Paint-on tree bark texture?

[FramFramson]

Anybody got any good suggestions for a paint with a sort of rough/porous/cracked "treebark" texture?

I have some decent ready-made trees (Bachmann Scenescapes), but the trunks are super bland and have a kind of soft plastic texture. I tried gluing some nice textured paper I have (looks just like bark) over the trunks, but as thin as the paper is, it adds too much diameter.

I figure I'm going to have to rely mostly on re-painting the trunks to make them look decent. A light undercoat of some textured paint would really go a long way here, so I'm just fishing around for suggestions.

The trees in question are too small to be the really gnarled huge old trees, so the effect doesn't have to be super pronounced.

[AndrewBeasley]

I wonder if the one coat crackle glaze I used http://www.blog.kings-sleep.me.uk/2011/08/inuit-terrainice-samples.html would do?

The cracks should be deep enough to take a wash after painting.

[FramFramson]

It says on the blog that it's a 2mm coat... I think that come out a bit too thick then.

[zizi666]

In the old days, when modellers had to work with 1/32 soft plastic figures, they tend to use a pyrographe to alter their models.
An easy way for you could be to heat up a small screwdriver and just draw the lines in the trunk.

[generulpoleaxe]

pva and sprinkle very fine mdf sawdust onto it (it's finer than woodland scenics fine flock which can be added ontop to represent moss etc)

It's the method used by rail way modelers to build up the trunk after they have finished making the wire armature.

[Silent Invader]

Splatter or draw on some specs or lines of texture with GW liquid greenstuff or the vallejo equivalent?

[Aaron]

Depending on what area you are modelling you could just paint the trunks a grey and call them maples. If you want a rougher texture you could coat them with caulking and run a comb through it. It is messy, but it does work.

[Ninja]

They make a product called flexibark to do exactly what you are looking for, try it out and see if you like the effect.