Feb/Mar 2016 Lite Mapping Challenge: Little Boy's Christmas Train

[Tonnichiwa]

Hello everyone, My entry into the lite challenge this month is the Little Boy's Christmas Train. I know this isn't the best map that is going to be made but I never expected to win anyway. I just thought this would be fun. I stayed up all night making this and it is now 4:52 A.M. my time.

This is the route of a train that a little boy got for Christmas morning. By the time it reached it's destination, Christmas dinner had been served and everyone did what they normally do, then went home or to bed. Our map picks up right at bedtime on Christmas day.

Enjoy.

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[Greg]

That's a cute idea for it, Tonnichiwa. I never would have thought of anything like this!

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks GLS

[ChickPea]

This is adorable! I love "the chair of the growling grandpa."

A couple of suggestions... is there anything you could do with the background. It's looks more like a bunch of pixels rather than floorboards, unfortunately. I'm not sure how CC3 works. Can you import images to use within the program? If there's nothing suitable within the software already, a quick search would probably find loads of wooden floor images that I think would look better. Also, are you doing something more with the train tracks?

I absolutely love the idea behind this, though. I feel you've really captured a young child's excitement on Christmas morning.

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks ChickPea, I think I can upload something different. I agree with you, I don't really like the way the floor turned out. I'll look into getting that fixed. As far as the train tracks go, I'm not really sure what else I could do. I remember when I was a kid I never used to put my toy train on the tracks (I didn't like that I was only limited to going only where the tracks led ) so I wasn't really sure how I could represent tracks when the little boy is doing the same thing I would and probably did do at his age.

[Tonnichiwa]

This should be a little better. I changed the floor and some of the wording around so it is a little more whimsical and I put the wording near the fishtank in an easier place to spot. Now if I could just find some kind of wording for an annoying older brother who likes to walk by and kick your toys

Maybe something like "Beware the clumsy giant!"

### Latest WIP ###

[J.Edward]

That is an incredibly clever and novel approach to this challenge.
I like how you started this out and look forward to seeing this develop.

One suggestion I'd make is regarding your source of light and the shadows being cast...
while you've been consistent with the shadows, I don't think that they would fall as they are.
The source of light, though likely more than one, would most likely be an overhead light in the center of the room.
To be more dramatic, you could have a light in the kitchen as well as in the living room.

I did a quick overlay of some light options.

It looks a little odd because I added a faint lighter layer to try to mask your existing shadows, to show suggested shadows.
Like I said, I really like what you've come up with here Tonnichiwa.
Looking forward to how you progress with it.

edit - I just read through all of the previous stuff, so this would not have daylight coming through, and that would change the light options a lot.

[Tonnichiwa]

Thank you J.Edward. I'm glad you like my idea. Thank you for the suggestions and I'm glad you saw why the lighting was not quite what you thought it should be at first. The assumption is that the TV and the Christmas Tree have been turned off because everybody went to bed and there is a porch light/street light/white icicle Christmas lights casting the light in the room from the kitchen window.

That's why the shadow is so big. But I see I did leave a window out near the tree. I think I had better go put that in so the lighting makes more sense.

Anyway, thanks again for the help

Cheers

Tonnichiwa

[- Max -]

Great idea here and nice job so far!

[Tonnichiwa]

Thanks Max! This has been really fun to do.