I was thinking if I took some DCUs or Desert DPMs and splattered some bleach on them it might just look really close to Leaf and Frog camo. Any comments. And I am ganna say right now I'm not going to buy HORPAT cause I don't have $300 to spend on a uniform. Thanks

The Polish Desert Camo seems to be the closest we've found that's readily available and looks pretty close with no bleaching:

http://www.military1st.co.uk/bl-bdu-cr- ... esert.html

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

Indeed. Several members use the Polish and it looks quite good. Even regular Multicam works well, even though it's a totally different kind of pattern. I've heard tale of people adding a yellow/brown dye to urban camos to get a reasonable effect, but never seen it myself. On the whole, I'd agree with Steve and say if you don't want to pay for accurate and just want something close, go for Polish, and not take any risks mucking anything up with dyes and bleaches.

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"Screen what? I wouldn't know screen accurate if it were driving a bus and ran me over during the parade."

LCpl. Av "Spectre" Taylor
Long Range Infantry Support

I tried the dye and urban camo for a helmet cover and it worked, sort of. The problem is that you end up with no white bits, and the white frogs are kind of a defining feature. Technically Polish doesn't have white frogs either, but the light tan seems close enough.

In this photo I'm wearing a screen accurate HORPAT helmet cover and Polish BDU's:



Pretty damn similar, no? So I'd really go for the Polish stuff as it isn't too bad price wise.

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I had ordered up a set of Desert Polish about a year ago and I was disappointed in it. If I could do it again, I would not have ordered the ripstop. The colors were close, but not close enough for me. Hence I developed HORPAT. I almost had a panic attack when I found out how much this stuff was going to cost per unit. I'm selling it nearly at cost to you guys... And I don't actually have a set myself yet.

If you can figure out a way to "bleach" out the "bird (poop)" on the Polish camo, you'll be set.

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BANNED USER

I will prolly buy the Spat camo for for my smarty, if not I will go with the Polish spot bleaching is easy enough using a resist

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"Chief Bartender for the Naughty Corner Bar"

Carpe Crustulum!! (seize the cookie!!)

I know polish works and I know multicam works but. I have a few sets of DCUs and I have some bleach. I just wanted to know if any one ever used bleach to try and get the white frogs. If it works I'm going to do it to some DPMs because the darker tans spots are bigger than they are on DCUs.

And plus polish are going to be like $80 for me to get.

Rather than using actual bleach, which will probably damage the material/stitching, have a look for lingerie whitener products such as this:

http://www.dylon.co.uk/product.php?alia ... r-whitener

I few soaks in that and leaving it to dry in the sun should help.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

I'm wondering if you could make a stamp shaped like the frog and use white fabric paint? I have some WALPAT (i.e. Walmart faded camo) that I might experiment with.

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

A crazy idea I had once was to buy a bunch of cheap, white, iron-on patches (those repair style patches for knees and elbows), cut them into the frog pattern and iron them onto any camo that was remotely close.

I never actually went through with it. Trouble I would see is that it will look like it is on top of the material rather than a part of the pattern, and (eventually) the patches might fall off in the wash.

As for the original question about bleach- As Steve (PVB) mentioned it might damage the material. There is also the possibility it won't work at all. Believe it or not, military issue BDUs are pretty resistant to fading/bleaching. I once tried to bleach a genuine woodland pattern BDU top hoping to fade the colours...

After sitting in pure bleach for "hours" the colour barely faded--- however when I attempted to pick up the jacket with a wooden spoon the material itself had turned into fabric soup!


Kevin

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I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me! WHY DIDN'T YOU BELIEVE ME!?!

I had similar issues with bleach. I've never tried the fabric whitener that PVB mentioned though. Kevin, I did try using iron-on white "patches" (actually t-shirt iron-on's), but it looked really obvious.

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751

I used it with my MAA 2pat and 3pat, then washing them with some newish black t-shirts to give them the faded/dull look, rather than sparkly clean.

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Steve
Corporal in 69th Regt. 1st Batt. Homer’s Heroes.

"I'd like to die at the age of 80 in my own bed, with a belly full of wine and a girl's mouth around my c**k."

PVB: the results are great (in the pictures I've seen of your BDU's), but I would have been damn worried about messing up that first batch. It's not like you could run down to the local Man-At-Arms retail outlet in Harrow and buy a new one!

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My entry-level prop and costume tutorials: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=12751