Road Battlemap

[egdcltd]

That's good to know about the trees. I have a feeling the forum works if very few people are trying to use it.

[Mouse]

And if Bogie himself says its all right, then it must be all right

[egdcltd]

Added some trees.

battlemap2a2.jpg

[Mouse]

Oh they're nice symbols!

Do you think, though, that looking at the size of the hoof prints they might need to be about twice the size they are to fit the scale of the drawing?

(What is the scale, btw?)

[egdcltd]

The scale is 5 feet to a square. I have fiddled with the hoof prints quite a few times, and I'm not sure if I'm that happy with them as yet. They might be about the right size - I'm not exactly sure what size horeshoes are, and it does depend on the horse! - but they also might be a bit close together, from top to bottom, and a bit too sharp.

That reminds me, I found some horseshoe things in one of the image packs I downloaded.

[Mouse]

Horses legs tend to come inwards at the bottom a little so the track might need to be a bit narrower than it is, unless the horses are very, very fat The length between the prints is a little on the short side, though I don't know off-hand how long a horses stride really is if its only walking. At a gallop I suspect the stride is far longer than that - possibly 2-3 times as long.

If the gird is 5 foot square its not the hooves that are too big but the trees are definitely only shrubs at that scale. An example here is a mature English Oak tree is about 40-50 feet in diameter - one on its own being more than big enough to cover most of your image.

EDIT: A quick google search for images of horses hoof prints should show you a few horse tracks that will give you a much better idea than any description I can give you, but the prints from left and right legs seem to fall almost on top of one another. In fact, thinking about it I remember listening to a naturalist explaining that prey animals have evolved to leave the smallest track possible, which is why the left and right hoof prints lie so very close, and why also the stride of an animal like a horse is designed so that the rear hooves have a tendency to fall on top of the print left by the front hoof print on that side of the horse.... which means, I guess that the stride of a walking horse must be about the length of the horse from shoulder to hip. About... 4 feet?

[egdcltd]

That was another hard measurement - the width of horses. I simply guessed that. The tracks do look a little close at the moment.

The trees (which are birch apparently) I sort of thought are new growth at the edge of an off map wood, so are small. The images I was using are a bit small for this scale, and might not have looked so good at a decent size - they're at full size as it is.

[wdmartin]

Your grid is superimposed on top of the trees. If you wish to maintain the illusion that the grid is at "foot level", then it should go beneath them.

Also, the trees need shadows to give them some depth.

[egdcltd]

i did actually move the grid below the trees after this, but I think the trees need moving a bit as well. Where they are currently positioned, even after moving the grid, they are so fine it isn't easy to tell whether they are above or below the grid.

I have added a standard drop shadow to the trees. Should I increase the size of it, or attempt to draw shadows in manually instead?

[Mouse]

Maybe intensify the shadows and make them less blurred?