DIY battle mat

I decided to do some work on my gaming tablecloth to turn it into a battle mat for my 6mm armies.

My tablecloth is a 7.5' x 5' piece of polar fleece.

Here is what it looked like.

I was hoping to make it look like a bunch of fields. I didn't want to try and paint roads, streams or wooded or rough areas, preferring to add those in with scatter terrain pieces to keep maximum flexibility for my battle mat.

Here it is after I did some painting.

How I did it; was to heavily dilute (with water and a drop of dish detergent) some dollar store acrylic paints which I then poured into a Spray bottle that creates a very fine spray (like an atomizer). Starting with my darkest green paint I placed cardboard strips to make a rectangular fields on to the fleece and sprayed inside the field templates, then moved the strips and did another until I felt I had enough. Then moved on to a lighter green, occasionally overlapping some of the other areas, then a yellow, misting it all over the cloth, allowing the paint to dry between colors, some of the fields are not rectangular and some overlap darker colors. When the fields and overall yellow were dry I adjusted my sprayer to a stream and from some distance away shot streams of tan and later burnt umber paint onto the whole tablecloth. After everything was dry I chucked it into the clothes dryer for half an hour or so (to hopefully permanently set the paint).

Close up of my DIY Battle mat

Another close up

I am pleased with how it looks, but I may do a bit more detail work (flicking paint from a toothbrush), and fill in some of the bigger empty areas.

Here is a portion of it in use during a game