"Large scale cloth printing" Topic

I could really use some guidance on this from anyone whose done something similar.

I want to print out some copies of the Ferraris maps on cloth, so that I can lay it down over objects like a flocked terrain mat in order to show elevation. Id prefer something in the 4' square to 8x5' size range. This is the only way I can think of to show elevation correctly on the maps.

I know that there are large format printers that can do this. But does anyone know what size to do it on and how much it might cost? What sort of file would I need to send them?

Thanks!

Hmm… I found a website that'll print cotton sheet material for fairly cheap.

link

Its thin, but if you laid down some felt beneath it over top of the newspaper balls and foam I think it might work… And only $18 USD a yard to start. Id need to see how big of an image they can print though…

Cool idea FMS.. Been looking at a similar approach with "grass" effect for my figures.

You could take pictures of a map or something, or of flocked grass and have them print that too.

Last night I sent the company an email explaining what I wanted them to do and what I was going to use it for. I'm hoping they'll get back to me sooner than later. If they can do really giant imagery files then this might be a really cool way to use the Ferraris maps and conceivably any other sort of map one might want to do. It's a lot cheaper even than making your own flocked mat (that flock adds up!), and much cheaper than printing stuff on vinyl, which also doesn't way nicely on the substrata that gives the field a 3D effect.

You may find this helpful:

link

I've done that. It looks great but it takes so much time and space. Plus I ended up throwing it away when I moved… a major mistake I now regret. But I really want to be able to use these for wargames.

link

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Then again as I look at the two, I'm beginning to think that the Ferraris maps, although ideal for games with brigades as the main unit, a more tactical-scale printout may seem jarring. Maybe I could get away with printing digital pictures of flocked terrain patches? That could be interesting. I think that's what Inkwhiz was talking about…

that looks fantastic

A few things you need to know. That cotton from spoonflower is REALLY thin. I would not recommend it. cotton also has a problem with blacks. We worked really hard to get our VER1 mats to look right. The quality was never great. We did the best we could but the VER2 method is a lot better. However we are restricted more on sizes.

Polyester and silk print very nice and crisp. If your willing to pay the extra for those. Spoonflower is a good company and we have used them a few times.

Printed fabric is also just that fabric. It's like buying a bolt from a craft store. It will fray and fray bad. That is unless you take the time to hem it or have someone else do it.

We can only do 60" by 50" right now. We will soon be able to do 80" by 60". Our new mats are fleece based. We can print custom images but only if they are in the public domain or if you have the rights to do it. We require fairly high res photos to begin with.

Due to the texture of the fleece, We can't print small text very well. It gets kinda fuzzy. It works good for lines and shapes.

If we can help then drop me an email. corseceng@gmail.com

Jonathan Bowen
CorSec Engineering

Jonathan, thank you for the professional input, checking out your site now, interesting stuff.

Cheers,
Bob

FM, yes a little google search shows some useful public domain grass-effect images in high def. I'm thinking some adobe editing and proper scaling would look reasonable nice (and save a lot of time and money) vs flocking or terrain boards. Fields, forests, etc..could be layered on either via adobe on smaller pieces of cloth, and built up with actual pieces (like your lichen forest) on the table itself. This would allow a nice look 3 dimensionally, as well as defining borders for wooded areas if the lichen is removed. Sort of a paint-by-numbers for terrain.