Saturday, January 03, 2009

Silfor Report





I ran across this stuff on another painting blog - it's great stuff that makes the best, most realistic grass tufts available. The name of the product is Silfor Mininatur Prairie Tufts, and the process of purchasing and using the product is incredibly easy. I went online and purchased the material from Scenic Express (http://www.scenicexpress.com/), and the service was reasonable. No real hassles with shipping, I had the product in less than a week, and the product came with catalogs that are very useful, like this one:





When it comes in the mail, the tufts are adhered to a plastic or vinyl sheet, packed in a plastic box. This stuff comes in different lengths and different colors. Given that I do 15mm, I prefer the brighter colors due to the scaling effect, so I pick the bright green "spring" color. Also, for the 15mm figs, I choose the shorter tufts because if they are too long, they won't look right and will obscure the figure.

To apply, one only needs white glue and tweezers. Simply use the tweezers to select a tuft, grip it with the tweezers, and pull it off the plastic sheet.



Next, use a drop of white glue, apply to the bottom of the tuft, and place it on the stand of figures like so:



I've gone so far as to abandon static grass on a unit of French Legere, just to see what it would look like. Following is the pic of the Legere battalion done completely in Silfor tufts without the GW static grass I usually use.


It is also worth noting that Silfor makes great products for 25mm figs as well. For a diversion, I bought some 25mm Norman knights from Crusader Miniatures. Below is a pic with tufts that are longer and a less bright color, but you can see that it works very well for 25mm as well.


That's it for now. Happy painting, and happy new year!

3 comments:

Aaron McEmrys said...

Hi, what size tufts do you use for your 15mm? 4mm or 6mm?

thanks, and great blog,
Aaron

Aaron McEmrys said...

Hi, nice blog! What size Silfor tufts do you use for 15mm? 4mm, 6mm?

thanks, Aaron

Mark Case said...

I use a mix of 2mm and 4mm for 15mm figs. The shot of the French Legere battalion has the shorter tufts (2mm). The shot of the French command stand has a mix of both 2mm and 4mm. Thanks for the kind words!