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Author Topic: Tree time?  (Read 2117 times)

Offline Parrot

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Tree time?
« on: August 30, 2018, 08:52:06 AM »
I've been making a few scratch built trees and I am wondering how other people make trees, especially the foliage and greenery, I have some woodland scenics stuff, but it looks like it is not cost effective the way I have been doing it, so I am looking for some advice and tips as to what to use, and how do you finish them so that they are durqbe enough to use?

Online Daeothar

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #1 on: August 30, 2018, 09:26:00 AM »
There are a plethora of different techniques and materials out there; just do a search for model trees or something along those lines and you'll see. But you've of course done that already.

One thing I feel that most methods are a bit disappointing in, is the fact that individual leaves are not visible. This is not an issue when doing trees for 15mm, 10mm or even 2mm, but trees made for 28mm should have individual leaves visible!

I mean; we have eyes, buttons, rank insignia and purity seals visible and painted on our miniatures, but individual leaves, which are more often than not larger than the items I mentioned are not?

OK; I do understand the reason; it's 'just' terrain, and the mass of leaves in a tree's canopy will look like a large green blob from a distance anyway. While this is obviously true, it can be argued that the same goes for our lovingly painted miniatures, and we don't cut corners on those either.

That's why I think the GW plastic wood is actually a good product. And it's also why I have amassed a huge amount of Britains Trees foliage; those do have sculpted leaves, which creates a far more realistic look than clumps of lichen on a stick.

Don't use the trees as they are straight out of the box though, but take your time painting them, toning down the unnatural bright colours, and bringing out the details of the sculpts even better (by washing/inking the foliage pieces). And use them not only with their original tree trunks, but also with natural (drift)wood, to add more variation in tree shapes. This also allows you to make the trees larger than they already are.

For dioramas, I've seen people create each individual tree with a wire armature under a clay trunk, and then glueing each individual leaf to the branches (most often birch seed leaves too). And while this creates truly stunning, beautiful results, the creation process is also maddeningly slow and intensive, and the end result, while awesome, is also brittle and vulnerable to a point where it is unsuitable for gaming purposes.

So that's why I chose this compromise. It may still not be perfect, but it comes close and gives me the balance between playability and realism I want. :)

For smaller scales, I will not hesitate to revert to more traditional techniques though.
« Last Edit: August 30, 2018, 11:11:55 AM by Daeothar »
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Offline Mr Tough Guy

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #2 on: August 30, 2018, 10:35:23 AM »
As an alternative to the woodland scenic stuff you could try to make your own foliage, I did it once when making a Sakura tree, I used a white kitchen sponge, which i put through a kitchen blender, and then mixed in a little pink paint to get the right colour. Think it should work equally fine for regular foliage just use green paint instead of pink. If you add a little water in with the sponges in the blender it will shred easilier and will also help with mixing in the paint if you do it immediately afterwards

Offline snitcythedog

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #3 on: August 30, 2018, 06:16:28 PM »
I have been using rubberized horse hair and homemade sawdust foliage.

It gives some pretty realistic results.

Rubberized horsehair can be a pain to source in some countries so I figured out a way to make it.
http://snitchythedog.blogspot.com/2017/04/rubberized-horsehair.html
Your other options are to purchase it and there was a good thread a little while ago about it here.
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=111371.0
If you do go down that rout you will need a real good spray adhesive to attach the foliage and I would highly suggest using clear spray Plasti-Dip to seal it up.  Otherwise the foliage will flake off. 
Hope that gives you another option.
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Offline Parrot

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #4 on: August 30, 2018, 07:32:39 PM »
Is Plasti Dip Spray the same type of product for the same purpose as Krylon Matte Finish? https://www.krylon.com/products/matte-finish/

Offline snitcythedog

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #5 on: August 30, 2018, 07:46:14 PM »
Short answer is no.  It is a spray vinyl rubber coating.  Same stuff that they use to coat metal parts in cars with. 
Snitchy sends.

Offline Parrot

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #6 on: September 19, 2018, 06:59:23 AM »
How tall do you prefer your 28mm scale trees to be?  I am looking for something taller than the trees made from the bag of woodland scenics trees, so something taller than 3 inches, but what would be a realistic upper limit?  12 inches?  Less?

Offline voltan

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #7 on: September 19, 2018, 07:55:12 AM »
I make my trees with the old twisted wire method, for the foliage I use woodlands scenic coarse turf, for me it's the best compromise between texture and robustness, plus I already had some so you know :P
Size-wise, the trees I've made are anywhere between 3" and 6", any bigger than that and I think that there might be problems of constantly knocking them over as  you reach across the table.
Yvan eht nioj!

Offline SteveBurt

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #8 on: September 19, 2018, 09:59:45 AM »
Real trees are anywhere from 15 to 100 feet tall, so in 1:56 scale, that's 3" to 21"
Most largish trees like oaks and ash are around 50 feet, so to scale would be about 10".
The Britain's plastic Oak tree (made to go with their 54mm figures) is actually pretty much to scale for a 28mm oak.

Offline gweirda

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #9 on: September 19, 2018, 01:32:50 PM »
"...any bigger than that and I think that there might be problems of constantly knocking them over as  you reach across the table."

A fiddly but potential workaround for this is to split the larger trees to allow access for fat fingers...



(15mm stuff)

Offline Mindenbrush

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #10 on: September 19, 2018, 03:41:06 PM »
Many, many years ago I purchased some trees off of HGWalls that were made from the Seafoam branches, dipped in a rubber/silicone solution to give them some rigidity and then flocked, they looked very realistic.

Unfortunately I sold them off when I moved but have been toying with the same idea since then.
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Offline SteveBurt

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #11 on: September 20, 2018, 10:09:43 AM »
"...any bigger than that and I think that there might be problems of constantly knocking them over as  you reach across the table."

A fiddly but potential workaround for this is to split the larger trees to allow access for fat fingers...


(15mm stuff)

That's brilliant, and also makes that terrain piece much easier to store.
It also means that you can have cut down stumps near your settlement.
Consider the idea stolen!

Online Daeothar

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #12 on: September 20, 2018, 11:31:54 AM »
That's brilliant, and also makes that terrain piece much easier to store.
It also means that you can have cut down stumps near your settlement.
Consider the idea stolen!

Absolutely, and:

Offline gweirda

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Re: Tree time?
« Reply #13 on: September 20, 2018, 03:24:35 PM »
Magnets.

Yup.  So...where were you with your clever idea before I picked up the pinvice?   ;D

Seriously - this is a good solution, and it shall be implemented.

Sidenote: the photo shown is not a 'terrrain piece', but a 'cloth-over-stuff' table in which all of the features (walls, hedges/bocage, buildings, trees) were pinned.