August Entry : The Tin Man's Map...

[tilt]

lol... I'm also with Ascension on the blood issue... and now we're talking about accidents I did manage to hit myself with a sledge hammer earlier this week as I was laying some stones in the yard. Managed just to hit my hand skin only and avoid the bones - luckily, but it did bleed
And I'll pipe in on the map also - the grid is very dominating and the earth textures a bit large.. but I'm guessing you're on a rough sketch for now

[Crayons]

Re: Blood
Well, my foot decided to do a bit of seeping so I now have some sample real stuff on white paper. I've never really studied this but the bright red turned brown within a half hour or so... brown it is.
So I had a look on the web and found this site which kinda ticks that box and several others. I'm bookmarking this one!
http://xkcd.com/color/rgb/
Dried blood is in there.

Thanks tilt, yes it is a tad "draughty" on the map and that's exactly the kind of comment on the grid that I need! The soil texture will be refined - I want to put cart tracks in the "mud" itself by modifying the height field and I needed to get my cart design partly done to get the wheel tracking width right.
This is one cart "in the workshop" at the moment. I'm thinking of having two. One "hardtop" and one "soft-top". One will have to have the obligatory broken axle so you get some sort of view of the side from the overhead view. (The cliché-grinder is grinding!). Given time I'll put some markings on the hard-top which could be a clue about the Tin Man aswell.

If anyone is wondering - the carts got left behind by our original attackers because they won't fit through the trees - they took most of the "goodies" and livestock though...

[Jaxilon]

Haha, ok it's time for a true story that just took place.

I just happen to be reading this post and my wife comes hobbling into the office breathing unevenly...

I ask, "What's wrong, are you ok?"
"I just smashed my toe." she replied in a pained voice.
"Is it bleeding?"
"No."
"Oh Dang!", came my dejected voice.

Only then as she looked at me in a strange way did I realize I probably should have handled that differently. LOL, fortunately, she allowed me to explain myself.
-------------

Nice cart and I like the anti-theft laser beams as well

[Crayons]

....., fortunately, she allowed me to explain myself.

And she believed you?

Hokay. Blood. I've gone back a stage or two - unblurry version, recoloured, fiddled... researched. If you get blood on the front of a scroll and roll it up? The blood transfers onto the back of the next bit... doh. Anyway, not feeling keen to justify all the CSI aspects of the bloodwork I just left the pattern as before and put some extra "dry smudging" on a bit I didn't like too much. Given the excellent example of a coffee-stain recently perhaps my Tin Man should have been alien and bled espresso.
Ho hum. Back to my laser-guarded cart! (Lasers huh? I think this site needs a Weirdness tool like the Rep one! I award 10 Weird-points to Jax!) LOL!
### LATEST WIP ###

I'm still not convinced myself...

[tilt]

sorry - not convinced either... the blood has a much better color now, but the last "stribe" where its smudged.. the smudge acts a bit like a drop shadow lifting the blood of the document. Overall much better without the heavy blurring, the edges are a little sharp though (or should I say lines). You also have some white spaces at the edge of the document where the parchment color hasn't "hit" and the overall blurring/smudge/dirt effect on the document gives some strange blurry artifacts here and there. Looks ok most of the places zoomed out - but not zoomed in.

[mearrin69]

I like this. I don't get it but I like it.

Given the pseudo-Asian vibe you've got there, however, I almost want to see the horizontal parts of it on strips of bamboo tied together with twine. Like this, but with wide strips:
http://www.completebamboo.com/Pic%20...amboo_Book.jpg
http://www.aidandtrade.com/member/am...n_Tzu__334.jpg
M

[Coyotemax]

I can see this map in use.. I've been looking closer at the flow of the locations, and I could absolutely run a campaign based around it, probably even make it last a few years as the party goes traveling looking for whatever is supposed to be at the end of the trail

Blood is getting better, but not quite there yet. I've been working on a few ideas but nothing worth scanning yet

