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I'm planning to build a new Army and I'm considering using cotton cloth to create Robes/Coats/Banners for my models instead of sculpting them. In addition planning to use Transfer Paper to add decals and the like.

I would think this would work well enough (though it will be a lot of work I'm okay with that) but I decided to ask here to see if someone else had tried it before now and see how it worked out.

Yeah, Many people have done this, just be careful to make sure that the cotton looks realistic alongside the models, I've seen people who have done this and the effect often isn't convincing. You could try getting the cotton into position then coating it in something like superglue to make sure it stays solid and in the same place. I think the main problem with using cotton or fabric is when it "poofs" out of the model and doesn't appear to have any weight, making it lose a realistic effect. In fact, using a technique like coating it in watered down pva could work nicely.

WOW! Talk about Synchronicity!

I just recently started adding a covering of toilet tissue to my banners for my LotR armies.

Doing this creates a "cloth" surface texture and appearance.

You put a wash of a color over the surface to be made into a banner, and then lay the tissue over it.

Then you apply a thick coat of paint over that.

When it has completely dried, you give it a spray coating of Gloss Sealer (important that it is gloss sealer), and then "sand" it using a very fine sandpaper or burnishing compound (minimum of 1200, but preferable 1800 - 2000).

This will flatten the surface a bit, and give a flatter surface to paint a pattern upon. You then give it another coat of clear (flat will work this time), and paint your device, or pattern on the banner.

Another way of doing this is to have the banner pattern printed on silk cloth used for covering model airplanes (the flying, radio-controlled variety). And then cut out the banner, and use the exact same method to apply it to the banner, but use clear medium to fix it to the banner, rather than a color (make sure to prime the blank banner backing white).

But you can find all manner of means of creating banners that look more cloth-like.

There is a guy who goes to Historicon every year, who goes by the name "The Standard Guy" who has some tutorials for doing standards.

As for doing "robes" in cloth... You would need to use the same aircraft silk.

You need something with an INCREDIBLY FINE thread, and insane thread count, so that the robes do not look like burlap.

For a banner, they were usually woven with something with very thick threads, like Canvas, so the use of facial tissues (toilet paper), or normal silk will be OK, because the grain of banners is usually heavier than that of the robes on people anyway.

But on gaming figures, you are going to have trouble finding an inexpensive cloth to use that will look appropriate, and will be easy to use.

And, in ALL CASES with robes, you will need to put the cloth on a backing of some sort (lead foil is what professional miniature painters typically use for this).

The reason is that the edges of the cloak or robe would need to be hemmed to keep the weave of the fabric from coming undone at the corners or edges where the warp and weave will be open (and thus threads can just drop right off the ends).

You CAN use superglue on the edges, but it will still leave a funny texture on the edges.

By using a backing, the edges of the cloth texture do not show, and can be smoothed back into the backing to keep them from coming unravelled.

But once you get the hang of using tissue or silk to simulate fabrics, you will find that it produces stunning effects, and makes banners, especially, look very realistic.

MB

I never got around to painting them before selling but I used a similar idea of my camo cloak veterans for IG. Using some of my wife's old fabric soaked in pva to form a heavy cloth cloak for the veterans and then sculpting on fur collars. Unpainted so ignore the pattern on the fabric they looked like this: