I follow +Dyson Logos and his maps. The other day, he mentioned that he got his isometric graph paper pads as a gift from Lee Valley Tools. It is a Canadian based company I had not heard of, but I ordered three pads and they arrived yesterday. I am just now writing about them and getting the pictures posted.
The brand is a Canadian brand called Veritas. The first page is the start of the pad of sheets and not a slick cover like some pads of paper might have.
In the top left corner, each page has “From the workbench of” and below it “date”. The original design is for use in a workshop. I can see how this would help design woodworking and other projects in 3-D.
I had a very basic introduction to “drafting” in 7th grade shop. We use 5 squares per inch graph paper to do block lettering and draw cubes in three dimensions. I would have had to take a specialize class if I wanted to do real drafting. It is a dying skill to draft on paper, and for making maps, I wouldn’t mind knowing the right way to do it.
Oh, well, I have rulers, and some templates and a compass, so for my use, I can have fun.
I really like the 3-D look one can get with these. My whole reason for buying Ravenloft when it came out was the isometric maps. I also like the Dungeoneer Survival Guide and it’s instructions on how to make your own isometric maps from regular graph paper, or to use the sample images on a photocopier.
I’m still getting settled in to working at home, but things are falling into place, so perhaps I can start practicing, and coming up with something of my own to share. If nothing else, I’ll have fun with it, and come up with something good enough for use in my own games.
I like the big ziplock bag the three pads came in. The box is big enough for more than double the three pads I ordered. I don’t see me needing more than 150 sheets. That’s a LOT of drawing!
How do they compare with the print-your-own stuff (e.g. Incompetech)? Any sense of what the paper weight is?
It seems a little slick to me and about the weight of standard copy paper. My efforts to print from Incomptech end up very light, these are blue lines, not sure how they copy. For Incomptech, having to guess on the size to use to generate for isometric I ended up way too small or too big.
The shapes are bigger than I expected, but I see a lot of possibilities for different shapes.
My first idea is to draw the various shapes that I see when I look at it and show some of what I can do as a not so skilled artist.
The slickness I mentioned is comparable to square graph paper I have, so it isn’t slick like ink resistant.