Anyone Tried Making Baobab Trees?

[Cacique Caribe]

I decided to use some spare junk bits and give it a try:





https://www.flickr.com/photos/9593487@N07/albums/72157705635591075/with/46802132282/

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=114549.0

My wife says that baobab remind her of upside down plastic carrots, with leaves on the tips of the small roots.  She might actually be on to something ...

Anyway, before I go any further with this little project, I wanted to hear suggestions and perhaps get some links to tutorials (with photos or video).

Thoughts?

[FifteensAway]

Explore the Workbench page (which has mysteriously disappeared from my listing but I can get to by a search).  I'm pretty sure someone was recently posting about building baobab trees.  Not certain, though.  Go to the page and do a search.

Good luck.  Oh, and nice start to your project, just need to very the smooth portion of the trunk a bit and coat somehow, like thinned plaster perhaps, and you'll be really close.

[Barry S]

Hi CC,

A friend and I have made several Baobab trees over the years for customers.

We used dowel with the top shaped for the trunk which we thickened and smoothly textured with caulk and  inserted wire armatures to act as the base for the foliage. We did consider using sturdy cardboard tubes or even PVC pipe as the core, but we decided on dowel for reasons that escape me now.

Here's a very poor photo of one set we made. 


As for tutorials, I know that Bob Murch wrote an article in Wargames Illustrated #245, March 2008.

[Cacique Caribe]

I was also looking for references in the workbench, but found very little, which I thought was odd.

Wow, those three babobab trees look amazing!  A definite inspiration to push along and finish mine.

Thanks so much.

[Plynkes]

Looking good. Remember that there are quite a few types of Baobab, though, and they don't all look like that.


I've got a horrible feeling that particular type is only native to Madagascar. Of course, nobody is obliged to care about that, and it would still look good on any African table. 

[Cacique Caribe]

True, most of the other baobab species, like those on the African continent and Australia, aren’t as majestic as the tall ones (adansonia grandidieri) from Madagascar.

I also like this baobab from continental Africa, the adansonia digitata:




http://www.baobabs.info/grobritannien-uk/description/index.html
http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_baobab.html

[Plynkes]

For those less inclined to make their own stuff (like my lazy and feckless self), Schleich make a ready-to-use African Baobab...


(I say ready-to-use, but I did repaint the foliage, which looked a little anemic and not at all how it appears on the box art. The wood however I left as it was.)


Doesn't look too bad on the tabletop...



Though it will be great to see Cacique's version when it is done. Looking forward to seeing it.

[Barry S]

Looking good. Remember that there are quite a few types of Baobab, though, and they don't all look like that.


I've got a horrible feeling that particular type is only native to Madagascar. Of course, nobody is obliged to care about that, and it would still look good on any African table. 

Polynkes,

It's also my understanding is that these are particular to Madagascar, but we were supplied photos of these types of trees, so it's what we made.

Thanks by the way.



 

[Cacique Caribe]

Now that’s a beautiful addition to an already beautiful setup!  I think I know what type of baobab I’ll be trying next.

Thanks for those pics.

[Poiter50]

Some of those in the North West of Australia, Kimberley Plateau, get as big as that and there are mini-me's all over that area, quite heavily forested. The hollow ones have been used as prisons on some occasions.

True, most of the other baobab species, like those on the African continent and Australia, aren’t as majestic as the tall ones (adansonia grandidieri) from Madagascar.

I also like this baobab from continental Africa, the adansonia digitata:




http://www.baobabs.info/grobritannien-uk/description/index.html
http://www.krugerpark.co.za/africa_baobab.html

[Cacique Caribe]

Poiter

That’s fantastic info!  I can already imagine babobab decorating a table with aboriginal people vs megafauna (such as megalania prisca).

It seems that most of the lands on the edges of the Indian Ocean also have one or more species of baobab, which means that they must be spread by ocean currents or in the gut of birds that migrate that immense expanse of coastlines.

Such a prehistoric or alien-looking tree.  I really wish we had something like that here in Texas.

Almost forgot ... I used some thin pieces of card to bulk the base a bit more and enhance the conical appearance.  Then I used the tip of my hot glue gun to smear some material in incomplet horizontal bands.  And then I applied a heavy dose of thick PVA glue:





Except now I usually have a figure in hand for scale every time I make some terrain piece.  So I didn’t realize until now how puny my 15mm figures look beside the tree.

Anyway, I might have to add a little bit of joint compound to fill many of the gaps between the hot glue bands.

Thanks

Dan

[Mindenbrush]

Neat work, looks like I might be trying my hand at some for Historicon 2019

[Clearco]

I begun this one one year ago but never finished it 



It's in 15mm scale. I was trying to make it like the ones I have seen on pictures of Tanzania, not the smooth one from Madagascar though

[Cacique Caribe]

Clearco

That looks great!  Go ahead and finish it.  I think that with baobab trees the key seems to be less foliage rather than more.  So the number of leaves on the canopy always tends to look inadequate for the girth of the trunk.

I say go for it!

Dan

ADDENDUM

Here’s the tree, now that I’ve coated the grooves with wall joint compound (filler).  Once dry I followed it up with a coat of straight PVA.  I’m finally starting to like the “bumpy” texture now:



Most of the photos I find show that the bottom edge of the trees sustain a lot of damage from animals or the elements, so I left the pits along the bottom unfilled.  I hope I don’t come to regret that later.

[cram]

Great project.

Looks like the baobab that Plynkes suggested is no longer available