Lead Adventure Forum

Other Stuff => Workbench => Topic started by: James Morris on February 23, 2019, 09:47:01 PM

Title: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: James Morris on February 23, 2019, 09:47:01 PM
Apologies if you’ve seen any of this on Facebook, but I know not everyone’s on there...it took me a few extra days to do this as I need to reformat my photos to put on LAF.

Having sold all my terrain boards last year, I’ve been keen to do a cloth based on fur fabric for gaming in mythological/ Dark Ages Northern Europe.  I wanted something that looked like heath or moorland, without field divisions etc.  After some experiments with various fur fabrics, I came up with the following...here are some work in progress shots.

I bought a 12x5’ piece of olive green Sherpa fleece from eBay (actually I bought 10 m to have plenty for future projects, but that’s another story).  This stuff looks dreadful when it arrives, but really comes to life when given a quick wire brushing. It was then distressed by trimming with scissors and melting with a hot air gun in a well-ventilated area.  I also used the hot air gun to melt a road into the cloth, which I pressed down with sandpaper.

The last few pics show me dry brushing the cloth with a variety of different shades of green acrylic, then gluing some heather clumps in place.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: James Morris on February 23, 2019, 09:54:34 PM
Part 2: I covered the road area with a thin layer of brown acrylic sealant (no more than 2-3mm thick), then pressed in some sand for texture.  I also glued areas of sand on to some of the bare parts of the cloth before painting them.

Then the fun really started, as I added grass tufts, flowers and flock to different parts of the cloth.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: James Morris on February 23, 2019, 10:00:22 PM
Here’s some shots of the finished cloth. Being a bit on the big side, I don’t actually have room to lay this out at my house (apart from the back garden), so apologies for the makeshift nature of some of the shots.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: James Morris on February 23, 2019, 10:02:12 PM
Final shots: the whole thing folds up into an Ikea bag, and doesn’t seem to suffer too badly for it. Looking forward to getting some games in on this!
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: Blackwolf on February 23, 2019, 10:06:17 PM
Superb!
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: carlos marighela on February 23, 2019, 10:56:51 PM
That does indeed look quite superb. Congratulations!
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: Suber on February 23, 2019, 11:23:36 PM
Amazing :-* :-*
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: Sunjester on February 24, 2019, 12:09:30 AM
That looks utterly brilliant!
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: Ahistorian on February 24, 2019, 12:12:16 AM
Fantastic stuff James, well done =]
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: von Lucky on February 24, 2019, 01:20:45 AM
If/when the time comes to make my own - this will be my go to thread. Very impressive.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: Borderguy190 on February 24, 2019, 03:43:27 AM
Nicely done. It does capture a wild heath look. Nothing cultivated or manicured!
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: Codsticker on February 24, 2019, 05:22:10 AM
Nicely done. It does capture a wild heath look. Nothing cultivated or manicured!
I agree. I think the addition of the tufts and bushes really helps create that.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: has.been on February 24, 2019, 07:15:47 PM
A most excellent piece of work.
May you have many happy hours playing games on it.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: James Morris on February 24, 2019, 09:45:19 PM
A most excellent piece of work.
May you have many happy hours playing games on it.

Cheers all! I very much hope so.

Now I’m working on rebasing my trees to match.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: voltan on February 24, 2019, 10:17:38 PM
Lovely job, I'm guessing the sealant you used for the road is flexible to help with the folding up?
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: majorsmith on February 26, 2019, 09:21:02 AM
Looks fantastic!
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: levied troop on February 26, 2019, 09:43:29 AM
That does look superb. I’ve used similar techniques on teddy bear fur but that Sherpa fleece really does look the business for moorland.
And thanks for thinking of us Facebook-adverse types :)
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: James Morris on February 26, 2019, 08:53:11 PM
Lovely job, I'm guessing the sealant you used for the road is flexible to help with the folding up?

Thanks, yes, the sealant is acrylic so fairly flexible. I’ve only spread it 2-3mm thick to retain the flexibility.
Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: majorsmith on February 27, 2019, 05:18:17 PM
Got a link to the actual fleece product you bought?

Cheers

Title: Re: Big fur fabric project for ancient Northern Europe
Post by: dijit on March 01, 2019, 03:50:10 PM
I've had a large piece of green fleece lying around for ages now. Bought it as a quick and cheap table mat, but now having seen what you've managed to do with I know what I really bought for! ;)