGs, some of which i've played, so I guess that's an influence whether I knew it or not!

----------


## MistyBeee

Oh, damn, those colors are incredible. I can feel irradiated by the sun just by looking at it o_o

----------


## Czepeku

Glad to hear that! I really couldn't tell if it was too much. Don't want to burn out peoples eyes...

----------


## Czepeku

The mountain is steep and dangerous. The fog hides many tripfalls. Danger lurk endlessly. But your monk must travel here to avenge their master and attain some new badass ki moves.

See the variations here, this week they include a jungle version, an icy version, bloodmoon, burning temples and more:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/mysterious-18x31-28530023

----------


## Czepeku

We're back again with a new map!



This one is the Steamy Salamander Hotsprings! We were tasked with designing a fantasy Japanese bathhouse and this is the result!

See this week's extras here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/steamy-japanese-28738564

----------


## Czepeku

Here's the first two building maps from my new City Maps project! If you haven't seen it already, please check it out.  :Smile:

----------


## Czepeku

This is my newest battlemap, the Cavern of the Venom Queen. It's part of a project I worked on with 3 other DnD creators. You can read about it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/cavern-of-venom-29457617

----------


## Czepeku

This is a new tavern from my City Maps project. It's called the Lonely Behir. You can read the flavour text I wrote about it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/lonely-behir-8-29384030

----------


## Czepeku

Final City Map of the month, check it out here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/planties-swede-29440116



Mandrake or mandagora? You decide!

----------


## Czepeku

Happy to finally be releasing this one! It's been in the works for a long time. A collaboration with my friend Zivko over at: https://www.zhillustrator.com/ make sure to take a look at his awesome paintings.

----------


## XCali

Hmm, the last two posts, the attachments seems to be faulty, might want to check it out.

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks for letting me know, I've fixed it up now!

----------


## Czepeku

and



These are my newest maps, the theme for the first was a casino and the theme for the latter was a fungi infested forest. I hope you enjoy my take on those ideas!  :Smile:

----------


## Bogie

Really cool maps!!

----------


## Czepeku

Thanks Bogie!

----------


## Czepeku

This map came out much different than expected but I'm still pleased with it. Getting a caldera to look good and play interestingly wasn't easy. For the full adventure, minis, monsters and items check out the post here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/drakescale-peak-30357365

----------


## Czepeku

The theme this week was 'Mid-Air Dragon Flight' so we made a whole set of different sky areas as well as dragon and airship tokens. Dragons fly at 80ft per turn in 5e so all the maps had to be pretty vast.

See the full post with the 36 maps here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/mid-air-dragon-30744508

----------


## Czepeku

This is our newest battlemap. It was made for the theme of 'City Rooftop Chase' with lots of interconnected paths with rickety ladders and planks stretched across roofs and awnings and buntings for the more agile characters to bounce over.

----------


## Czepeku

Hey everyone! We haven't posted here in a while but we were super happy with how this battlemap turned out!

This is one of the variations from our newest map pack- 'Eldritch Church' a sunken church, lost in the ocean depths.

This is for everyone out there playing Lovecraftian campaigns or just want a cool place to fight planar evils or a base for a BBEG.

If you want to see more of our work you can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/czepeku or just scroll back through this thread!  :Smile:

----------


## rdanhenry

Oooooh! Such a pretty horrible doom for all mankind.

----------


## Bogie

Very nice, and creepy!

----------


## Bindusara

Cthulhu fnag'ht Rlyeh ! Very nice indeed!

----------


## GenkiBob

> Attachment 123204
> This is one of the variations from our newest map pack- 'Eldritch Church' a sunken church, lost in the ocean depths.
> This is for everyone out there playing Lovecraftian campaigns or just want a cool place to fight planar evils or a base for a BBEG.
> 
> If you want to see more of our work you can find it here: https://www.patreon.com/czepeku or just scroll back through this thread!


Surreal and beautifully done. More than just a battlemap. That is art in and of itself.

----------


## houseofdexter

Really nice stuff...

----------

