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

[Crayons]

It looked a bit empty here with contestants, hopefully, all lurking in the wings so I thought I'd throw in my lot again, if only to give you all something to critique while-u-wait, as it were...

My entry is in two parts, which is probably against the rules - but at least I posted the entry correctly!!!! (I think).

a) is a battlemap I haven't started yet, which is THE location of the challenge - and it's just going to be somewhere on the roadside where the Tin Man has been waylaid. Our adventurers will come upon the scene, and fight whatever the GM wants to put there, be they the original bandits, looters, beatles-song singing vultures or itinerant luggage labellers. The scene will be empty but for the remains of the Tin Man's caravan(ette). This will be a POVRay thingy again, sorry, however...

b) is the main lead into where-ever else and it's a route map of the log type - just a linear view of the route from A to B (and hopefully back again). Unfortunately, it's all written in some obscure ideographic language and it's up to the GM to decide if the adventurers can get any of it translated (if at all) and what it says, coz I just scribbled junk on it... Who knows, it might all be a hoax.

Anyway... the clue is in the Tin Man. Of the equipment and stuff left by the looters a lot of it is made of gold. Everyday things seem to be made of it whilst ornaments and the like are largely made of Tin. In essence the Tin Man was a trader in search of Tin ( a rare and valuable metal where he lives) and was going to trade in gold, which is common as muck... it's Pratchett's Twoflower of sorts, I guess.
The map tells of many places unknown to most (*think* Silk Road etc) and it maybe that some symbol or occasional translated word might be another clue to some unrelated "treasure" - the thing is largely open ended as to what it can be used for...

This is the latest version of the map. I wanted to try my hand at "hand drawn" again and I managed to find the Bamboo I bought a while back (not used a tablet for quite a while). Now, this isn't "an excuse" for it being so shoddy (even though it works as one!) but this is a "handout" level map, drawn cheaply by some scribe or other (likely then murdered to keep the secret) and based on the words and description of some traveller or other the Tin Man met (and subsquently buried next to the scribe)... you get the gist. There's no "X marks the spot" but there are lots of ideograms that might!!!
### LATEST WIP ###


I guess to get inside the rules and past the thumbnail scraper I'll have to put the map and the battlemap in the same jpg...

Critiques akimbo please, if anyone knows a good way to do blood it'd help a lot - the striping effect is *supposed* to simulate the blood having been spilt on it when it was rolled up as a scroll?
It's all done by hand in Paintshop Pro, no fancy anythings much. I used Fur texture to make a raindrop smudge effect here and there but otherwise...well...