Monday, 23 February 2015

Trees!

Hello :o)

The trees for the layout have been one of those things that I have dabbled with in the past but never seriously sat down and tried to get any number of them done. Highclere being a quite large layout for its scale needs quite a few of them of differing flavours to fill out the countryside. This weekend was spent producing a few more...

Now I know this guy Stefan has been posting pictures on a German forum for a while and there have been links to his work posted in various places in the past but for some reason last week I switched on Google Translate and sat down to read it.

http://stummiforum.de/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=50628&start=825

His work is amazing, it might be all purely for photographic reasons but there is no doubt he knows how to model, and model things extremely realistically. This has been an inspiration to me and after reading a few how-tos he has posted within his thread I wanted to give it a go.

The picture above was my first attempt. Now me being me I decided I knew a better way of making them and deviated a bit from Stefans methods using my static grass applicator. As you can see the results werent upto much.

So it was back to the beginning and I tried again. I will not go into too much detail as its described on Stefans thread but as you can see from the above photo the assembly of a tree is really easy. The green wire is simply wrapped around a central wire and looped out in regular intervals, there loops become the tree branches later on. So by this evening I ended up with these...


I am really pleased with how they have come out. The differences I did were I used some Brass multistranded picture hanging wire as the main trunk wire instead of a single stranded one, and I used some PVA glue covered in some Treemendus Bark Powder (http://www.treemendus-scenics.co.uk/tree-kit-order/) which gives a very good representation of Bark.

I have still got loads more to make though but at least I have the confidence I can do them now. It has also taught me that sometimes it is worth following other peoples instructions as well!

Julia :o)


Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , ,

22 comments:

  1. Alex Duckworth23 February 2015 at 14:16

    Nicely done Julia, those look great.

    Alex

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julias Modelopolis23 February 2015 at 23:45

      Thank you Alex.

      I know they are not as good and well finished as the trees Stefan has displayed on his thread but I am very happy with them.

      J.

      Delete
  2. Unknown24 February 2015 at 01:46

    Julia,
    Very impressive. Thank you for pointing out Jurgen's work too - I've just spent nearly an hour going through that forum (haven't reached the end yet either!).

    I think I need to redo the trees that i made for St Ruth!!!

    Ian

    ReplyDelete
  3. Julias Modelopolis24 February 2015 at 03:54

    Hi Ian.

    Yes, his stuff is and very insperational too. I didnt realise I got his name wrong though so apologies to him for that mistake.

    I have found that my trees definately get better the more I do and like you, I am now rethinking some of my earlier attempts. The target that I am working to is for people to reconise what type of tree it is by looking at it. Not as easy as it looks.

    J.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Alan Buttler25 February 2015 at 02:24

    Wow for the link and wow for your trees, they look fantastic!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julias Modelopolis25 February 2015 at 04:40

      Thank you Alan.

      As I mentioned above, his trees are amazing and defiantely insperational. While I am happy with my attempts I dont think I got even close to the quality of finish that he has achieved.

      J.

      Delete
  5. Sithlord7525 February 2015 at 03:24

    Second Alan's comment. I shall have to do better.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julias Modelopolis25 February 2015 at 04:41

      Thank you Kevin.

      Practise makes perfect! I am finding that out myself too.

      J.

      Delete
  6. Julias Modelopolis25 February 2015 at 04:43

    I am surprised no-one has commented on what type of trees they think they are. I had a tree in mind when I made them but I would be interested in seeing what others think...

    J.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown27 February 2015 at 09:04

      Julia,
      I had assumed that you were replicating the larches that Jurgen had made. If that is the case then I think that they are good representations, if not then I guess they are some other form of coniferous tree :-)

      Ian

      Delete
    2. Julias Modelopolis27 February 2015 at 21:46

      Yes, gold star for you Ian for finding out!

      I am trying to make all the trees on the layout recognisable so its important to me that people can tell what they are.

      J.

      Delete
  7. Coal Tank26 February 2015 at 13:01

    Hi Julia your trees look great .i had a look at the web site
    Erm wow

    ReplyDelete
  8. Coal Tank26 February 2015 at 13:32

    The Arnold locomotives are superb aren't they

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julias Modelopolis26 February 2015 at 23:40

      Erm.....yes they are? I dont have any though :o(

      Delete
    2. Julias Modelopolis27 February 2015 at 00:43

      Ahhhh, just got you (I think!) The locos on the German thread. Yes, they are nice, I dont think the layout works though? I am sure I heard somewhere that its a purely photographic diorama?

      J.

      Delete
  9. David Varley27 February 2015 at 22:35

    Yes, definitely a larch - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0zVsxUbbjM

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julias Modelopolis28 February 2015 at 13:45

      LOL!

      Fantastic! Yes it is a Larch, as confirmed by the Monty Python "how to recognise trees from a long way away". That looks like a very useful resource to me.

      Thank you.

      Delete
  10. Unknown28 February 2015 at 21:24

    Hi from NZ Julia,

    The trees look superb, well done and I agree on your thoughts on variety.
    Do you have my email address?
    Would like to discuss the technique in a bit more detail, if you don't mind and have time.

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Julias Modelopolis1 March 2015 at 10:38

      Hello Steve.

      Its nice to hear from you. I don't mind going through what I did with the trees but to by honest most of it is on the German website. I don't know why but I don't have your email address either which is a bit weird as I am convinced we have chatted via email in the past!

      Julia :o)

      Delete
    2. Unknown1 March 2015 at 23:22

      Hi Julia

      my email address is :
      swmartin1711@hotmail.com

      Steve

      Delete
    3. Julias Modelopolis1 March 2015 at 23:38

      Thank you Steve, I have sent you an email so you can delete the address from here if you are worried about spam and stuff.

      J :o)

      Delete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)