"Roads" Topic

We have run into an interesting problem with the depiction of something as simple as roads. Our current state of the art (some may say lack of art) is to use thing card sparyed grey, round at one end square at the other. This is Ideal as far as we are concerned as with just a few diffrent lengths its possible to lay out any road system with only slightly kinked roads, the length being ajustable as one road can be slid under another to get precise length control.
Now the current state of the art is too use stand alone hedges to line the roads where neccessary, like in may places this hedgeing is required over long distances particularly for groundscale realistic road systems in places like the UK. In the midst of our current complex game this has become an issue with a 1mm = 1m game as we need to build from a map reasonable accurately each week. We have tried just ommitting the hedges and defining all roads as hedged onless noted otherwise. However this is difficult to remember in the heat of an exceiting battle. What we really need is a flat card road with some form of flat hedge painted on the edge, retaining the neccessary flexibilty of a flat hedge while having some, if somewhar restricted, artistic appeal.

Unfortunately I can do accurate scale modeles in CADDS but art escapes me, so doing my own seems not top be an option. So has anybody seen such an item or has any artistic ability?

Failing this the only option I see is to black line the edge of the road for hedged as per UK OS maps and dotted lines for hedged. This is very suboptimal.

Opinions (contructive) and help greatfully recieved.

You could try making your roads as before, but 10 mm (or whatever you fancy) wider. Spray grey. Use a ruler to draw lines 5mm from each side. Hold a spare piece of card along the road side (inside) of each line, and spray the 5mm edge strip with green paint. The spare card should keep the green off the roadway. If you want to try being artsy, go back and spray irregularly with a second, lighter shade of green.

Or, you could switch to gaming the Western Desert. 8^)

Grelber

Like Grelber said, but with one refinement. Instead of green paint, glue some clump foliage in that five mm zone on each edge.

Or, if you're really cheap, try using the Grelber/mad monkey1 approach and spray with texture paint: link

…. or buy the paper versions available on Wargames Vault and print off as many copies as you want?

Or use pipe cleaners glued to the edges?

I was going to suggest applying a narrow strip of PVA Glue along the edges, and pout on green sand, let dry. But Extra Crispy has a better idea.

To build on parrskool's idea, I would suggest printing on regular paper, and apply it to peel-n-stick vinyl floor tiles' glue sides. Cut to size and shape. This will give the road sections plenty of heft, and make them very durable. Here is a link to my blog page covering multiple vinyl floor tile projects. On the bottom of the page, is an example of what I am suggesting: I used the described approach to make 2D rivers sections. Here are links to a couple of sample photo's:

Photo #1 Photo #2

Cheers!

Take a look at the hedge elements here and scale to fit??

link

Now let me get this straight. Ahem.
The guy who bemoans gamers who actually want to paint things realistic and accurately is now bemoaning the difficulty of getting roads that are realistic and accurate.

Ok. I guess.

Winston No, FLAT roads that trigger the eye to note they are hedged. So really a drwaing of a Flat road that looks like a Hedged road. Im still waiting for forward projecting 3D holographic roads I don't have to paint and convinceing to the eye.

Ok thanks for the discussion. I had already had a go at something like Grelber's idea, but his post made me think again. My version was more complex, rather than a single line of color like Grelber'd I had used 3 colors a light, medium and dark to try and get a full 3D effect. It did not work. Interestingly we both came up with the same estimate for hedge thickness. Spured on by Winsto'ns jibe (we all need a nemesis ;-) ). I tried again this time just two colors the basic green and an inside very dark thin green line. As is well known I an never never going to get near a spray gun I dont do (f)art ;-), takes too long. So CADDS at the ready and off we go. I will post the results later but I think it comes in at a good compromise. Bold enough to easily Photograph, important in a complax multi evening game and enough to remaind the players in the heat of battle that the road is hedged and hence a bit of a swine potentially to cross. Also it will be easy to have an overlay that will indicate where hedges have gates or have been breached.

Paracool – at your prompt I did have a look in Wargames Vault but surprisingly more modern road overlays do not have the art work. There was a fantasy road set but it was really 1/72 to 28mm (no idea what the scale for that is) and not really suitable for modern. I did look wider on Google but it came to nothing but well worth the try.

Anything even sightly 3D while artistically good would fail due to the need to overlay road sections not but them up.

So the next question is how to depict trenches and communication trenches in a like manner? ;-).

I would suggest using a dark brown, near black, in the center, and while it is still wet, paint a lighter brown around the nearly black brown, allowing the two paints to blend, naturally. This will give you a darker middle, with random edges, blending from lighter, to darker.

Whatever material you choose, for a base, try edging it with a black Sharpie pen. On thinner materials, black edging will help the edges to disappear from view. It may/may not work in your application. Experimentation is king! If it works, Voila'! If it does not work, you are out very little effort and very little cash. Cheers!