Thatched roof?

[OSHIROmodels]

Spray varnish?

[FramFramson]

Spray varnish?

Possibly, but even then you'd probably have to be very careful. I expect it would be a mostly airbrush job (you'd need some colour variation, etc.).

One of the reasons I hate towel texture is because it really looks like a lot of fat loose strands all gummed and glued with goop (which is what it is, after all). I think it would be very easy to get gummed up velvet. Not impossible though - decent airbrush work is what the fellows who make teddy fur grasslands use, so it should be feasible with care.

[Vagabond]

Maybe you could just dry brush the velvet and effectively "stain" it, not varnishing or glueing at all.

If the nap was short enough this might work well.

I think you are probably right that felt is too smooth to be effective.

[FramFramson]

Maybe you could just dry brush the velvet and effectively "stain" it, not varnishing or glueing at all.

If the nap was short enough this might work well.

I think you are probably right that felt is too smooth to be effective.

Well as I mentioned I thought your towel roof looked quite good, vagabond:  



I think the key is that your towel is the first time I've ever seen it neat and combed to be properly vertical (it's not so much that your is combed per se, but that you paid attention to the "grain" of the towel and are using it properly). Most of the time towel gets painted/glued such that the towel strands go everywhere willy-nilly and it looks a mess and not much like thatch, especially if the maker overdoes it on the paint or glue.

The other problem I tend to have with towel is that you can see the looped ends on all the fibres. But overall your roof has a pretty good texture - good depth with some variation in shading and tone to bring out the texture, but not TOO much. Teddy bear fur often has the opposite problem - the strands are so fine that any amount of paint or glue cakes them together and even if they don't, the texture is often too fine, too smooth. Just as with miniatures, sometimes you need to overemphasize something in a counter-intuitive way to make it seem "correct".

We're not quite at the perfect replica, but there's a sense of what we need to get there.

[Vagabond]

Hi Fram I agree with all you say about towel, it does tend to look like what it is, this one was unlooped (if that's a word) and quite a fine pile. When my wife finds out it's missing I shall catch it in the neck.

This is my 3rd go at towel thatch and I've tried 4 other ways in the past including teddy bear fur glued and combed and not been happy with any of them and still think it's a long way to go.
However Lynda has just admitted to having a velvet dress, I wonder if she would like the hem taking up a few inches

I didn't pay much attention to the photo and at this stage it's only undercoated in black gesso which has a slight sheen on it. The photo was taken in bright sunlight coming through the window and has created a very nice subtle shading which is unfortunately not my work.
I have since painted it and I'm not sure if I've improved it