Haven't posted anything in a while because what I'm doing is mostly prep work - preparing the base for scenery, detail painting models, weathering structures, that sort of thing. All adds a great deal to the finished product, but not especially interesting.
However, this is just too cool not to document. I'm working with an entirely new-to-me medium called "static grass". It's some sort of plastic fiber that comes in various lengths and colors. I have some yellow-green in 4mm and medium green in 7mm.
It's applied with a "static" (negative ion) generator. There are ready-made static grass applicators out there running from $35 up into three figures. Being a cheap esso bee, I built one out of a $10 "electronic fly swatter".
It's intended to run off a pair of AA cells (3V) but I Tim-the-Toolman'ed it and run it off a 9v battery. You clip the positive lead to a conductive base and place the grass to be applied on the base.
Clip the negative lead to the conductive armature you want to build the tree on and hit it with some spray adhesive, then turn Ol' Sparky on and bring the armature near the pile of grass and it'll align between the armature and the base. When it stops sticking, spray again, and apply another layer. I start with 4mm grass for the base and then add 7mm towards the bottom to get the shape I want.
The resulting "fir" trees look pretty darn good IMHO.
Note to self: When holding the metal hemostats with the armature in one hand, it is not generally advised to adjust the position of the tray with the other hand. 12KV will BITE even at some miniscule fraction of a milliamp...