1:35 Celty - vojska SS a výsadkáři

Mottled cloth that brings color into a scene

The shelter cape was part of an infantryman's basic equipment, and few objects are so typical of the look of German units. It served as a rain cape, as a tent, as a sheet over a load and as an improvised stretcher, so it turns up practically everywhere people moved. For the builder it is interesting above all because it brings a sharply divided pattern into an otherwise gray-green scene, and that pattern draws the eye at once.

The goods take the form of color printing on fine paper measuring 19 x 11 cm. Unlike a casting, thin paper can really be folded, rolled and shaped, so the result carries the soft folds that a stiff material never gives. The patterns match the camouflage used by SS units and by paratroopers.

Where a shelter cape fits in a scene

• rolled up and tied to an infantryman's pack
• thrown over an ammunition crate as protection from rain
• stretched between two stakes as a shelter for a sleeping crew
• folded loosely on the fender of a vehicle, where it creates a color accent

Paper shapes best when dampened, with a small amount of thinned PVA glue, which fixes the fold once dry. It is best to color the white cut edges over with a matching color, because it is precisely those that give away that this is printing. The patterns are drawn for 1:35 scale. Mottled cloth will bear being used repeatedly in several places in a scene, because in the field it was an entirely ordinary item of equipment.