February Mapping Challenge Entry - "I love HP Lovecraft"

[Steel General]

This is looking pretty cool so far.

[Djekspek]

indeed looking very good (and bloody Jugg! Lille comment: the fonts in the labels of the rooms somehow seem to be 'cropped' at some places. cheers

[Juggernaut1981]

Lovely work! I really like the pattern fills you've used. I think there's a typo (unless it's an alternative spelling) - Orangutan rather than Arangutan.

Quick question: why are the walls of the laboratory different in design to the walls of the house? Is the lab in the cellar or a separate building? A simple little map of the outside of the house and the grounds might be quite cool too.

Aurangutan is a nod to the tendency for wild spelling found in late 19th century texts. If you read a lot of that style of story from the period, you notice all sorts of bizarre prior spellings for words - many of them are just phoneticisations of words they've heard. So, I bastardised the name of the Orangutan and also referred to Indonesia as the Dutch East Indies (as would have still been habit or I could always replace it with other "out of date" names...)

Simple it is because I am a SHAMELESS thief. Why invent a nice elaborate mansion, when the nice people who build houses in Orange County California (and similar place) nicely display them on the inter-nerd for people who have way too much cash? A little copy-paste here, a few cut-copy-obliterate the previous font there... replace with new font so it looks like it might have come from 1897...

Yes, the laboratory is a separate building. (In both senses of the phrase).

[Juggernaut1981]

indeed looking very good (and bloody Jugg! Lille comment: the fonts in the labels of the rooms somehow seem to be 'cropped' at some places. cheers

I did the floorplans and relabelled them, then realised that it was going to crowd out the text, so I took the layers with the floor-plans and ham-fisted a "Scale by 95%" job on them. This may explain a little bit of the word cropping/distortion.

Plans for today> A little more distressing, including a nice "broadsheet paper background"... maybe edit the blurb a bit more.

[ravells]

In that case...you need to have mention of the Giant Rat of Sumatra!!!

Apologies for being too short-sighted to see the intentional (and now I see it, very clever) change of spelling.

I like your thievery of house designs. Finally estate agents can give back to the world.

[Juggernaut1981]

Do you know about the Indonesian Coffee Possum?
There are a few places in Indonesia where they specifically keep a kind of "possum" (I don't know if thats the right animal family but they look similar) to EAT coffee berries... the animal then craps out the "raw" coffee bean in its droppings... people then go around, collect the droppings to gather up the raw beans, then wash them roast them and sell them. 100g of Possum Poo Coffee sells for something like $40US ($50AUD).

Try THAT for scary but true...

Thanks for the C&C Ravs. More updates will be coming in a little while... when I find a suitable "newspaper stock" texture image. The paper texture in GIMP sucks bollocks...

[Ascension]

I read about that a year or so ago and thought, some people are just plain stupid. How trendy those people must think they are...they're the ones who all went out and put tiny dogs in their purses. If I had money to burn on crap like that then I'd do like Lewis Black and get myself my own personal ball-washer instead of drinking poo coffee.

[ravells]

good luck on finding your newspaper filter (I think it's called half-tone).

[Juggernaut1981]

Okay people, decided to try some paper stock textures to spice up things a little. Also included some noise on the whole document (Noise layer, set to multiple, convert other layers to multiply and drop to about 80% opacity)

Aged Paper
Tsaths Lab - Aged Paper.jpg

Cheap Paper
Tsaths Lab - Cheap Paper.jpg

Plain Paper
Tsaths Lab - Grey Paper.jpg

[Jaxilon]

Do you know about the Indonesian Coffee Possum?
There are a few places in Indonesia where they specifically keep a kind of "possum" (I don't know if thats the right animal family but they look similar) to EAT coffee berries... the animal then craps out the "raw" coffee bean in its droppings... people then go around, collect the droppings to gather up the raw beans, then wash them roast them and sell them. 100g of Possum Poo Coffee sells for something like $40US ($50AUD).

Try THAT for scary but true...

The paper texture in GIMP sucks bollocks...

Kopi_Luwak is the coffee you speak of. "Kopi Luwak was the most expensive coffee in the world, selling for between $100 and $600 USD per pound, and is sold mainly in Japan and the United States by weight, and served in coffeehouses in Southeast Asia by the cup. It is increasingly becoming available elsewhere, though supplies are limited; only 1,000 pounds (450 kg) at most make it into the world market each year."

Why?! Indeed an exceptionally great question, however according to the wiki: "the droppings produced an exceptional coffee with unusual taste and lack of bitterness." Has something to do with the animals enzymes effecting the beans supposedly.

I have no idea how this stuff tastes but it sure seems to me that it is a bunch of Bull or rather Cat-$#!(. LOL

And finally, I ask, "What paper texture?" LOL