Before trying my Planescape style (and after trying an old-school style of my own) I tried creating a style using assets by 2-Minute Tabletop (note that I'm only using the free assets... so far). And since I wanted to create a template for each type of map, I ended up making quite a few "sampler" maps (to include as a thumbnail).

These are a few of these maps I ended up creating.

If you've read some of my previous posts, you might have noticed that there's almost always something I don't like about my own creations. But I don't beat myself up, I take it as a lesson, or just something to revisit for later (do throw in comments and suggestions of your own if you wish). And in this case, since they're meant to be thumbnails, they try to showcase what can be accomplished with that template.

Roadside camp

Love the blending of the floor textures (very easy to do with CC3+, it would take me a bit more to accomplish the same with a raster image editing program).

Not convinced about the shadows (too strong, I think).

Ross has a ton of assets suited for this type of maps (I couldn't possibly include half of them in this sample).

Sewer

There's only a handful of geomorphs for the actual tunnels, and then some symbols for decorating everything.

Yes, I know I messed up the seams in a couple of the geomorphs, something to revisit later.

Dungeon

My least favourite accomplishment (the sample I created, not the art by Ross). Basically, I gave up early, created a very bland layout, and called it a day. Also, this was one of the first samples I tried, and I still had some stuff to learn.

Why did I give up?

Well, Ross usually publishes his assets with a generous transparent margin on all sides, so I had a hard time creating properly alingning (snap to grid) symbols for floors and walls.

I do want to revisit the symbols for the walls, and ideally, I'd love to make it a connecting symbol. I might also try to creating a proper texture for the floor instead of tiling symbols at some point in the future.

Desert

There's not too many symbols for this type of map... but I feel like you don't need too many.

Shadows could be improved (again). Not everything make sense, but in my defense, this is meant to be a sampler.

Ocean

There's not too many assets for this "type" of map, but they seem to be enough for me. Ross did a great job with these packs.

I like the blending of the different depths, I like the shadows.

Snowy winter

IIRC, there's one asset pack for this "type". But I liked the result very much. There wasn't a floor texture available, but solid fills did the trick IMO.

World

Ross created this pack with Wonderdraft in mind, but they can be used in CC3+ with no problems.

I need to work on those shorelines.

Cyberpunk

I used 3 packs for this sample. Pretty good results (the paid pack should add a lot of possibilities).

As I type this, I realize I could improve the shadows (yet again). Did I mention these were intended for a thumbnail only? ;)

And finally...

Cave

Now, I should start by saying... I consider this a Beta (or even alpha) sample. More on this after I present to you the image in its current state:

The walls.

You see, Ross has these beautiful hand-drawn textured walls that I like very much. He does offer a cave room builder set, but unless I manage to create a connecting symbol for the cave walls... I'm not sure I'd do it justice.

Or maybe there's something to be accomplished with the Symbols Along Path functionality?

I have to mull it over.

Anyway. This is part of my journey. And it's been fascinating so far.

Yes, this is underground. It's supposed to be in Skullport, but I had no canonical information at hand, so I just winged/improvised given the time I had.

I decided it would be carved into the cave (maybe we could say that there are "natural" chimneys in the ceiling?). Do note that there's a ladder leading up in the room with the pool and a trapdoor below the barrel and sacks in the room with the bed.

A couple of weeks ago, I had to come up with a battle map for use in my VTT of choice... and I didn't have much time.

I didn't actually time myself, but judging by the files' timestamps, this took me about an hour to complete from scratch. Maybe one day I'll be able to match Ralf and Remy and come up with something more elaborate in just one hour, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

The next town is Ecstasy (original map here):

This one took a lot of work. I had to create one too many symbols, and in that process, I discovered I need to find a better way of naming/grouping the building and house symbols. The thing is: you can't rotate isometric symbols. A house drawn at 45º can't be rotated to match a 30º road.

On one hand, you want to be able to switch between different angles/orientations (ie: pressing tab on a collection to "rotate") and on the other hand, you want to choose a single orientation and have the symbol catalog randomly choose a symbol so they all look different. But I was already getting tired of drawing symbols, so I took some creative liberties.

Roads were the easiest part. I just created a drawing tool and traced the road edges instead of the full roads. Unlike previous maps, I added a noticeable glow to the text in this one (I like it. I might add it later to the previous maps). Finally, I'm not convinced about the farms. I drew them with the pencil tool, but when I added the displace effect it was a bit too much. I could have also rotated each one of them manually, but I was getting tired so I just adjusted the worst offenders.

I still want to redo something about all the previous maps, so we can also call this: version 1.0.

Next up was Bedlam (the original image can be seen in this link):

Learned quite some things for this one (the most notable being the one where I used the color key effect, as detailed above).

The one thing I'd like to improve later is the way I did the "roads" (the texture thing, lightly visible on the more transited streets). I tried creating a connecting symbol but it was taking too much time and I wasn't convinced with the progress. I want to use vector-based entities as much as I can, so I discarded the possibility of creating a raster texture.

A fill style based on a Symbol Fill sounds promising.. I did experiment a bit with the Palladiana Symbol Fill, but I'd have to create my own symbol collection and make something similar but filled. Perhaps later.

I'd initially discarded the Brush patterns since they all end up with white backgrounds... but then I remembered the Multiply Blend Mode (thanks again Sue!) and I liked it enough to call it a day.