There are a lot of different approaches to making a ghillie, or suit, or concealment system (I’ll stick to the word ghillie as a blanket term for it all), and a lot of different materials. But where do you start? That’s generally the moment where people get it right, or terribly wrong.
Modifying and making sniper suits dates back over a hundred years to the onset of the First World War, predating even VHS videos. From the earliest days snipers have been modifying their camouflage to better match the environment they were working in. Early images show some snipers making artificial tree suits, adding leaves and local vegetation and during the Cold War, British snipers experimented with gluing artificial bricks onto urban sniper camouflage to help disguise themselves better. It isn’t some recent phenomenon developed by highly innovative airsofters, but the last few years have seen an explosion in the development of ghillie building and personal camouflage within Airsoft, largely through easier access to information and ideas being shared via social media, and also access to cheaper and more varied materials from Internet retailers that may not have been previously obtainable. We’ve developed a whole culture around modifying camouflage. But how do you filter all this information down into something useful?
Choosing the Right Environment and Pattern
First thing you need to do though is get off Facebook and stop googling pictures of ghillies. Quite often, this gives us ideas of what we want our finished article to look like and gives us a model to work off. Which sounds like the right thing to do. But it isn’t. Because as good as that guy looks in that “spot the sniper” picture, chances are he’s not playing where you are. The first thing you need to look at is where you’re going to be using it. So go to the site, have a walk around and take lots of pictures – especially pictures of the floor in different parts of the site.
Secondly, as much as the adverts and heavily filtered photos online might try to persuade you, there is no out of the box approach to camouflage. You may have bought a ready made rifle to avoid any hassle, but this is where the work comes in. Being a successful sniper requires an understanding of the environment and how you appear in it. This translates to lots of (fun) suit building and a constant cycle of adjustment for different seasons.
What you need to consider is the type of terrain before you buy a base to build it all onto. I see loads of players at my local site, which is dominated by grass, turning up in very dark brown leaf suits because that’s what they’ve seen on Facebook. Similarly, at a local pine woodland site, I’ve seen players wearing green string type suits that stand out worse than ordinary camo. Is the site quite light in colour? Or is it a dark, muddy woodland? You need to try and avoid contrasting against the background.
The base pattern is vital for any suit. I’ve participated and run sniper only events for years so I’ve seen every type of ghillie imaginable, both in action and out of it. No bias, no sales pitches. I know that getting the base right makes all the difference. Before we even think about adding any materials onto it, we need to make sure it works pretty well just on its own. Not perfectly of course, but close enough to your local environment
The reason being is that we don’t want to dump half a tonne of crap onto the suit, because it’ll get hot and heavy and difficult to move. Additionally, it becomes easier to spot because it’s an unnaturally dense collection of materials. What I would recommend to start with is to forget those old pre-covid leaf suits that are still quite common today. The idea of having it “half-built” is tempting for the lazy crafter, but the silk leaf strips blow around too much and are a repeated pattern, which we want to avoid. Nature doesn’t run in straight lines, even if you zig zag it. A plain base allows us to construct something far more organic and natural.
Why I Recommend Military BDU’s
The good news is that the best base you can pick up is just normal military BDU’s (uniform). They’re cheap, rugged enough to survive the elements and you add materials directly onto your clothes in effect. If you buy something like the old leaf suits or a cape, remember you do need to wear clothes underneath which creates an extra layer and that can get hot and sweaty quickly.
The best thing about BDU’s is that they come in a variety of colours and patterns to match any environment, and those colours and patterns are strong – you’ll notice mesh suits, being full of holes, don’t print the pattern as well so it’s less effective. Although you might think the old BDU’s are bit basic compared to a £300 “specialist” sniper suit base, they actually perform much better. If you’re building a set as a ghillie, obviously it isn’t going in the wash (definitely not!) so you can also use spray paints and dyes to adjust the colours if necessary. But even basic 4-colour patterns can break up your outline really well :
Bear in mind this is before we actually do anything with 3D materials to really enhance it. 90% of my suits now are BDU based, and in the article Ghillie Guide – Materials to Use you can see what to add to it.
A fine example from ghillie expert Joseph Keller
All you need to do is match up the colours you need in your environment to the corresponding BDU’s, and usually the military of your own country will have stock available cheaply in a pattern they’ve designed for your country. It also means you can choose from different clothing for different weather conditions, and all the accessories produced in the same pattern. Bonus.
Viper Hoods, Capes and Ponchos
Beyond the BDU option, there are specialist sniper suits available, usually made from mesh, and one of the more common ones is the Viper hood or Viper cape.
