Olive tree tutorial

[Lt. Hazel]

OK as I promised here´s the tutorial. You can build other trees with this method, I think autumn is good to see some "naked" trees.
This are the materials you will need:


A: toillet paper
B: wire
C: spray paint (brown)
D: spray glue
E: white glue
F: fine sand
G: flock (I use NOCH Classic-Flock dark green
H: steel wool
I:  pliers
J: a wooden stick

I don´t know the english words for some materials, so feel free to correct me (e.g. "steel wool"  :smt001 )

Next part: Building the trunk

[Lt. Hazel]

Cut some wire stripes (ca. 20 cm / 8 inches)



Bend the wire in the middle and twist it with the pliers and the stick.



Use 4-6 stripes of twisted wire to create the trunk.



apply white glue to the trunk (don´t cover the whole trunk. It´ll be too messy)



Twist sheets of toillet paper around the trunk to hide the wire structure



Should look like this when you ready



Cover the trunk in white glue and put the sand on it. This will be very hard once dried.

Next: Flocking

[commissarmoody]

Vary nice

[Lt. Hazel]

Take some of the steel wool and mount it on the top of the trunk.



Spray the top brown, make sure the paint goes "in" the wool. Let this dry.



Put some flock in a box. Spray glue on the trees top



Press the tree in the flock, make sure you cover the whole top.



And that´s it. I paint the trunk with VMC Burnt Umber and drybrush with VMC Khaki and VGC Stonewall Grey.

[Remington]

I thank you in English as well!  Great tutorial.

[Aaron]

Interesting twist using the steel wool. I have done something similar in the past, but using a model railroad product that is already died green. It is sort of like a giant cotton ball, but the fibers are a bit more loose.

[Rhoderic]

Thanks! I was genuinely eager to know how you made your trees. This seems similar to the rubberized horsehair method then, but with materials that are more readily available. Just need to get hold of some fine-grain sand and flock of the "spongy" variety.

[Hammers]

We can do with one of these wire trees it.posts so I'm making it sticky for a bit.

[Rhoderic]

BTW, you could probably also do this with pipe cleaners in place of the wire. That way you might not have to mask the wire with toilet paper before adding the sand. If you want trees with a swampy look, you could even skip the sand as well. That way the trunks will look sort of hairy, which wouldn't be out of place in a swamp.

Just checked the grocery store for steel wool and as expected, they only had the soapy kind. I bought some just to see if I could soak/rinse the soap out. We'll see how that turns out.

[Lt. Hazel]

The steel wool is for polishing stone and metall, may be you can get it in an art shop or builders market?

[Operator5]

I've been using steel wool for my trees for years. It's great stuff. And like the Lt said, don't look for the grocery store variety. Go to a home builder's store or any place that sells lots of home repair stuff. They'll have it.

[Ray Rivers]

Outstanding tutorial.

I really must try this out.

Thanks for your efforts, it's really appreciated.

[Onebigriver]

Excellent tutorial.

[Rhoderic]

Alright, a home repair store will be my next destination, I guess.

I did try soaking the soap out of the grocery store variety, but it started to rust quite rapidly. I don't know if that would have made a difference in the end, but it seems pointless to continue now that I know where to look for the non-soapy kind.

[Captain Blood]

Very useful. Thanks Lt Hazel... I shall try a few of those one day in the not too distant future.