Thank you! :)

I've just done an open-topped variation of the flat one so people can have whatever they want on top, or just let the background show through.

Things have moved on a bit now. I've given the colour scheme a bit more depth and earthiness and done quite a bit to the mountains.

As always - say what you think. There's still time to change things yet.

I've managed to get a few mesas, canyons and buttes together.

Thank you :)

@Calibre - most of that is a texture called Uneaven Ground, which you can use... or not, according to taste.

This is the map without it.

The 3 highlighted sheets have different kinds of hill on them with different sheet effects - bevel hills on 2, and the chameleon hills on 1.

You can adjust the sheet effects as you prefer. I like a more natural rolling hill effect but you can make the edges harsher if you prefer.

And now we have an Pack Ice fill, as well as a drawing tool for individual floes.

I totally forgot to extend the forest and the cliff shadow where I expanded the map a little to make more room for the legend, so here is the final version uploaded to the competition thread.

There's a hi res image in my gallery here.

Well, yes.

I think there is also another reason that green is used rather than brown. I've got to the point where I need to start adding the... lumpy bits. Where I was starting down the path of making everything a nice brown I realised that the lumpy bits might be a bit offensive in their actual colour. Maybe that is why most artists head for green.

I also modified the cubes after reading a lot of comments here and in the FB Group about how they are practically invisible. I can't make them invisible, but I hope this is an improved representation of them.

I like it, but in answer to your questions:

• For the border maybe just use a simple unaltered border of a fixed width - a line. Less complicated is clearer.
• The stairs look ok to me.
• If the shadows are on a sheet that are higher in the sheet list than the symbols the symbols will appear on top of it in the map.

...

I'm finding the alginment of the deck texture more distracting than anything else.

If you right click the Polygon tool on the right and pick 'Shaded Polygon (Angle by Edge)', then pick the edge of the deck polygon that you want the fill to be aligned with you can make those planks line up with the ship.

The second step is then to cancel the 'roof shading' of those aligned polygons (that's why it went dark looking), which you can do by typing EDITSHADING on your keyboard and picking one of them. This dialog appears. All you have to do then is check the little box called 'Shade only copy' and hit OK

I think it would be possible to do these one-sided roofs using shaded polygons.

Pick the roof texture from the list of textures in your map (click the FS:... box in the Status Bar, and then the tab called Bitmap Files. The Fill Style Name dropdown should contain that roof fill somewhere in the list). Then use the polygon drawing tool |CC2POLY|on the right hand toolbar to draw the roof pieces.

When you've drawn all the roof pieces right click the same polygon drawing tool and pick the option "Shaded Polygon (Angle by Edge)", and click all the pieces at the bottom edge. This will align the fill and shade the roof pieces. If the first rooftop you click looks way too bright or too dark undo (CTRL+Z) and initiate the tool again (go for the same shaded polygon opotion in the right click menu). In the command line you will see an option to change the angle of pitch. Type a number of degrees that is different to the default 45 degrees and try again.

I can't see the outline you mentioned earlier in your screen shot, but if you want to add an outline to a polygon (roof piece) you can do that using the Outline tool |CC2OUTLINE|on the right hand toolbar. If you want an outline other than black right click that button.

Pure gradients (setting up a fill in a polygon that shades from one colour to another straight across, radially, conically, etc) aren't currently possible in CC3, but you can use a large Bevel, Lighted effect on the crater sheet in combination with a crater shaped polygon of a solid colour, followed by a Blend Mode sheet effect set to overlay.

You will need to edit the effects and play with all the settings to get it just right for your particular map. These are the ones I used on a plain white circle of about 12 feet in diameter, though you can use any shape or size you like.