New gameboard finished

 I used this free days now between the semesters to go on building the tabletop with all the stuff we will need for wargaming - after 2 months patience getting the ordered furmat, it arrived on monday morning.

Immediately I started to cut and to prepare it for shearing the artificial fur with a small, electrical razor.
As I mentioned it in an earlier post, I was so fascinated by the tutorial of elladan (www.elladan.de), that I absolutely had to learn this technique and to build my own gameboard.
So, the technical aspect: it is a furmat of 1,80m x 3,00m seize - big enough to give place to 2-4 armies in a great battle. After fixing the principle layout, I started with the agricultural parcels as they seem to be original, pre-industrial: small, diverse and irregular.
Further, I intended to have a late summer ambience, so I chosed the furmat in a "fox"- colour with a warm, red-brown tone.
The cut was done in 4 hours, the cleaning of the vast number of cutted hair 1 hour. But then followed 10 hours of drybrush to give a green-yellow tone to the fur - or, à la mode de l´époque, a "paille" tone.

the workplace had to be outside - the friendly Bavarian summer supported a fast drying of the colours. In the foreground on the left you can see a piece of the original furmat - a very soft and cosy material.

I still am not absolutely happy with my work: I am not sure if I let the fur on some pieces too long for wargaming, if the colour is allways right chosen.
But the big advantage is that you can change all the time the colour or cut some pieces. But the most exciting aspect of this mat is the fact you can put some objects under the mat´s surface and get in a simple way a wavy, hilly landscape.

I did some shootings with the farmhouses and the new hedgerows I produced the last weeks:

the kind of streets in lower Silesia...

Sweet Anush is smiling...

trees after a storm over the country...

and a first placement with the buildings - I am still thinking about the interface between building and ground.

view from a private garden

farmer´s grange

a detail

And finally, a test with miniatures:

the haywagon, topic of my last post, is now placed..

test employment: Saxonys´s Prince Maximilian in a summer manoeuvre with a Russian grenadeer squadron.

First conclusion: it´s a great fun to have this furmat, especially for taking pictures.
Second conclusion: I have to change the colour of ALL my figures´ bases - they don´t match.... OMG!!