Jungle Terrain

[mcnuttjg]

Very nice!

[Ray Rivers]

Actually Capt'n, I only grow my beard on away trips. I have found that all the accumulated food debris in the hair can be a handy reserve if the adventure gets a little tight.

 

But yes, indeed, the piece looks like it should be in a tank with turtles. 

I'll try to fix it up the best I can with some Spanish moss and tufts.

[Ray Rivers]

Actually, I had always kinda felt I knew how to do the canopy of the jungle, but it was the tree trunks that had me somewhat baffled. Thanks to Dr. Mathias, I now had a method and the making of my jungle terrain rapidly climbed to the top of my to do list.

So to continue.. the canopy:

I started with a standard plastic flower arrangement:



As you can see to the side... we have millions of plastic flowers in the house so the loss of a few won't be noticed. 

I then stripped everything off the flower armature so it looked like this:



Then came the hard part as I had to cut the armature so that it would nicely fit on top of the trunk and have a nice pin coming out from it to give it support.

I then did a mock-up to see whether or not my idea would actually work:



Damn! 

So the next part was to replace the leaves from the flower back on to the armature, snip off the "branches", super glue it to the trunk and add a bit of milliput for a nice transition.

Here is where I am right now:



BTW, I also added a couple more flowery things to the base and cut down some of the mutant plants.

Looks like this project is full steam ahead!   

[Marine0846]

Interesting idea with the leaves, Ray.
I don't think it does it for me.
I was thinking of a more canopy with lichen rolled in some leaf material.
Something like Nock leafs.
Maybe I am not looking outside the box.
I do look forward to see how it turns out.

[Ray Rivers]

Well... I've done lots of smaller pieces and they have all used aquarium plants, so in the end I knew that the canopy was going to be something plastic and very leafy and thus artificial flowers.

To be quite honest, I am not a terrain man. I do the best I can.

In this case, I have been wanting to do some large jungle trees for a long time but just didn't have any idea how to do it. Dr. M. provided the tutorial for making the trunks, but even so, I was in serious doubt as to how I was going to do the canopy. When I stripped the flowers and found the armature, with a damn near perfect fit to my trees... that was a miracle! It provided me with an easy solution to finally put together some real large trees.

So overall, I am very pleased with the way it has turned out. For me, this is an amazing piece of terrain.

Here is a photo of the construction, now complete:



Painting, adding grass/tufts and a bunch of undergrowth still to do.

Cheers!

[Henrix]

Looks great!

Realising that the armature was perfect for your trees is exactly how to do it - keep your eyes peeled and your mind open for ideas!

[Belgian]

Looks great thanks for the illustrated tutorial but aren't the leaves a bit to big for 28mm figures?

Best regards

[Ray Rivers]

Yep, ideally smaller leaves would have been better.

I used what was available... and cheap.

[FramFramson]

You could try cutting the larger leaves into smaller ones, as many do to get palm-style trees.

[zizi666]

You could try cutting the larger leaves into smaller ones, as many do to get palm-style trees.

Exactly what I was thinking.
something like this maybe


Also, I'm no expert, but I thought that plants with giant leaves like that don't grow so tall.

[Eric the Shed]

Excellent work...shall copy these to replace my simple jungle trees

Eric

[Ray Rivers]

Almost finished. The piece is now painted and varnished.

Last step will be the addition of some flock and some tangily bits to make it look a bit more jungily.

 

[Ray Rivers]

Ta Da! 

Not the greatest, but it will serve

Here is the piece complete:





I'll probably be going after my wife's dead bonsai for my next project. 

[Dr Mathias]

Not bad at all, you're going to need about thirty stands like that

[OSHIROmodels]

Good end result there Ray 

Try not to loose your figures in it though after (or even during) a game 

cheers

James