STEP 3: TRANSFERRING THE LAYOUT TO THE BOARD:
When you enlarge the map, you'll also find that the photocopiers tend to
distort things a bit, so it's nearly impossible to accurately match up all
the edges of the photocopy. A good long straightedge becomes mandatory for
roads. To transfer the photocopy to the bluefoam, I simply taped down the
photocopy, then used a tool commonly used for leatherworking, kind of like
a small spiked wheel with a handle, used to punch holes in leather for
sewing seams. These tools cost about five bucks and give you a 'dimpled
line' look in the bluefoam when you run them over the paper and then
remove the paper. There are certainly other ways to transfer your
enlargement to the blue foam, using carbon paper or other such, but the
leather tool is cheap and not too hard to find and works well, so I use
it. A pizzacutter might work well to 'groove' the bluefoam. Don't ask me
why that came to mind...
I then took dry-erase markers and went over the dimples more-or-less to
generate guidelines on the bluefoam. At this stage it's recognizably the
GEV map, but you can see what I mean about the widths of the road and
river, and the 'rounded off' forests, and cities. Be careful what markers
you use, some markers (xylene based) will melt the bluefoam.
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