altering a GW grass mat?

[nic-e]

I'm wondering if anyone has painted or altered a GW grass mat?
I have one kicking about and as useful as it is, It's pretty ugly. It's bright luminous green.

I'm thinking an airbrush of wash and a light drybrushing of darker/earth tones will do the job, But I just want to see if anyone has done something similar?

[fred]

I'd be interested to hear what others have done.

I have one, but now I have a much nicer Deep Cut mat it dosen't get used. I was thinking of cutting it up to make fields, or something similar.

[Codsticker]

I tidied up a GW mat  by spraying (very lightly) yellow and light brown patches and adding static grass. The colours are a little more prominent IRL:

[Daeothar]

It wasn't a GW mat, but a very similar product in my case. It's like Humakt mentioned; the mats are like putting greens. And unless you want a retro nineties look for your games...

I used various yellow, brown, tan and black spraycans to liven up my table, and break the green-screen look of it. I used them to mist colours over the surface, which already made it look much better.

Here's an extract from my post detailing the process from back in 2010:

I then went to town on the rest of the grass; it was too uniformly green. So copious misting, spotting and drybrushing with shades of tan, brown, yellow and even black ensued. I still found it too bland, so on a whim, I experimented with creating a craterlike shape with black and dark brown spraypaint and some added sand. That worked and I did several (but not too many), to break up the lawnlike grass. I also did something of an angled impact mark, which I feel is the weakest part of the table, but it's still passable. I can always plonk down a large wood/hill/building there after all...

Regretably, the pictures appear to have fallen off the internet, so I can't show them right now. But when I get home this evening, I'll see if I can dig them up

[Lost Egg]

I soaked mine in tea to give it a slightly darker shade and it worked pretty well. The colour even held after I washed it.

I was never bothered y the putting green look as I prefer to use a lot of terrain and a detailed mat would be distracting.

I'd like to try and pick up another one at some point to cut down into a 2ft sq mat for my Age of Bronze project.

[Barry S]

I dulled the green down by drybrushing it with a dull yellow.

[fitterpete]

Hello-
I have 4 of them.I always wanted to try something like you guys have done but was afraid it would make it too "stiff" if you get my meaning.One of the best things about them is they way they fold up and unfold so nicely.
I have a lot of Tamiya acrylic spray can colors I use for 28mm tank camo.Would these work for the misting effect without it ruining the softness of the mat?
Pete

[Lost Egg]

@fitterpete - If they are the crinckle free mats from GW then you can pop them in the washing machine so I wouldn't worry about the softness. I never had any problems after I stained mine with tea.

[nic-e]

Decided to jump right in.
started with some watered down brown ink applied with a sponge to give some definition/variation to the mat. I;m only doing half for now , so i can let it all dry between stages.


Side by side - blank mat and washed mat.




Next I'll probably go with a lighter drybrush over the whole thing, but so far i think this is an improvement.

(Phone camera HATES it, so this just looks like a wet bit of cloth.)

[fitterpete]

I did the misting with spray cans on one of my mats. Works great, still soft and really makes a difference. Going to get the others done soon.
Thanks Guys!!
Pete

[ork56]

I wouldn't recommend getting it too wet, as the glue holding the flock in place will dissolve and you get bald patches. I tried cleaning some off cuts that had coffee stains on them-not good. If you leave it to thoroughly dry out, the glue resets, so it's not always terminal.

[DonVoss]

I just put a little paint on my small GW cut down mat.





Works for me....





Cheers,
Don

[Lost Egg]

That looks great!