Winter is my modeling time. The farm diorama is finished in terms of major scenes, but there's always room for details. One thing you can't have too many of is trees.
There are a number of ways to go with trees. The "woods" in the back corner of the farm are mostly pre-made trees from Amazon. Quick, easy, not terribly expensive...and therefore not terribly realistic.
Individual hand-built trees tend to look better (if done right) and there are as many ways to make them as there are modelers. These were built using a copper wire armature, sprayed with a healthy dose of spray adhesive and then flocked with "static grass" which are very fine plastic fibers that will stand straight up (or out) by using a static charge generator, positive lead to the armature, negative lead to a shaker full of the fibers. I think they make a pretty convincing conifer.
Another approach is to use a larger copper wire armature, with strands separated into limbs and branches and then using ground foam foliage applied with spray adhesive. This works well for deciduous trees.
Another issue with creating realistic trees is getting the scale right and getting a balance between the trunk and the canopy. Many of the trees on the diorama are quite small which I pass off as young trees. I wanted to have a mature old growth tree up by the house. I started with a MUCH larger armature made from a piece of welding cable.
The truck was divided into limbs, branches and twigs, soldering as I went to keep things in shape.
Then the armature was covered with air-cure modeling clay to disguise the wire and create a more bark-like texture.
The result was sprayed with a coat of gray primer and a dusting of flat black (tree bark is much darker than most people think if you look at it closely) and then some poly fiber was teased out very thinly and attached to the branches and twigs with spray adhesive (hair spray actually, cheap and effective)
Once that was secure, a mixture of light and dark green paper "leaves" was sprinkled on over a fresh coat of hair spray. When planted on the diorama, most of the root structure at the base of the trunk will be covered with earth, grass and weeds with just the knees of the roots showing.
To give you an idea of why the entire diorama isn't covered with more realistic trees, I have about 4-6 hours spread over a week or so invested in building this one...
There are a number of ways to go with trees. The "woods" in the back corner of the farm are mostly pre-made trees from Amazon. Quick, easy, not terribly expensive...and therefore not terribly realistic.
Individual hand-built trees tend to look better (if done right) and there are as many ways to make them as there are modelers. These were built using a copper wire armature, sprayed with a healthy dose of spray adhesive and then flocked with "static grass" which are very fine plastic fibers that will stand straight up (or out) by using a static charge generator, positive lead to the armature, negative lead to a shaker full of the fibers. I think they make a pretty convincing conifer.
Another approach is to use a larger copper wire armature, with strands separated into limbs and branches and then using ground foam foliage applied with spray adhesive. This works well for deciduous trees.
Another issue with creating realistic trees is getting the scale right and getting a balance between the trunk and the canopy. Many of the trees on the diorama are quite small which I pass off as young trees. I wanted to have a mature old growth tree up by the house. I started with a MUCH larger armature made from a piece of welding cable.
The truck was divided into limbs, branches and twigs, soldering as I went to keep things in shape.
Then the armature was covered with air-cure modeling clay to disguise the wire and create a more bark-like texture.
The result was sprayed with a coat of gray primer and a dusting of flat black (tree bark is much darker than most people think if you look at it closely) and then some poly fiber was teased out very thinly and attached to the branches and twigs with spray adhesive (hair spray actually, cheap and effective)
Once that was secure, a mixture of light and dark green paper "leaves" was sprinkled on over a fresh coat of hair spray. When planted on the diorama, most of the root structure at the base of the trunk will be covered with earth, grass and weeds with just the knees of the roots showing.
To give you an idea of why the entire diorama isn't covered with more realistic trees, I have about 4-6 hours spread over a week or so invested in building this one...
