Tags
Dungeon, Dungeons & Dragons, Fantasy, Isometric, Labyrinth Lord, Maps, OSR, RPG
I love the look of isometric maps. I’m not all that skilled at crafting them though. Some time last summer (July-ish), I printed off some isometric graph paper and tried my hand at it, drawing up a dungeon, some doodles and an isometric version of Stuart Robertson’s OSR logo.
I also drew this one the next week and totally forgot about ever scanning the damned thing.
Isometric Dungeon #2
It’s my considered opinion that dungeons should be 3-dimensional structures (in general), although I find it much harder to put them together using a three-dimensional mapping coordinate system like this. So you don’t get lost figuring it out, the two entrances to the dungeon are on the same vertical level.
I think the whole thing might have looked better if I had decided to draw walls along the back walls of each room, cave and hallway. In fact, I tried my hand at a similar isometric map at the beginning of the month (while waiting for Patreon to send me the funds from all the awesome patrons who keep the blog alive and kicking) and will post it on Tuesday.
I wonder if an alteration to your hatching would make the isometric aspect jump out more… What if it curved/flowed downward like a waterfall wherever the levels shift? Seems like that might reinforce the depth.
I love isometric maps because they are very intuitive. I see that doing stairs which go downwards away from the viewer are a bit awkward. All the isometrics I’ve tried were mostly a simple single level so I hadn’t encountered that before.
I find isometric maps a horror to draw with iso graph paper, freehand works better. I also find that they work only indifferentlt for verticality of complex spaces, especially buildings.
That said, they do look awfully nice and are easier to fill with evocative detail. There must be a hybrid method (top down map with iso ‘pop out’ of complex rooms? Tamochan style illuatration booklet?). I don’t have it, but iso as it is feels both frustrating as heck and terribly seductive to my mapper self.
I wholly agree with every element of that. They SEEM like they should be so awesome, but they can actually be more confusing… but remain sexy!