The battlefield of Gettysburg features two major streams (ignoring the numerous tiny streams that cover the field like a spiderweb). Willoughby Run and Rock Creek, both of which basically run across my entire board from north to south. My plan is simply - get out the tracing paper and then transfer the streams to the board. Slightly tedious, but easy enough.

After tracing a river, you simply cut the tracing paper along hte line making a mask to transfer the shape to the board:

I used a fine Sharpie pen to draw the streams right onto the green basecoat. Close up they look something like this:

Crude and spotty, but since I plan to paint them in, and then flock the edges, the marker will never show through. i decide to paint the rivers blue. I know, I know, they should be brown or green. But then I worry they won’t show up, so I’m going with blue. I can always re-paint them later (maybe use a gloss green to help them stand out?). Now I have my assistant offer to help paint in the rivers after they have all been traced to the board:

It takes only 15 minutes or so to give all the rivers a nice coat of blue paint. Regardless of what color they end up on the final board, they now stand out nicely. In laying them out I find I made a mistake in reading the topo map. Accordingly, Rock Creek runs up over and then down a small hill. No peeking! Here is how a river looks now.

And finally here is a shot of the entire board now green, with all the layers in place and the rivers painted blue:

Next up come the roads, which will be laid down with a light tan/sandy color. Stay tuned!

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