Map Tile Set

[madcowchef]

Like the thousands who came before me I've decided to do a set of tiles that can be laid down to form a larger battlemap. I'm going for intermediate scale, neither a full map, nor one where you need to lay out a large number of pieces for every single encounter. I have several questions that I'm seeking opinions on:
1. Grids- Dark, light, none at all? What do you find the most useful?
2. Scale- I have it set at about 5 ft. squares, so the whole thing is around 50' across. Does that seem desirable?
3. Overall Appearance- is this generally attractive or does some major element of it annoy you?

The white and the gridless one have been shifted so you can see how the tiling will look (this is just a test so the stream doesn't line up with anything) and the black gridded one left in normal position. These are about 50% the size of the originals which are perhaps overly detailed. I'm hoping the scale will allow me to include things such as small to medium buildings and the like. This first set will be for forest style encounters if it works out.

TT1.jpg TT2.jpg

TT3.jpg

[abhorsen950]

Personally, I like them! Not overly cluttered, not to much going on! Reminds me of the D&D tiles!

Looking forward to seeing more with buildings. It's a nice start!

[madcowchef]

First tile done with the alignment marks on it so I know that it will play nice with the tile next to it.
TileRF1.jpg

Also can rivers do this? I think even with the difference in light direction they seem to tile just fine to my eye, and I think directional light simply adds too much depth to do away with it.
RiverPoliceBait.jpg

[KartoKilt]

I don't see a river, I see an island in a pond. Or a man made moat. Shading and colors look good. Very nice overall.

[madcowchef]

I did a couple more but ran into one of the many problems that tests my decisiveness (a test I am unlikely to pass). A number of the tiles as I had planned them take place in older forest, the type with big old trees and less undergrowth. Unlike the smaller trees the foliage is high enough up that it would not impede travel only the trunk would. I experimented with several ways to show this:
1. Dimmed cut off. Leaves me feeling like I want to squint at a part that isn't supposed to draw my attention.
2. Cut off view where you can see the rings of the tree. Doesn't look like its showing a break in the mapping, just a cut down tree to me shadow or no.
3. Blacked out. Seems OK information wise but not especially attractive.
4. Faded view of the tree top to keep in the style with the rest of the trees. Looks messy to me and doesn't highlight any useful information.
TileTrunkquestion.jpg

Here's the full view:
TileRF4.jpg

Any Advice or insights?

And several other completed tiles:
TileRF2.jpg

TileRF3.jpg

[Jacktannery]

Lovely tiles, especially the last two. Wonderful style - I usually dislike 'dungeon' tiles but these ones are special.

big old trees and less undergrowth

Option 2 looks great, but looks like a tree-stump. 1, 3 and 4 don't look good.
I advise you don't try to be too realistic here - just use your normal smaller trees and don't try to create a realistic big old tree with high foliage - I've seen lots of people attempt to show this on maps and it always look crap.

[madcowchef]

Thanks, good to know which problems can't be tackled. I will simply make some large stumps instead of trying to show that they are trees.

[madcowchef]

A couple more. Having the farm house at a straight angle sets my teeth a bit on edge, it would look 200% better at a slight angel, but would serve its actual purpose more poorly (until I can convince everyone that measuring tapes are better than squares). Any glaringly amiss elements?

TileRF5.jpgTileRF6.jpg
TileRF7.jpg

[Bogie]

These are great madcowchef!

My 2 cents, ( OK, 1.5 cents )
I prefer no grid, but I don't mind the dark grid. Hate the white one.
The terrain is excellent, detailed, realistic, but general enough to be used for a lot of things.
The 10" x 10" size allows for much more natural looking tiles, and should work great with VTT's, but is not good for printing. 8x8 is better for printing, but then you have less natural layouts. Do it the way you like.
The rivers are wonderful and the waterfall is fantastic.
Looking forward to seeing ( and scarfing up ) more!

[madcowchef]

Thanks for the feedback. I prefer gridless to, do you think that will suit the majority of folks needs? If I'm going to use things on the table I perfer to draw the grid on some plexi and set that on top, or better yet I like rulers as they don't suffer from odd and natural shaped objects. The printing issue is one I'm poorly versed in, my main goal is to make a fun set of free tiles for whoever wants them and make them as useful for that purpose as possible. I need to look into the right license nonsense so that I can put them up as "hey feel free to use these for personal stuff all you like, play with them at cons etc. just don't sell them. Any insights that make them more useful for said purpose are greatly welcome.