Hi all,
I have made up some trees a bit ago and thought I would share my technique, just in case it is any use to anyone. This is for making large deciduous trees like an oak or redwood, or knarled Chaos or possesd trees if you like!
I have only finished one of them
but that is lazyness, the building principle is quite simple and cheap, especially if you can get the components for free!. I couldn't find anything similar on the forum so here you go.
You will need a glue gun and some quite strong wire, a base of some kind to mount the trees too, PVA, bog roll, or toilet paper depending on your regional diction, paint and lichen.
This idea came to me when my beautiful girlfriend, kept bringing me back the wire bindings from old reports at work, reasoning that I could find a use for them. Having used a few bits as pins and the like I thought there must be some way to use more of this stuff at once and make something more useful, so i thought I would make a tree.
My bases were cut from hard board, taken from the back of an old kitchen unit, I used a 50mm (2inch) circle cutter bit.
I then took 3 or 4 lenghts of the wire twisted them together and bent them in to a tree shape.
I used stray pieces at the bottom to spread out and fit on to the base. The wire should be able to stand up on its own with out any support.
Now we get the hot glue gun out!
The spread wire at the bottom should be cut to fit the base and the wire tree should be able to stand on it with no help and with out falling over.
Then we use hot glue to stick the base wire to the base, and we also start running the glue up the frame.
There are no hard or fast rules to this, I found that it worked best if I ran it in longish lines as much as the glue gun would squeeze out in a single trigger pull. we are attempting to make it look like a gnarled lumpy bark.
Now remember the tree must be thicker at the base then the top!
Small note: I do use a little green stuff after the fact if I feel it needs a bit of a tweak!And that is the basics done! Told you it was simple, bit like me!
What I do next but is up to you. The second stage is to add some bark like texture, the cheapest way I have found is to paint the tree with a wartered down PVA glue (wood glue) and cover in the single ply of bog roll. I buy the cheapest I can find, but it is about the texture it will leave and what you want to achieve.
The second advantage of this is that it can cover any overly lumpy bits in your gluing, and add a little bulk to the whole thing. You do get some great natural feeling lumps and bumps to the bark as well.
Small note: This is after I have painted the base and drybrushed some highlights!All that is left to do now is paint it as you please and base and decorate it, I have used Lichen as it is cheap easy and effective, but you could use what ever you want, foam, etched brass, sponge etc.
I hope this is helpful to some of you, and if there are any questions I might be able to help you with please post a reply or PM me.
Welcome, Guest. Please 
April 28, 2024, 11:48:24 AM
May 03, 2008, 08:17:09 PM
