"Ghillie" is a Scottish game-keeper. Pronounced "Gee' lee", starting with the glottal gee (guh), not a jay sound (jee). These guys found that they could sew strips of burlap to their clothes, then wait patiently for poachers to come by and, as long as they remained still, their game would nearly step on them.The real professionals at making Ghillie Suits are military snipers. Good, professional-looking Ghillies can be seen in the movies "Sniper" and "Clear and Present Danger".
Originally designed for hunting in multiple environments while blending in with the natural wildlife around, the ghillie suit, now used for military ops, is what some will say is by far the best form of wearable camouflage. The ghillie suit, is a full body piece of clothing that is specifically designed to blend your body and add a chameleon like characteristic to your being. One of the best things about ghillie suits is that you can continuously add to it to make it better by attaching items such as foliage, branches, burlap, and leaves to it. It is much better than standard camouflage gear because it goes the extra mile to blend with the habitat, the suit can actually use parts of your setting.
In most lighting conditions, detection is a result of both brightness and shape contrasts with the background. Most camouflage fatigues do a pretty good job of matching the general brightness level of foliage, desert, etc.
A Ghillie Suit is a very effective camouflage technique that uses strips of material to break up the outline of the wearer. This fools the eye of the enemy -- the brain sees no recognizable shapes. By adding strips of burlap, or camouflage netting, or branches off bushes to your clothing, you create the three-dimensional pattern disruption I was talking about above. The advantage comes from creating patches that are nearly the same color as the environment, while simultaneously creating ultra-dark shadows alongside. Printed fabric cannot create black patches as dark as real shadows the shadow is about 2 orders of magnitude darker than the darkest printed black fabric.
How to Make A Ghillie Suit Instructions
1. Obtain an old pair of coveralls -- this is called the foundation of the suit. In a pinch a fatigue blouse and pants will suffice.
2. Get some burlap from your local fabric store (about 4 yards). The more burlap you use the more effective (up to a point) will be the Ghillie Suit -- however, it will rapidly become heavy (Army and Marine sniper suits weigh up to 20 pounds or more).
3. Dye the burlap some dark to medium green (Rit dye -- try to match foliage greens). Instructions are on the dye package), Dye a little (half a yard) brown (use sparingly).
4. Cut the burlap into strips 2-3" wide and anywhere from 6" to 12" long (mix up the widths and lengths)
5. Sew one end of each strip to the outside of your foundation -- all over it. Space them so that the ends of the upper strips will overlap the attachment points of strips lower down. The sides do not need to overlap. Fill in by tying vines, small foliated branches, grass, etc. to the suit by knotting the strips around it, or sew strings or cord at random over the suit to tie these material in.
If you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by the above ghillie suit instructions, you can always purchase a Ghillie suit kit that will get you started with making your own ghillie suit. However if you would like some more instruction then check out our Ghillie Suit Videos
