Making Terrain: Painting Terrain Cloths

 by Steve C

I have for some time had three 6’ x 4’ terrain cloths which I use on occasion when I put a game on at my house or, such as my battle of Crecy game at Rupert’s, where I needed to cover a structure that I’d made, which in this case was to represent the vale of Crecy. However, these cloths are somewhat green, in fact they’re emerald green which is rather bright for a wargames table and this has been bugging me ever since I brought them. 

I’ve tried to think of numerous ways of toning them down, I’ve even been on the internet to see what other wargamers do in order to make terrain cloths, but these usually involve using some form of gooey muck for texturing such as Caulk or similar such gloop and this all looked too messy for my liking so I’ve continued to rack my brains until I had a light bulb moment a few weeks ago, spray paint! Now, you might have seen me taking pictures of John and Rupert’s “Big game” over the weekend. Well, this was all part of my light bulb moment. I was in fact taking pictures of the terrain tiles in order for me to get an idea of what I was aiming for. 

Now, I knew that hobby craft sold tins of spray paint so over my long weekend I nipped down to County Oak to have a look at what they had. To my disappointment it wasn’t very much, just bright lurid colours that you might use to decorate some kids 'Wendy house' or something similar. Anyway, I was just about to walk out in a very disappointed manner when I thought, hold on a mo, don’t I have a mini spray gun tucked away at the bottom of one of my drawers in the shed? Yes I do, so I turned about and headed for the modelling paints at the back of the shop.

After finding some colours that I thought would be suitable and picking up a few tins of aerosol propellant I headed back home to put my theory to the test. Monday 17th June 2024 was a particularly good day for spray painting, it was dry, warm and sunny but there was a fairly brisk breeze in the air which wasn’t what I needed. So I decided to set up my endeavour in my workshop that runs along the side of the house, it’s covered in and affords the ability to have the doors open to allow for ventilation. I hung the cloths up on some hooks against the wall which gave me the perfect “Canvas” for my attempt at creating what I hoped would be a reasonable landscape.

For each cloth I used 2 bottles of Tamiya Olive Green (XF 58) 2 bottles of Flat earth (XF 52) 2 bottles of desert Yellow (XF 59) and 1 bottle of Yellow Green (XF 4). I also brought a small bottle of thinners and a large container of thinners, bit odd I know but all will be revealed.

Oh yes, don’t forget the PPE, of which I already had. Some of your scruffiest clothes that you can find because you will get covered in fine particles of spray paint. One mask so you don’t breath in said particles and one Alvin Stardust type glove because the tin of Propellant gets really cold when you’re using it.

So, to start with mix two parts paint with one part thinners. Yes, you’ve guessed it haven’t you, pour two bottles of paint into your mixing bowl and then measure out one bottle of thinners into the small thinners bottle that you brought earlier and then mix them all together which pours neatly into the bottle of the spray gun.

I started by using the Olive green. Use your artistic genius, sorry, “Ganious” to create realistic grassy undertones, reflective light, shading and light reliefs or, if you’re like me, ya don’t have a clue, then have a bit of fun and try things out, so that’s what I did, a bit of experimentation. A spray here, a spray there, a curve over there, a line over here and perhaps join this bit up. This carried on with the next colour which was the flat earth, then the Desert yellow and finally the yellow green. I did find that covering the entire cloth with a fine mist of Yellow green toned the whole thing down which had looked a bit harsh beforehand.

So, was it worth it? From my own personal point of view, yes it was. The cloths are no longer an awful Emerald green and are more wargame friendly. They’re not identical to Mike and Rupert’s terrain tiles because the Emerald green did have the effect of darkening the paint slightly but they’re not a bad 2nd.

The Finished Article

Was it worth it cost wise? Again yes. Now, taking into account that I already had some of the kit I needed laying around the outlay for the thinners, paints and propellant was, wait for it, £71, yes, sounds expensive but that’s only £28.66 for one 6’ x 4’ cloth. However, had I brought some terrain mats, which appear to be the latest fad, for the same coverage of 12’ x 6 it would have cost a fortune.  

The finished article with added terrain

Having looked on the internet a typical terrain mat is 3’ x 3’ at a whopping £28.99 plus P&P, more than one of my 6’ x 4’ cloths. So, to have the same 12’ x 6’ coverage would have cost £231.92, oooouch! In comparison doing it my way a 3’ x 3’ cloth would cost just over £10, a third of the price, winner, winner chicken dinner! 

What I actually ended up using

It took me the best part of an afternoon to complete the job, say 5 hours, and the good thing was because they were Acrylic paints and the fact it was a nice warm sunny day, the paints dried within minutes of applying them. 

Anyway, you’ll get to see them “In the flesh” during my up and coming medieval Irish game which involves you lot making your way down an Irish valley full of berserker celts!! 

So here endeth the lesson. “We spray the cloth and scatter the good paint from this tin......”