Teddy Bear Fur & MORE!

 I finished off the blanket worth of the camouflage fur material I had, and laid out troops, for a sample set of photos:

Then I laid out some of the early version of the fur, for comparison.

In taking them out of the storage drawer, I was immediately reminded of why I wanted to do this change, I had 5-8 bases 'magnetize' together and dropped one mini (not on the floor thankfully) it was a few minutes of sorting before they were ready for use.

a royalist horse unit
with the first generation of 'fur'

comparison photo with a Scots horse unit
in the new fur

Royalist P&S standing on old bases
this was the difficult unit where muskets were dropped

in a fire exchange

both up close in a push of pike

wide angle shot of the whole force

I also took a few photos from above, to show the visibility of the units.

I have also taken advantage of the access to the sewing machine, to try out something that I thought of ... using some old other fabric:

A 'red' Command

Plans are in the works to consolidate this idea into at least three if not more such marker sets for use on the tabletop to aid new players in unit identification.

I am also going to work on recovering the old sets of teddy bear fur into the new versions (so that I will have at least two different full army sets of fur).

teddy bear fur - Pike and Shotte unit

 more sewing has been done, now enough to kit out a Pike & Shotte unit

the sewing continues and next up might be to lay out a force on the tabletop fully in fur bases

new teddy bear fur bases sample

 

artillery laid out on the table covering

skirmishing dragoons

Royalist horse

Jaegers

just a horse troop

the jaegers and the old 'paper' cover

a grouping with the new fur coverings

artillery

work in progress ...

busy - busy - busy on Teddy Bear Fur

 Progress!

 When I found this camouflage fabric last year, I knew I wanted to use it as the new base stand cover.

The challenge was to sort out how to do this without the fraying and 'bunching up' of the earlier run.

Enter, using a textile approach and sewing up little furry pockets.

a pocket ready to put the stand into

the finished pocket as it came off the machine
it gets made 'inside out'

raw material

work in progress on the machine ...

Work progress on new base coverings

 The teddy bear fur plan is continuing to take shape.

Since the fur is a cloth ... time to use a more textile approach.

I have decided to do the coverings as a 'pouch' that the metal stands fit inside.

these are using the old fur that was 'left over'
from the earlier run ...

Now to get the equipment set up - serge sewing machine - then get to work on these little furry pockets.

new bases covering thoughts

 My metal base stands have been paper covered for the  most part

I began experimenting with teddy bear fur a few years ago with the ECW troops, as I wanted the grassy look to have more impact with the smaller units.

Now I am experimenting again, this time with a view to re-covering all of the stands in a camouflage version of the teddy bear fur.

the fur is just pinned on at this stage

the basic concept is to put a sewn 'dart' on each corner of the fur so that it will fit more snug over the metal base stands, as the fur material tends to 'pull up' from the stands otherwise.

the first run of these may be done in a few days and more testing will see if it works the way I want it to...

Building - building - building

 Work continues on the house and now the game space at long last.

I have re-done two walls with vapor barrier and drywall, then painted everything - including the ceiling.

a side room for storage was also re-finished and painted.

Both rooms then got shelving, that was scavenged from another location.

Now the game space is starting to take shape ...

small storage hallway

my desk location and chair on a false 'floor' I built

game table still being used for work

walls and ceilings were all painted, the shelving built
yes - this still has a garage door

the miniatures towers moved to final location
we will have access to the pin board and some
new (previously stored) white boards

All in all it has been a busy month of continued construction and planning.