Beginner needs some ideas how to draw/design this:

I am trying to create a grid-pattern (thijn black horizontal and vertical
lines) on a rectangular wooden surface (like a table top). The grid-pattern
doesn't fill the surface completly, the surface has a empty (no grid lines)
border area. As an additional challenge I want to create the impression that
the surface area is one solid block of wood, meaning you should be able to
follow grain lines across the complete surface

I can see multiple waysdoing this:
(1) It is fairly easy to design this 'peacemeal' by using boxes for the the
black lines and fill the area between the lines with wooden textured boxes
and draw the border area separatly around the the complete thing.
Disadvantage: I don't think it will create the "one solid peace of wood
feeling"

(2) I could create a wooden box and use layered textures (I guess) to create
the grid pattern. I still need to create the boarders peacemeal ... same
disadvantage as (1) I guess, it will probably look like I glued the sides to
the 'grid box'

(3) This is the thing I actually tried: I created the wooden surface (the
table top) and created the grid lines as boxes which are 'just a little bit'
over the surface. This creates initially good results (with a nice 'solid'
tabletop) and nice looking grid line, but if I increase camera distance to
the table the lines get very 'spotty', probably because the minimum
evaluation of the grid over the surface is just an appoximation, and
rounding problems mess things up (my theory)

I am currently thinking of giving up on my 'solid wood' requirement (with
increased camera distance it will be hard to see the benefit of it) and go
with proposal (1) or (2).

Questions:
- any other ideas how to solve this ?
- which idea makes more sense in respect to POV: more objects (as in 1) or
more complex textures (as in 2)


Thanks
Wolfgang

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