Illustrator, charachter artist and map artist based in italy.
I have worked on maps for years solely for personal use with the main goal to maximize players interaction with the environment.
The art style of the maps developed naturally to both show evocative images and being synthetic enough for players to comprehend at a glance, and not be overwhelmed by excessive details.
I've also worked on custom map on "Fiendish Forge" for Io Publishing.
Since all these maps were intended strictly for personal use, I want to clarify that to hasten the process I used a bunch of heavely modified textures (such as complex tiles, hay, gravel and sand) and a barren tree from Forgotten Adventures. In the last three maps I also used a widespread png of a palm tree originally uploaded on dounjinn from anonymous source.
Keep in mind that using such third party assets for commercial project it is required the proper license, otherwise is suggested to include in the work entire new textures dedicated to the project.