My First and Last City Map - Random Ramblings

This is the first and probably last city map I ever made - apparently back in November 2023. I've been doing a lot of thinking around the type of battlemaps that I want to make lately, different styles, different settings etc, and then remembered the city map I made for someone. But how did it start?

I essentially did it as part of a loose commission for someone else, sat down with them and said straightaway - "Look, I can give it a try, but I have NO idea how well it will end up. It might look terrible, especially as I've only made battlemaps", and we both were happy to give it a try. Fifteen hours later over the course of a weekend, this is what I made. I really enjoyed making it even though it was quite difficult for me to personally get a grip of.

In terms of the design process it wasn't too hard, not many requirements other than "X building in the north east" and "mountains to the western outside of the city". I still feel weird that I managed to make it in Inkarnate - not really knowing the tool at all. I started out with the houses and the main buildings, using essentially the equivalent of the scatter tool to randomly scatter out the houses. I distinguished different districts by using housing colours/types, then filled in gaps where they would fit. The paths then came naturally within other gaps and separations between districts.

For example, the lower right district is the poorer region. There are paths between the houses with some grass but for the most part, the paths are narrow and tight. The "richer" regions on the other hand are more spacious and separated from the rest of the community by fencing.

After all of this, I worked on the terrain to fill the gaps. Placing trees where it was needed and considered to be a bit "bare". It was a bit tricky because the trees didn't get smaller than this. XD

Anyways, that's probably enough random ramblings from me for now. Let me know if you would be interested in more of these kind of posts, where I just note down my design processes and thoughts about mapmaking and the hobby as a whole!

~Snowy