The rest of 2021 _ Plots & Plans

Without wallowing in details, I am going to say straight up that 2021 has been a difficult year for me compared to 2020, and making time for mapping for Patreon in among family needs and emotional tar-pits has been an interesting challenge, especially when I committed to a whole bunch of commission maps early in the year before I knew my time was going to be limited! 

Having you guys here to create for has been a blessing though. You have collectively given me something to focus on that I enjoy. I would make maps anyway, and even though I get frustrated that I have not been able to make you as many maps as I persisted in thinking that I could, you guys continue to be out here. Your little stories of how you have used my maps in your worlds are snippets of joy that make any day I read them sunny :-)

September has unfortunately turned out less productive than I had hoped, even after making allowance for reduced available time ... and unfortunately, I am not going to have any finished maps for you this month. 

Southport (below) is half way done though, and I am very excited about where it is going... I have been wanting to play with drawing a layered/vertically stacked city in top-down view for a while now. Its an good challenge for me, and hopefully an interesting setting for you all.

There are going to be more buildings and greenery.... I have plans for a small Fort and walled town in the 'north'  between the 2 larger rivers, and farmland all over everywhere else - and a little fishing/trader village near the river docks...  basically another little mini-region map :-)

Southport will hopefully be finished and released next month, along with a couple of little bonus maps, probably of caves... quite probably some of the caves on the Southport map.... I made sure that there was a good sized waterfall on the central river to have a hidden entrance behind!

December/rest of 2021

For the rest of 2021, apart from Southport, there is unlikely to be any formal map releases. This is so that I can really focus all my mapping time on whittling down the last 2 big commissions I took on for this year. Next year I plan to be much less ambitious about my available time when taking on commissions so that I will be able to get back to making maps for Patreon more regularly.  

2022 Re-Boot with Settlement map focus

Over the last year, I have been drifting towards mostly creating Settlement maps.
In 2022 I am going to make them my main focus for Patreon, initially aiming for 1-2 a month (maximum of 4 if I happen to have the time). That doesn't mean I won't draw battlemaps or world maps etc... but they will be a lot rarer, 3rd or 4th release maps, or perhaps just fun bonus maps. 

Speaking of the bonus maps. I will be returning them to the realm of actually being bonus maps, rather than being a planned release/expectation.
This is partly because I prefer the spontaneous feeling to bonus maps rather than the planned 'it has to fit this theme this month' - even though I am usually the one to set the theme!  Also, as time has gone on, I have been putting more and more time into each bonus map, which takes away from the main release maps of the month, making everything feel a bit rushed and cramped. So, while they are fun to do, and I like being able to make extra free stuff here and there, I need them to be something fun to do in some spare time, rather than something interesting that needs doing but takes time away from the bigger things.
If that makes sense?  
IF I go wild and create variations of bonus maps, the Explorer tier will still get those as an extra, but it won't be a regular tier reward.

As a result, I will be changing up the tier rewards a bit - I will let you all know what they will look like in early December so you have a month to mull them over against your maps for games needs and decide which tier will suit better or if you would rather switch to someone who focuses more on battlemaps   .... I know not everyone will need 12-24+ new settlement maps a year ;-) 

Summary

• The maps I planed for September (Southport + a couple of bonus maps) are being postponed due to lack of available time for them this month. They should be out in November
• Southport will probably be the last formal/paid release of 2021
• In 2022 I will 're-boot' with a definite settlement map focus and a few changes to the tier rewards - mainly to put 'bonus' maps back into the realm of 'bonus' rather than a regular reward/commitment. 
• New tier reward descriptions will be posted in early December to allow a month for everyone to mull them over

Thanks for making it through that rambling post :-)
Until early November bring us a finished Southport map... happy travels everyone :-)

PS...

If you didn't get a free copy of the Country Inn map yet ... there are still 7 free copies left.
go here: https://www.nexus.gg/misjaymaps/products , add the country inn to the shopping basket. Then at checkout use this code:  Misjay001_Inn 

As this is a beta-test of Nexus's Promo-code feature, if you encounter any hiccups let me know ASAP so I can pass it on to the development team.