freetogoodhome said:This photo is epic, do you know what materials he made it out of? it doesnt just look like jute?o0BigDave0o said:
Making a Ghillie Suit
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Ghillie suits are only intended for use by a sharpshooter who needs to be concealed for extended periods of time. The nature of most airsoft or paintball guns makes a Ghillie suit ill-suited for such activities.
However, I sometimes use one when I go hunting. I made it myself, but with a lot of help from a Marine Scout Sniper. There are manuals you can buy that will tell you how to do these things, but I would suggest looking for help from someone in the military and not on the escapist.
However, I sometimes use one when I go hunting. I made it myself, but with a lot of help from a Marine Scout Sniper. There are manuals you can buy that will tell you how to do these things, but I would suggest looking for help from someone in the military and not on the escapist.
He makes all of them out of jute and raffia and then dyes them to the desired shades before attaching them to the loops on the vest. You can buy bundles of raffia online and it is fairly cheap. Just be sure to check what colour you're buying as I thought I'd ordered olive green until a large amount of jade green raffia turned up on my doorstep!o0BigDave0o said:
Milsim is the only kind of airsoft worth playing. I've only ever seen a ghillie suit work in the hands of a true-blue ex-Army sniper, and even he prefers BDUs, because sniping in airsoft is rather pointless (put another way - everything a bolt action rifle can do can be done better with an AEG).Napierdalac said:
hmmm... do you think there is a way i can stitch all the jute to netting, then stick it on a camo jacket? or do i need to put the net on the jacket first?
Well its not like its supposed to be easy.o0BigDave0o said:Spangles said:
well, ive looked, its time consuming - ive worked out that if i use 6500feet of twine, itll take 3250 minutes or 54 hours of continuous tieing to doand thats just the tieing part :L
Anyway, yeah, iw ould say an army site or something. I wouldnt know, I dont make Ghillie Suits. If I want to be invisible, I got Cherokee body paint/mud style with some plants tied to me.
Right-o. I'll continue my post now =p.o0BigDave0o said:
It does take a fair bit of work, I did it on-off and it took me about 3 weeks to finish (I don't work constantly on my clothing though). If you do it well and take your time with the details, yes it is worth it. The result I got on my second one was very, very good, and the first one was pretty decent too. Anyway, I'll explain the rest of the process, and you can decide for yourself if it's worth it.
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When getting the color of your fabric you should really be quite careful. As I've said you need to know roughly the terrain in which you intend to use it, but there are some general rules you should remember. Firstly, never use black in your Ghillie suit. Never ever. In camouflage-pattern clothing the black is used to simulate shadows, but a Ghillie suit will do this all by it self due to the multiple-layer of strands, black will stand out quite a bit as it doesn't look natural. Usually you'll also want to avoid darker green and browns. Again, they shouldn't be too bright, and if you do go too bright it'll look horrible and spotting you will be easy again, but as I said shadows are created automatically, so keeping to the lighter spectrum of whatever terrain your in would greatly advantage you. Look for the brighter bushes, the light sand/rocks and so on, try to replicate a couple of those. It never hurts to toss in something dark here and there to break up the suit, that's actually quite important. Thing is though, the biggest error people do is make their suit too dark, I've seen countless errors made like that.
For a simple and easy-to-use platform, getting a BDU pant and jacket combination in fitting camouflage pattern would be a good idea. I use Norwegian Woodland pattern for mine, you may be better of with American Woodland, Desert, Urban or whatever. Look around a bit, see what you find. www.rap4.com have some cheap and pretty decent BDU clothing for this, in all kinds of patterns.
You'll need mesh to attach first your strands, and later vegetation. Something that just about fits around your thumb is a good size. For the clothing-version, just make patches of mesh large enough for the individual surfaces, and sow them on. For a jacket you would want to make sure to cover the shoulders, upper back and upper arms well. This depends on if you intend to lie down or crouch mostly. My Ghillies are made for lying down, and so I only camouflage my back, shoulders, upper torso and arms when it comes to the jacket. That way I can fit magazine pouches easily to the lower part of my torso.
For pants, again depends on crouching or lying down, but the thighs are very important (front and back). As for further down, make sure you wont step on your suit and impair your movement! Better slightly too short than too long.
Finally, head. Here you have a choice between many solutions. Boonie, cap, hat, helmet, hood... Just remember that making it look unnatural (for a head) is the main idea. Heads are round, and you don't want that, as it doesn't fit in nature. Arranging the strands to heavily cover your neck and the side of your head should be priority, I usually have a small flap to partially conceal my face when needed, but you don't want to otherwise impair your vision. Use camouflage paint for your face, or a balaclava of some sort.
