Shakin that tree

The Doktor

So there I was last night, wonderin what project to start next. I wasnt in the mood of startin much, so I decided to make a tree......as ye do..:D
The last 3 times i was in marks models and looking at the railway stuff (static grass, telegraph poles, trees) someone was askin me where to get decent lookin trees, and my reply was "DIY".
So here it is, how to make a tree for a diorama/railway/burd...

1. take a number of strands of fairly heavy wire. (any type once ya can bend it) about 13 strands will do, cos you can always stick trees together.
For a tree 15 inches high ya want strands of about 40inches.
Bend the strands in half as in the pic.
1 tree.jpg

2. Start to twist the 2 sets of strands together, from where you bent them, leaving a loop.
2 tree.jpg

3. Where you want your first branch to be, seperate off 4 strands and twist these, then seperate 2 strands and twist, finally leaving seperate strands for the smaller branches.
Continue twisting the main trunk strands, and repeat the sperating of strands till you have somthing like this...
3 tree.jpg

4. At this point you have a tree.. but ya can repeat the above steps, and stick em together, if ya want a BIG tree... and I wanted a kinda scary one, so I made another like the above and wired them together like this
4 tree.jpg

5. now ya need to cover the tree...
Polyfilla seems like the best thing, the powder that you mix with water. Just cover the whole thing with a fairly thick mix of pollyfilla using a brush. When it starts to set take the back of a blade and scrape fine lines into the trunk and thicker branches... then allow to dry...
5 tree.jpg

The Doktor

Painting the tree is the easiest bit...
1.Mix up a fairly light wash of Burnt Sienna oil paint with white spirit...and cover the whole tree with it..
Then using green ink (water soluble that ye get in the artist section of easons and the like..) put some on the main bark, and bigger branches.Let it dry for 20 mins...
6 tree.jpg

2 Next take a similar wash of Burnt Umber and again cover the whole tree with it. You want to make the heavier branches and the trunk darker... so add more oil paint for these areas. Then go over these darker areas using black oil paint and plenty of white spirit...
When this is done snip off any of the thinner branches that look a bit odd (the pic is taken before i did this, but ya get the idea)
Leave to dry.. and ye have a tree.. and since its winter .. no leaves!

finished tree.jpg

Leave can be made from lots of things. Ground up real leaves, various static mosses from hobby stores, photo etch leaves, dyed hessian string chopped up. What ever you use, just stick it on with pva glue.

coolwings

Hey well done Doktor !
Looks kinda Tim Burton-ish .... neat.

g5hn710m4xpdwy

That looks strangely brilliant

Ciaran_Dub

Another thing that can be used for leaves on smaller trees, raid the kitchen cupboards for dried herbs!!

Oh great tutorial Doktor. Quick question relating to Alclad paints. My order from models in motion arrived yesterday. I took some spare sprue did a base coat of gloss black enamel and I want to try the Chrome today. Question I have is what do you use for cleaning your airbrush out after? It said on the bottle dont use mineral spirits! any suggestions. [/End of thread Hijack]

The Doktor

Ciaran_Dub wrote: »

Oh great tutorial Doktor. Quick question relating to Alclad paints. My order from models in motion arrived yesterday. I took some spare sprue did a base coat of gloss black enamel and I want to try the Chrome today. Question I have is what do you use for cleaning your airbrush out after? It said on the bottle dont use mineral spirits! any suggestions. [/End of thread Hijack]

I use cellulose/standard thinners. Ive seen it in woodies for €100000 a litre. But I get it in the local motorfactors (not halfords its €1000000000 there) for about 10 for a five litre can.

Yeah I hear dried herbs are good for leaves, AND they make your diorama smell tasty!

g5hn710m4xpdwy

When I first read the beginning (not knowing the overall finish would be) I was thinking what could you use for leaves and the best I could think of was grass flock (I think that's its name) from the likes of GamesWorkshop