Forest Terrain - European Style (LAST UPDATE 21.02.2010)

[Admiral Benbow]

Brilliant as ever 
How does the Noch Water compare to Woodland Scenics 'Realistic Water' (if you've ever used that)? Sounds a similar product...

Thanks, Richard! I've read a lot about "Realistic Water", but didn't have the opportunity to try it. The Noch water is a very glutinous stuff and slowly hardening; needs 24 hours to fully cure. I like it as you're able to manipulate it with a toothpick and most airbubbles have time enough to get to the surface and vanish. But as my bottles are empty now, I had already planned to give that Woodland stuff a try ...

Excellent use of natural materials. Are you going to flock the trees to add a little more realism to them or leave them as they are? Either way they look great. Having spent some time in the western US I was able to gather some sagebrush (aka. tumbleweed) which is another great thing to use for tree structures. A walk through the local forest always yields some great things to use for scenery.

Yes, the trees will be fully flocked. Sagebrush seems to be a very nice product for building trees, unfortunately it's only available in the US and quite expensive when ordered from online railroad shops. There is a very nice how-to with sagebrush here:

http://ryan.skow.org/tutorials/trees/index.html

I have huge trouble finding roots like those ones. Aside from digging them up out of the ground, where do I start looking? :S (Yes, this occurs to me to be a silly question but I'm going to ask it anyway!!!)

There are no silly questions, Christian. 
The most easy way to find good roots is to walk through your nearest spruce or fir-tree forest and look for knocked-down trees like that:



You should find lots of useful roots, cut them out and let them dry thoroughly. Another recently discovered source could be bonsai branches ready to buy:

http://www.nadeco.de/naturdekorationentischdekoration/hoelzerundwurzeln/bonsai-aeste---gehoelz---abschnitte.php

I didn't try this stuff myself, but maybe that's a nice material. And there are others you can get through suppliers of dry-flowers ...

[Christian]

Thanks for the tips, Admiral Looks like I'll be doing even more bush walking!

Now that I think of it there is a knocked down tree at a local park... that picture is beautiful. Is that near where you live or something?

[Admiral Benbow]

Thanks for the tips, Admiral Looks like I'll be doing even more bush walking!
Now that I think of it there is a knocked down tree at a local park... that picture is beautiful. Is that near where you live or something?

No, unfortunately not. I just got it from Google picture search ...

[Admiral Benbow]

Some more work and pics since my last update. After using rubberised horsehair for the first trees I changed over to a synthetic material called filterwool, usually used as a filter-material in pond pumps.



I had to buy this very large bag as smaller ones were not in stock, so I'm able to plant the siberian forests in 28 mm now ... If anybody would like to get something of this stuff, I'm happy to part with it if you paypal me for the postage costs.

Next two pics show some trees with the new fibres already in place and then airbrushed dark green.





Next step was to prepare the groundwork. I first flocked some bushes from horsehair and other fibres with different shades of green flocking stuff, even a couple of older H0 scale railroad bushes came into refurbishing.



I had saved twigs and bark pieces from stripping the roots to use this material for ground scatter around the trees. Also a selection of scenic foam materials from different brands like Woodland Scenics, Noch and Faller was prepared.





And this is the large finished forest piece with the pond I started this topic with:





And the next group, ready for groundwork:



That's it for today. I will now finish all remaining trees and terrain pieces and will show you some pics of the completed forest terrain in some weeks, depending on my spare time.
 

[Ray Rivers]

That pond scene... just makes me sick! 

Please stop torturing us with these photos! 

 

[Christian]

Green...


... with envy that is 

what a marvelous job. You've raised the bar, Admiral.

Damn you!

 

[Silent Invader]

Beautiful.

Am loving your organised stocks and supplies and overall methodical approach (must be my ancestral German roots!).

[Hammers]

Gorgeous.

I am going to make a copy of this, clean it up a bit and then make it sticky, if that's alright.

[Gluteus Maximus]

Gorgeous.

I am going to make a copy of this, clean it up a bit and then make it sticky, if that's alright.

Great idea!

[Admiral Benbow]

So, here we are again! As promised, some pics of the completed wood in action for our upcoming Thirty Years War game at the TACTICA. I will get lots of pics there of the game and table, but they will probably be published in a new thread at the Swashbuckling Board. This thread is now finished, so if you like, Hammers, you can make it sticky ...
 

[Captain Blood]

As promised, some pics of the completed wood in action for our upcoming Thirty Years War game at the TACTICA. I will get lots of pics there of the game and table, but they will probably be published in a new thread at the Swashbuckling Board.

They better had be! 

I'm looking forward to seeing them.

Looks just right, Michael. Great work.

[Prof.Witchheimer]

Fantastic, Michael! I'm in awe 

[Christian]

Mein gott!

That's so awesome! >_< Thank you for sharing that with us!