June / July '17 Lite Challenge: An Oasis in the Madness

[Straf]

So I've added a few more tracks and I've plotted out my walking route (red dotted line). Plus I've started adding some photographs I took along the way. I don't know how this is going to look at the reduced size so I'm uploading it for a trial...

### Latest WIP ###
Oasis-1.jpg

[Mouse]

I like the round one better. The square one kind of harmonises too much with the squareness of the woodland patches, and threatens to blend with them rather than standing out in front of them

How about adding an outline frame, perhaps in some kind of bevelled wood texture? If you make one then you can use it for all of them.

Some kind of callout line might also help to pin them to the location they were taken at.

That's a really beautiful area you've got around you there

[Straf]

Yeah I'm going to frame them with something. The rectangular one doesn't work as well as a circle, but maybe an ellipse would work better. And yes there'll be lines pointing to the locations

[Straf]

Hmmm, not sure. I don't think I can bevel the frame. Unless I make it its own layer...

### Latest WIP ###
Oasis-1.jpg

[Straf]

I'm going to leave this until tomorrow now. GIMP started going mad as the working file got to 3.5GB. I've got an idea how to put the photographs in though so I'm going to work on the labels tomorrow and then start putting the photos in properly.

[Bogie]

Looking good Straf, That's a lot of work in a short time.

Welcome to the Challenge. Glad to have you on board.

[Straf]

Thanks Bogie. It's always nice to hammer something out when I have a window of opportunity. Challenges have been a little quieter recently but they're getting back to double figures now

I've done some labeling. I'll revisit the photographs later. I think I've worked out the paths as well - by using the mouse instead of the pen.

### Latest WIP ###
Oasis-1.jpg

[Straf]

A bit more progress, done most (if not all) of the labels. I've put the photographs in with a little frame around each one. I just need to work on the title and some little text boxes about explaining things. Hopefully I'll be done tomorrow Please feel free to criticise, rubbish and laugh at

### Latest WIP ###
Oasis-1.jpg

EDIT: A big thank you to ChickPea who gave me some great tips on using Inkscape to label

[Mouse]

I like it a lot

I love the circular call outs, and I love the elliptical call outs, but... not both together on the same map. I can see why you've done it that way - some of the photos look better one way than the other.

How about doing them all as a fatter ellipse - a sort of hybrid shape that's half way between the circle and the current long ellipse?

The other thing I found a little disturbing was the way the angle of the call out lines doesn't lead to the centre of the shape, but that might just be one of my obsessive little hang-ups

[Straf]

The photographs took me a while to sort out and there was much faffing about. I had to do them in a separate file because the memory use was just ramping up exponentially. So they're stuck that way I'm afraid. However I shall note your suggestions for the future, thank you As for the call outs... I hadn't really thought through how I was going to do them but they are in a separate layer and I might do something with them before the end.

Oh yes, a scale and a pointy thing that tells us stuff about suns and that. That red dotted line, according to my phone app, is 8.7 miles. About halfway through I had to sneak past an elf who was guarding the path:

IMG_20170623_151643.jpg

Well at least that's what my imagination told me. There's a pit of despair near that place too, and I have some pictures of some creepy woods, an enchanted hollow and a road to ruin, but maybe they will appear in future compositions