Clothe them in scraps (Quickie How To)

I got an email over the weekend commenting on the Otherworld Skeletons I had worked on in February. Specifically, the dude on the left there:

Here's what I wrote about him in March:

I was working on the skeletons (UD1a) and decided to take the advice I read on the Otherworld forums and pin the arms. Unfortunately, my pinning was an utter failure. Either the pin was at a "bad" angle or I didn't have enough in the ball of the arm joint to make a good fit, but I just struggled with all of them. 

One in particular (the spear guard) gave me fits. I was going to put the skeleton standing at attention with a spear/shield, and after 8 times (5 with superglue, 3 with JB Weld) of putting arms on, them not bonding/holding enough and working loose, me scraping clean, regluing, I just had ruined shoulder bones and crudded up arms/sockets. I thought I would have to put that figure away as a ruined one. I was given a great idea to get the shoulders in place anyway I could, then cover the shoulders with a "rotted" cloth. Great idea!After a search around the house for non-embossed tissues or cloth, I found that my box of industrial paper towels work great. So now the model has tons of JBWeld on the shoulders but it will be tabletop acceptable.

The emailed question was, how did I actually make the rotted cloth?

BTW, I apologize for the suckage of the photo. I probably should reshoot my minis since I now know how to use my camera properly for minis photos, later maybe.

Anyway, the recipe is as follows:

1. Grab some tissue paper, paper towel, or something that can stand up to a few dunkings in white glue.

2. Cut/rip the cloth to fit. I had to do this several times to get it to look right. It's easier to do this now than later when it's stiff and painted. If you're making rotted cloth, I ripped it so that the uneven ripped edges would look rotted.

3. Soak/paint it with Mod-Podge or Elmer's White Glue. When it starts to get dry, "shape" the cloth as much as you can so that it dries somewhat in the position you want. I also crinkled mine, then flatted it out so it didn't look perfectly smooth.

4. Repeat #3 if it doesn't feel sturdy enough. The white glue is to hold the shape and stiffen it so that when you paint it, the paper doesn't fall apart.

5. Basecoat/Shade/Highlight. For my rotted cloth, which I wanted to look leather-like, I used DecoArt Mississippi Mud as base, Devlan Mud as the shade and Khahki as a highlight.

6. Glue to your figure. I used superglue and there was enough white glue/paint in the cloth so that it held together nicely. Since it was already somewhat preshaped, it was pretty easy to get it to line up and look like it was hanging on the shoulders.

Easy Peasy and probably not worth so many words, but there ya go.