Spacing is important. A Ghillie suit can get insanely hot... To minimize this you should make sure that every part has enough material to cover decently, but avoid putting anything on your underarms, belly and lower leg if possible (again, how you intend to use it will determine. I would, however, prioritize coverage, so if your in doubt: MORE!
Arranging the various colors in the right places can at times be hard, but as a general rule of thumb you should try and mix them equally across, but avoid making patterns. Try and not create unnatural shadows too frequently (often it's better to put the darker material on top of the light stuff), an even distribution of the various colors will be best.
As for the sowing work... This depends on your experience and so on. Some times it's neat to just grab one of those guns that shoot hot glue and do it like so, but a good sowing job is always better. You will get tired of attaching strands to mesh before your done, but that's the charms of it all XD.
When finished the thing is pretty inflammable, so it wouldn't be a bad idea to get one of those sprays that impregnate or whatever against that =3. Once that is done (up to you if you want to, ofc), I'd recommend you drag your suit against something dusty and natural. For a woodland Ghillie I used dried mud (so it's a bit dusty and hard like soil). It gives the suit a more natural look and smell.
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A couple of notes on general use:
Avoid silhouette. Stay BELOW ridge-lines, not on them like in video-games. Avoid larger pockets of water and such. It's pretty important. Also, twigs breaking are a natural sound and people wont notice it too much. Metal clacking though, is not. Tape down all loose parts on your rifle and you'll be much better off ^^. I guess in paintball you have those tanks with rustling bullets in, so I can't really give you any tips there.
Once you get to a place your going to play, you'll always have to adapt your suit to get the most out of it. What a lot of people do wrong is that they are too lazy to spend the needed 10-15 minutes getting their suit ready for the area. Find vegetation that fits and start sticking it into your meshed suit. Avoid big branches or bushes, that's not a good idea. What you want are the smaller shrubbery, leaves moss and so on. For desert and urban terrain there is little you can do, but I always give my suits a couple of drags trough a fitting dust type first (great if the place itself is dusty, just roll around some). In the end what will give you away the most if movement, so when in position you'll have to remember to lie perfectly still, ESPECIALLY WITH YOUR HEAD! Head movement is as bad as using a flashlight to signal where you are. A little swaying and very slow movements wont hurt, that's only natural, but anything beyond that is bad =p.
I do hope I covered what needed to be covered, if you have any questions feel free to ask.
You can indeed find plenty of very good pre-made ones, but if you do know where you'll be playing (type of terrain), pre-made can rarely match up to a fully customized one. Also, if you have some knowledge about combat-gear, making a highly customized outfit is pretty great, nothing like having the perfect outfit FOR YOU.Kalezian said:
I don't know about peoples background in making clothes and stuff, but if your into it a bit like I am, the results can be pretty damn good ^^.
This is amazing and truly helpful! Thanks alot for all of this. One of the things i am thinking of trying is an interchangable suit. Basically, i have netting which i can sow all the jute on to make a blanket. but instead of sowing it onto the jacket, i attach small hooks on the jacket, that way, i can attach the blanket and if need be, swap it out for a different camoflage. But would it work?
Vampire cat said:o0BigDave0o said:well, i can understand how, if not, then just attach the blanket itself to my jacket, that should work. should i put the jute on before or after i put the netting on the jacketVampire cat said:
Just stick mirrors all over a jumpsuit. You'll be camouflaged in foliage, and you'll dazzle your opponents on open terrain. Provided that it's sunny.
I'd say after. Unless your going for the blanket idea I guess, but it's going to be easier to see where you need to put jute when it's actually on there. Maybe put most on first, then see how it looks and fill in where needed.o0BigDave0o said:well, i can understand how, if not, then just attach the blanket itself to my jacket, that should work. should i put the jute on before or after i put the netting on the jacket
good idea, thanks for all your help, il contact you if i need further help if thats ok, thanks againVampire cat said:I'd say after. Unless your going for the blanket idea I guess, but it's going to be easier to see where you need to put jute when it's actually on there. Maybe put most on first, then see how it looks and fill in where needed.o0BigDave0o said:well, i can understand how, if not, then just attach the blanket itself to my jacket, that should work. should i put the jute on before or after i put the netting on the jacket
Okay, you're going to need three things: Garbage bags, a paint of preferred color, and possibly the biggest hole puncher you can find.