Basically its a head-and-shoulders piece, and this is my UK Sniper Systems MOSS suit from many years back. They’re useful because they still give you access to your combat load, and usually are cheaper and lighter making them ideal to pack away for when you need them. They do come with limitations though – they’ll work well if you’re prone and the enemy can only see you from that direction and sees only your upper body. They don’t camouflage your kit, your legs or your front so are less ideal for crouching or standing, at which point you’re relying on your BDU’s or whatever is underneath (hint – just build onto the BDU’s) to hide you. For me personally, and from experience – if you’re going to hide yourself, hide your whole self. I find them OK for milsim as a cosplay item, but not particularly effective in the field.
I will actually touch on hoods while I’m here. Just generally for snipers. We’re often told a big hood is great for breaking up the head shape and you can move your head around underneath without the whole head piece moving. And that is true, but the problem is that it limits your vision because it doesn’t move with your head – it’s blocking more than half your view off. It’s also restricting your hearing, and honestly your sense being available to you in a game of Airsoft is worth any level of camouflage you’d like to stack it against. You’re not a statue – you’re an active part of the game and you need to see and detect threats quickly, so you can evaluate your next move. To hell with this stereotype of snipers being mysterious cloaked and hooded figures. Save that for Comic Con.
The similar option is the cape, often by Webtex, which extends the Viper concept and adds a back to it. These are still popular and I have a few in the house still somewhere. It’s a heavy duty mesh base which feels solid and will take some abuse, and fits loosely as you’d imagine a cloak to. It can take some spray paint and gives lots of options for mounting points, and they’re popular because a cape makes you feel more like a stealthy sniper.
Cape under construction from Retro Warfare
You can see here as well that when crouching, a cape does hide the legs well from the back. There are also now several Poncho style bases on the market that hide the front and back and are akin to wearing a big sheet, like a halloween ghost.
Here’s one from Helikon. It’s a very old idea from WW2, and although a few companies have made more modern versions they still suffer from one key problem. It’s like trying to move quickly in a long dress.
One of the biggest mistakes by many crafters is to assume the sniper is a stationary mode. Yes, a poncho might work sitting down in a hide position, but in Airsoft especially you have to be able to move easily through rough terrain, which is where the concept falls down. You must always expect to be on the move in difficult terrain, to reposition yourself closer to the action, or after taking a shot to keep the enemy guessing. It’s not that you’re always running around, in fact I’m definitely an advocate of staying still. But when you do have to move, you have to fucking move. Ghillies work only when you’re still, but we have to factor in those moments inbetween.
The sniper needs to be agile and adaptable rather than being anchored to one point, unless you’re just camping a spawn for your films. Always work on your worst case scenario. Realistically, most players are terrible at spotting you anyway if you’re in a good position, and if you’re camouflaged properly using the right materials and techniques, you’re covered. What you don’t want is a ghillie that hinders movement.
Specialist Ghillie Systems
The other option, and one I have myself as a “pro” level base, is something like this :
This is my Oakmaster Shaman, fresh out of the packet. The base is hand painted, not mass produced in a factory, and the 3D elements are also arranged by hand (Macronet and Nanoscreen) rather than factory stitched rows of zigzag pattern fabrics. It’s not a cheaply made item for sure. This was sent out to me by Oakmaster to evaluate and you can read about it in this article here. The Shaman solves a lot of problems encountered by the old leaf suit or mesh bases like Vipers by having full body coverage done properly, but also access to your chest rig and an integrated backpack cover so you can throw it over the top of your kit. It is at time of writing between £500-£600, so it’s definitely a level above most other brands as you’d imagine by the construction. This is where you go to though when you really need something top tier rather than just an Airsoft suit, and that will depend on your needs and your budget.
Oakmaster do produce a range of ghillie bases but these are developed by professionals for professionals, so it’s not an option for beginner or intermediate needs and certainly you could be just as stealthy without one, but I did want to add it to the list for those who might need something more. There are many readers who aren’t weekend Airsoft skirmishers. Even more expensive options exist once you start getting into military contracted stuff, and some of the prices seep into the thousands, but that’s beyond 99% of us and far beyond our needs.
And yes, you can still get the old string suit bases that have served militaries for decades, but recent advancements have given us lighter, more effective camouflage systems that work much better in a range of applications. Certainly for Airsoft, I wouldn’t want to be bogged down in jute.
To conclude then, bases aren’t as expensive as you might imagine because often the most effective solutions are by far the everyday camouflage clothes we have such easy access to. Getting the colours right, the pattern right and the right clothing for the weather are much more important than thinking a £200 store-bought “ghillie” is going to work better. Once you get the base right – and make sure you test it at 10m, 30m, and 60m before you even touch any 3D – then everything on top of that just works better. Be aware of micro and macro patterns (article here) and how they affect your shape breakup.
The goal with the base pattern is to give you that shape breakup before you start adding the fun stuff, and to have something you can comfortably run and crawl around in. Not a shawl or cloak you’ll trip over, not something that’s going to rip every time you sit down.
Once you’ve got yourself a base, it’s onto the next article Ghillie Guide – Materials to Use
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