[Crayons]

@mearrin69
I must have an obscure mind, that's the second time someone's said that about not understanding my stuff!! LOL! I apologise!
The basis of the map is the olde worlde route mappe where all the corners are straightened and you only get the information you can sort of see from the route. Wander off the path and you're up that proverbial paddleless creek. There are some primitive directions shown as a sort of code when the sun is shown with an arrow pointing at it, basically - assuming you hold the map infront of you and have the rising sun at the angle to you as shown by the arrow you're pointing the right way for your general direction. Like I said, primitive. The desert sun is a possible error, or deliberate misinformation or works on the midday sun... who knows?
Sometimes there are horizon landmarks shown rotated 90 degrees across the path - to show what the skyline should look like ahead of you - and (say) head to the right of that flat-topped hill...
It is asiatic - so it reads kinda backwards. The Tin Man's "home" is the island in the bottom left - that is journey's "start" and it goes left to right then up one and left to right again - the "end" is the port on the top right...
Some information is repeated with detailed drawings, like the rope bridge and the stonehengey thing. Crop types are crudely represented as are game and "perils" e.g. skull and crossbones in one of the seas, bows or axes for what might attack you... snakes!!!
The intention is that it should be confusing to the players, I hope it is, the map is a tool the Tin Man had made up to remember the salient parts of the journey. The fact that only he may know what it "says" is just another part of his paranoia perhaps. I've tried to keep the thing as open ended as possible so a GM can make anything of it in any fantasy genre he's playing... perhaps.

The bamboo idea is blinding! I wish I'd thought of that! Crikey. I'll see if I can find time to try something along those lines. It has 3D smeared all over it!

@Coyotemax & tilt -- The Blood. Yah, I think I have the right thing on my own bloodied scroll. The blood has squidged out very thin between paper layers and when separated and the blood is still wet it wicks together at the last contact point. I get a sort of "ridge and veins" affect very similar to some mountain range styles I've seen in regonal maps here. There is a very thin line at the boundary. You suddenly recognise it as blood because at sometime in your life you've probably done something similar and left a palm print or side-of-hand print on the formica tabletop when dressing a wound on your hand. Perhaps an excessive ninja paper cut experience?

The Wagon
In the mean time, I've continued the ideographics onto the hard-top wagon, and since Mr Jaxilon seemed to consider security was an issue I called in an old friend to guard the thing while in storage and do a bit of advertising by the by.
Not a latest wip, just a part of the scenery....

[Jaxilon]

Yeah baby, I can see that guy doing disco.

Btw, what are you doing with the 3d carts and wagons anyway? I get the map with the blood on it and it's confusing which makes it cool for a player map but are you going to put these 3d deals onto that map? I think we are having the same thing we had on your solur Nexus in that some of us don't know how this all fits together....I'm going to go back and re-read the start again to make sure I haven't forgotten something.

Edit: Yep, I had blown a fuse in my rememberer Nothing to see here folks. Carry on.

[Coyotemax]

@Coyotemax & tilt -- The Blood. Yah, I think I have the right thing on my own bloodied scroll. The blood has squidged out very thin between paper layers and when separated and the blood is still wet it wicks together at the last contact point. I get a sort of "ridge and veins" affect very similar to some mountain range styles I've seen in regonal maps here. There is a very thin line at the boundary. You suddenly recognise it as blood because at sometime in your life you've probably done something similar and left a palm print or side-of-hand print on the formica tabletop when dressing a wound on your hand. Perhaps an excessive ninja paper cut experience?

You've nailed the description of it! It's hard to replicate digitally if you're not looking right at it, and even then I think the best way would be to scan. I was messing around with a combination of hotsauce, worcestershire (sp?) sauce, vanilla, something else, vinegar, etc to get something that would sort of act like blood (for those who might want to recreate the look without the real thing) and while I got some neat results, nothing authentic.

Maybe I'll nip down to the butcher's and see if I can get a half pint or so o play with