Community Atlas -- Stormwatch Village -- WIP

ScottA · February 2018

So, I thought I was done, but turns out I had one more in me... I think. Its early days yet, but here's where I am so far. As there are no snow-covered tree symbols in this style set I manually put snow on the trees! Now I'm working on putting snow on roofs. Not totally sold on it, though. Options?

Oh, and that scale bar is wrong, BTW. Its FEET, not miles!!! Just noticed!

[Deleted User] · February 2018

Blur and Transparency on the snow might help. Great map - where is it in the Atlas?

Loopysue · February 2018

Really neat looking port

Snowy trees seem to be in short supply, but you've made them look pretty good

Is this one of the annuals?

ScottA · February 2018

@Quenten: Blur is a good idea. I'll see how that looks. I already have Edge Fade Inner with a 50% opacity on the snow. This village is on the Emerald Crown Forest mao I sent in a week or so ago.

@Sue: yes, and the lack of seasonal trees annoys the heck out of me! Especially bare and snowy trees. This is the Jon Roberts city pack.

Loopysue · February 2018

What, no snowy trees in the third party packs?

I thought there were some in the CSUAC...

Maybe, after all the other million and one projects I've got myself stuck into, I could have a look at that.

Alternatively, if you play with GIMP a bit its not too difficult to add snow to existing tree symbols to make your own version. Not possible to share them though

ScottA · February 2018

Well, as this is for the Community Atlas I've tried to stick with a single style. There may be top-down snowy trees in CSUAC. The biggest problem with CSUAC and the Bogie stuff -- both of which I LOVE -- is that it is photographic and so doesn't always seem to fit in well when you try to mix it with hand-drawn symbols like the Roberts or Schley or HW stuff. If I were doing this for something else I would have made my own snowy trees in GIMP and been done with. It would have been a lot quicker than putting a little blop of snow on each tree one at a time...! LOL! Now I'm working on the buildings, so more blop by blops! I'm not known for my patience, but I sort of get in a zone when I'm doing it...

JimP · February 2018

Take up loom beading. That will either increase your patince or be upsetting.

I have not kept my beading up, but here are some examples.

The largest thing I ever did, 182 beads per row. I need to replace all of the cotton thread.
http://beading.drivein-jim.net/articles/3/my-largest-project

Loopysue · February 2018

Or painting the in Pointillist style (tiny brush-tip dabs of different colour paint all over the canvas) :P

ScottA · February 2018

Think I'm ready to put labels on it now. I've decided to leave the snow off the buildings. It just looked messy. I may play around with it a little more if I have time.

ScottA · February 2018

With labels...

Loopysue · February 2018

Wonderful

Only one thing...

Please can you give the legend a small margin at the left hand and bottom edges so that the text doesn't touch the edge? About the same margin as at the top look just right

ScottA · February 2018

And, done, I believe...

Gathar · February 2018

Hello,

I just flew to Switzerland today, and when the plane neared Geneva, I looked at the snowy landscape, thinking about this map. Unfortunately, it looked quite different. From my point of view, the trees looked like if they we leafless, just black trunk and a few main branches, with no snow on top of them...

ScottA · February 2018

Posted By: GatharHello,

I just flew to Switzerland today, and when the plane neared Geneva, I looked at the snowy landscape, thinking about this map. Unfortunately, it looked quite different. From my point of view, the trees looked like if they we leafless, just black trunk and a few main branches, with no snow on top of them...

Black and leafless? Must have been deciduous trees that drop their leaves in the winter... these are supposed to be evergreens.

Loopysue · February 2018

Wonderful

I love the light from the lighthouse! :P

Gathar · February 2018

Posted By: ScottA
Black and leafless? Must have been deciduous trees that drop their leaves in the winter... these are supposed to be evergreens.

I could not see really well, because I was not close to the window, but the general shape of the tree looked more like a pine than a deciduous. But I may be totally wrong

I guess it must also depend on the time since the last snowfall, and the amount of wind. What I saw looked like https://pxhere.com/fr/photo/1394220

ScottA · February 2018

Well, here's one of the pictures I used as a reference. Is it a perfect match? No, but then the symbols themselves are not a perfect match for real trees... nor are any of the farm fills or grass fills or rivers, or whatever fills or symbols perfect matches for the real life things... I did the best I could with coming up with a solution to create the illusion of snow-covered trees.

Lorelei · February 2018

Great map, Scott! Although, i would consider this a town more than a village...it looks to be quite populated and metropolitan with all the variety of merchants for a village. There is one set of snow covered trees in the CSUAC symbol set, but that's the only i know of and they resemble the trees in your pic above

I'll certainly be using this in my own campaign! Thanks for another contribution!

ScottA · February 2018

Thanks, Lorelei. Yes, it is a town/small city. As always happens, the map really evolved from the first one I posted to the last one, and somewhere in between them, I hit on the idea that it would be a whaling and shipbuilding community, which made it bigger than I had originally planned. That's why I love posting things here -- the feedback, even about little things, develops into bigger and better ideas for the final map. I just love this cartographic community!!!

Wyvern · February 2018

Snow's an abysmally difficult thing to create convincingly on maps like this, mostly because it can be hugely variable - how wet (large clumps) or dry (fine powder) it is, how much snow there is, etc., etc. That photo Scott, to me it looks more like very heavy air frost than actual snow, as you can see so much detail on the tree branches still. A fairly light, quite wet, snowfall onto freezing surfaces will create a similar appearance though, along with fine snow driven across by a gale, say. Heavy fresh snow tends to hide all such details, but may equally magnify others out of all proportion - a minor terrain change on the surface can stand out amazingly well under light to moderate snow cover, for instance, especially with low Sun shadows. Conifers of course have that conical shape specifically to help them shed snow, so they can look very "spotty", with white and dark patches scattered fairly randomly, as the snow slides away from some places but not others. And indeed they can sometimes appear dark against the snow, if they've shed most of whatever's fallen on them previously. Wind and animal activity can speed up this "darkening" process as well. Leafless deciduous trees can be almost invisible from above against the snow, and barring shadow effects on the ground, because snow collects primarily along the tops of the main branches, while the finer twigs are either too small to make out distinctly, or are viewed "top down", so more or less vanish. This is again for freshly-fallen snow, as once more, wind and animals will help begin the "spotty clearance" process over time.

Roofs similarly can take on a variety of appearances, though snow tends to clear preferentially from ridge lines and exposed side edges (especially where the wind strikes them). It may slide as well, exposing some bits of roof, but not others, while the slope angle also affects how much snow will lie and where. There's often a heavier concentration of snow towards lower roof edges, partly due to the downslope effect of the roof's pitch, partly because guttering will sometimes form a blocking line the snow can't slide past so readily. Snow will also clear faster around active chimneys (warmth) and the sides of dormer windows (vertical walls), plus from the roofs of often warm buildings, such as forges or bakehouses.

Regardless, I think you've made an impressive map Scott, with the surface cover, cleared paths and so forth, particularly convincing for me. Snow covered tree symbols should maybe be added to our collective, endless, ProFantasy wishlist for "more, please"!

ScottA · February 2018

I live near Buffalo, NY, so I know ALL about snow! LOL! More than once in my lifetime we've had snow drifts up to second-story rooftops! It is indeed not an easy element to depict well, both because of its texture and color. My little winter town isn't perfect, but it works well enough for me. Had I had more time I would have liked to have detailed the snow more with drifts, etc., but I just had to get it done.

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Community Atlas -- Stormwatch Village -- WIP

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