terrain experiments

Since a fairly long time I think about a new wargaming field for our battles. I think about a size of 1,50-2m x 3m for 40mm soldiers to have enough space for strategical manoeuvres. At the moment, we have coloured slabs of kapamount, a sandwich-construction of foamed polystyrene between cardboards.The cardborads are painted and sprinkled with grass and sand - both of them don´t adhere very well and the slabs are always bended lightly.
So we plan to build a complete new terrain. Our first experiments are done with a grass-mat from the modeller´s shop (see above on the right side) which we drybrushed in different brown tones. This construction requires also a stable under-construction of slabs and the surface does not allow to glide the soldiers´ platforms easily.

grass mat experiment with a vignette

The second try is a carpet , found in a do-it-yourself store and with its  predicate cheap-cheap-cheap. This carpet we coloured in different tones with drybrushed layers, the pathway is with sand and glued. The carpet has a incredible horrible colour in original and is used by the Germans for their terraces as a grass-imitation.

It takes a lot of time and colours to drybrush it to get an sufficient effect. This material also requires a under-construction of slabs, but could be also used in one big part and rolled for transport.

The third experiment is inspired by the site of a very talented young german guy who proposed a splendid idea to build a battlefield: he took an artificial fur-mat, what you can buy in specific women-stores of  cloths, e.g. for carnival dresses and so on. We did some tries with a  black fur:

This material is very tricky, because all you hav to do is to shave the shags in different lenghts. Short is very practical for pathways, streets and grass. The long shags could signify borders or cornfields. 

Result: The black fur is not convenient and I have to look for a lighter colour.

But the big advantage of this fur-mat is the size: you can buy the whole battlefield in one piece and you have only to invest a lot of hours to cut and shave and then to paint it. Our tries with brushes failed - the fur will be hard and rigid.

I will quote some pictures from this splendid site of elladan, who did it in a really fantastic way:

elladan paintbrushed its fur-mat in different tones to get this stunning result:

elladans fur mat; see here: www.elladan.de