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The first thing to do when you get the cloth is to let it hang for a week or two, in order to get any fold line creases out, as these will spoil any spray effect you try. To create grass and scrub effects it can be randomly cut or clipped to give it a unculivated scrub type appearance. When it comes to colouring I use aerosol car paint tins, these come in various shades and suitable colours and in general are a lot cheaper to buy than modelling spray aerosol cans. The real secret when using them is not to be to close and don’t spray it heavily onto the fur, as this just ends up matting the fur which isn’t the desired effect and allow each shade to dry before moving onto the next. (as a rider please spray in a well ventilated area, better still outside if you CAN ! excuse the pun)

Picture 2 shows a spray painted light tan cloth (used in this case to represent the Russian Steppes)

You can achieve numerous different effects its really down to you, I have found that the two effects seem to work well, the first one is a random grass/scrub effect its benefits are three fold first its easy to do and the second its fairly neutral in its finish which allows you to place what ever terrain features you wish on it and is not really scale critical and lastly being neutral you can use the terrain for any threatre, perhaps with the exception of the desert. There is a rider to that but I’ll explain that at the end.

The second effect is what I call the cultivated field effect, whilst it looks good it can limit the scope of the wargames battlefield, its tends to require more paint and subsequently more care in applying it and you must take into consideration the scale you wish to play on it, whilst a 15mm spray effect field may look great with your 15mm troops, it can sometimes look wrong when you come use 25mm scale figures on it.

The second type of cloth which i tend to use is a darker tan effect, it really seems well suited to the more jungle or wooded type of terrain and some of the club members prefer it to the lighter tan type, although its really down to a matter of personnel choice.

Picture 3 shows a darker tan fur cloth (not sprayed) (used represent a Guadacanal game)

The only real problem concerning the darker cloth comes when spraying, the cloth tends to require a thicker application of paint spray to achieve any real noticable colour change results and care needs to be taken not to over apply the spray as this will ruin the fur/grass effect. You will note that some of the sprays can actually be used to lighten the darker tan effect as in the case below.

Picture 4 shows a sprayed darker tan cloth (used to represent a jungle area in South East Asia)

But in my opinion the real advantage the light tan cloth has over the darker type actually concerns the reverse side of the cloth which i`ll refer to the none fur side, this consists of a close weave flat finnish material which comes in a excellent sand colour ( darker tan cloth reverse side doesn`t ), yes you`ve guessed it, it makes a superb desert base cloth so with the first type of cloth you actually get two in one, the last picture shows the desert effect.

Picture 5 desert effect reverse of fur cloth cloth (in this case used to represent a beach area)

I hope you have found this article interesting and perhaps it as spurred you on to have ago, as stated this material can be purchased from most texile shops, please note that the colour and fur effects may of course vary from retailer to retailer.

For modellers or wargamers who don`t really have the time, we are offering these type of clothes for sale on the SHOP section of this web site, they can be purchased pre-painted and come in standard size. Different sizes are available on request.....

To Purchase a Base Cloth on line click here