Post
by Cabe » Sat Feb 23, 2008 5:38 pm
if you are still pondering the foliage, i don' know if you mean the on-tank camo foliage or the tree.
The foliage on tank is the woodland scenics pre-made branches and they look awesome, come in dead foliage versions too.
The tree was made with woodland scenics HO scale trees attached to an actual dead limb from my yard. The tree is a sweetgum (i think) the drop the spiky little 2" diameter balls? Anyway. The branch is great because it has bumps every inch or so on either side that make excellent spots to place my plastic trees limbs.
But here's how:
Find limb
using a dremel or other power tool use a very small drill bit to add small holes all along the limb, be careful to only drill sparingly, you not want to compromise the structural integrity of the branch.
Get woodland scenic trees, they come in a bag that has various sizes. Mine had 3 different sizes a very small to a large. I sprayed the with white primer after bending them up AFTER. Because you don't want the paint cracking and flaking as you bend these into the shapes you want.
Then I painted them with a light brown wash, the limb was ashen grey that had brown faded areas, so I wanted the brown on first so that the washes faded it out.
I added a grey wash over the branches, the a black wash over that.
The leaves of the tree are olive green Woodland Scenic clump foliage. I tried using normal scenic glue (dries clear matte) but getting a good continuous contact was hard. So I bought the suggested glue Hob-e-tac. This stuff is messy, dries slow and if you get on your hand wash it off or you will stick to everything you work on for hours. But it is thick and holds well.
I used jello cups and small Tupperware cups and put a layer of foliage in, stuck the glue covered branch in, then stuffed foliage in around it and set it aside, then another and so on. I should have let it dry longer because I had foliage dropping off for days that I had to stick back on, but it was a good start
Then i started gluing the foliage covered plastic limbs (small trees) into the holes. The small trees have pegs on the bottom so they fit great. Used larger ones on bottom to med small on top. I used superglue and or scenic glue here.
Then I pushed the base down into my diorama (I had already pushed the limb bases down into the diorama when it was still wet to make spots for them before it dried.) poured scenic glue into the hole and gave them proper supports to dry. I added various scenic stuff like rocks and other grass and foliage to cover he glue and hole, heck there was an load of glue in the tree base so it wasn't hard to get it to stick...
tree done.
I plan on using this tactic to make small orchards, smaller trees and dead trees and bush rows. It was a nice discovery knowing i could get realistic without breaking the bank
see my art and model gallery at http://www.cabebooth.com