Forest Terrain - European Style (LAST UPDATE 21.02.2010)

[Admiral Benbow]

For some weeks now I'm working on a couple of terrain pieces showing deciduous wood forest, usable for games in middle to northern europe or northern America. I tried a lot of techniques and things I've read about only, and as usual reading about and doing things are two quite different things ... But I had a lot of fun and learning experience, so why not showing how it was done. Here are some teasers, a small forest pond (everything else around it will follow ..) and my first test piece finished. More pics tomorrow and as I go on with this project.





 

[Hauptgefreiter]

Very nice!
How did you do the water lilies?

[oxiana]

Lovely.

Are the lily pads made using a hole punch, and then slicing out a section? It would be great if you listed all the different materials you used here though - there's so much going on, and lots of ideas to steal!

[Silent Invader]

Oooh.    I've been waiting for this to appear! Lovely.  Please do share materials and techniques.   

[Admiral Benbow]

The idea for the small pond with water lilies comes from a very useful book from Model Railroader magazine called "The New Scenery Tips and Techniques". It's still available and very good value for anybody interested in scenery techniques:

http://www.kalmbachstore.com/12243.html

In there is an article by Gerry Leone about "Lily pads, cattails and pond scum" showing his methods of modelling a nice pond diorama. You can find this here http://home.earthlink.net/~grleone/diorama.htm including some nice pics,



but unfortunately the link to the full article seems to not work any longer. So, basically it goes as follows:

Lily pads feature slightly concave borders; to get this effect, I cut two different sized pieces from brass tubing (about 6 and 4 mm diameters) and used my hobby drill with a grinding tool to sharpen one end of the tubes. Take a small piece of heavier paper and push around 4 to 5 blobs of different acrylic greens/olives/greenbrowns with a moist brush until the paper is covered, but don't try to mix the tones fully. Let dry. Then, on a soft material like a cutting mat, punch out the pads from the uncoloured backside of the paper! Punch 6 to 10 pieces in one go from different color areas, then poke them out with a wooden dowel from the other end of the tube. Voila, concave borders! Now just slice out a triangular section with your sharp knife and the lily pads are ready to go to your pond.

Sounds easy? It is easy!

[Mad Doc Morris]

(...) Please do share materials and techniques.   

Absolutely seconded!  
This pond looks just like the one I discovered a few months ago while roaming the Paderborner Naherholungsgebiet (LEO translates as "local recreation area" ). Top notch!

EDIT: Thanks for the update! I keep drooling...

[Tsune]

Excellent! 

[Christian]

I bought that book also and I must say it is a great resource for anyone interesting in advanced (and not so advanced) techniques. Everything in that book looks amazing and is explained very well.

Nice job Admiral, I'm impressed!

[Hammers]

Beautiful.

[Hitman]

Those two pieces are fantastic. Great work. Thanks for sharing!!
Regards,
Hitman
 

[DFlynSqrl]

Wonderful! 

[Weird WWII]

Can't wait to see the whole 4x8 table!

Great stuff,
Brian

[Mr.J]

Wow! I Can't wait to see more...

[Captain Blood]

Outstanding terrain Michael. Absolutely gorgeous.
It makes me want to go and make some more myself, straightaway! (So that's genuine inspiration).

I hope I may get to see some of your wonderful terrain 'in the flesh' later this year.

[Malamute]

Outstanding terrain Michael. Absolutely gorgeous.

I hope I may get to see some of your wonderful terrain 'in the flesh' later this year.

Seconded, I love it!