A Fur Mat Test

I've seen a plenty of faux-fur mats (some in the flesh and many online) and I've been wanting to make one for quite some time. I bought a huge piece of fur a few months back but the logistics of making such a big thing without prior experience scared me off once I had the huge piece on material in my possession.

In the end I gave it to my wife and decided to re-think this project and bought a smaller 1m x 80cm piece to do a test.

So, I laid the piece out, got the hair clippers out and started shaving. I had no idea what I was going to do , but I'm reading about the Normandy Invasion at the moment, and and decided mid-shave to make a crossroad with some fields.

I shaved some areas evenly and some areas unevenly. Some short and some longer. For the roads I shave the fur right down to the material. I then decided to add some drainage ditches to one of the roads. Between periods of shaving I also combed the piece to remove excess fur.

I have some bottles of artist's acrylic that I picked up very cheap for this project and got some brushes ready. First off I decided to apply the paint as per a video I watched. In this video the guy applied the paint direct to the fur and then spread it around with a brush and a comb. I did this and I didn't like it. After a lot of brushing and combing I finally managed to spread the paint but it was difficult.

I then chose another area and applied paint by stippling it with a 2" brush and brushing it in with a 4" brush. So I stippled and brushed and combed. This worked better for me and I did the rest in this fashion.

The large green area on the right was my first attempt.

For the roads I used some chocolate emulsion paint that I had sitting around and highlighted it with some light grey emulsion. I thought I might need to add sand to create a rough surface but the weave of the heavy cloth and some tiny areas of remaining fur provided enough surface to give a nice effect.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it and I'm confident enough to tackle a larger 6'x4' piece. Actually, I'll make it a bit larger in order to accommodate hills placed underneath.