I made my fourth tree today. I was never really satisfied with the first three so I tried something different. Please let me know if it looks ok. Honesty preferred over praise. Thanks.
Tom
Without the other pics to compare it to I’m not sure, but it looks fairly realistic. One way to get a more complicated branch structure is to find an uprooted 1:1 tree and see if the smaller sections of tree root would be an improvement. good luck, J.R.
Looks pretty good. I could use some like that.
Tom, I think it is excellent! The only thing I would do, personally, is to try to pick off the dangling stuff that doesn’t look attached. There is some at lower centre right on the tree canopy, hanging down…can you see it, too? Other than that, once it is in properly finished surroundings, I think you should be well pleased.
-Crandell
Thanks for the quick replies.
J.R. thanks for the idea. Here’s a pic of my previous best for comparison.
Outdoorsfellar, thanks for the kind words.
Crandell - good catch. I will get it trimmed.
Tom
Tom, I think the prototype for your tree was growing across the creek from my house in Tennessee! [:D] Seriously, very nice work.
Are you sure that thing dangling down isn’t a damaged branch on the verge of becoming a, “Widow maker?” Trees in the wild aren’t maintained by the local tree service, and seldom get pruned to perfection. OTOH, trees growing in a city park or some formally landscaped area are kept free of broken limbs and other oddments that either constitute a danger or detract from aesthetic effect.
(Incidentally, my prototype tree, which was on my property, was festooned with grape vines, and eventually succumbed to a microburst storm that damaged a number of buildings in my rural subdivision. It ended up as firewood.)
Chuck (modeling the cedar forest of Central Japan in September, 1964 - in a treeless desert)
It looks good. Things to watch for are making the top too rounded, pull up a couple "bumps’ to make the tree look a little more uneven. Your other tree isn’t toobad, it just looks like its recovering from a storm (had a bunch of branched knocked off.) You might even put a stick down there and a stump, use a razor saw to cut the trunk into big chunks and drop the sawdust around the cuts. It will look like some trees fell down and “they” are cutting them up.
You can also vary the color of the truck from a dark grey to medium browns and greys. Rough up the plastic with coarse sandpaper, paint it a base color and then give it a wash of black or dark brown. It needs to be flat paint also.
Dave H.
PS: use tin foil to wrap your bridges so they won’t get plaster spattered on them.
Perfect, really looks like a tree, what proportion is it ??? people tend to have massive oversize trees, (unless they are Douglas firs). nice work(it’ not praise)
Bottom line, are you happy with the tree? Then the rest doesn’t matter…ENJOY your railroad![tup]
Looks like a tree to me…now only 99999 to go?..cox 47
One thing you should do is add something to the middle. The main leader in the middle looks too bare. This is a better result than your prior, but it still looks a little thin in the middle. Add a little fiber fill and foliage on the middle. Also chekc out the Noch leaves. You might want to experiment with those to add a little more dimension to you trees.
For the diameter of the trunk, it looks to be a bit short. I know trees come in all shapes and sizes, but a typical mature deciduous tree can be 50 to 60’ tall. For modeling purposes, 40 to 50’s is plenty… Stand a 50’ boxcar on end next to it and see what you’ve got there.
This shot should give you a good idea of proportion:
Lee
Looks like a tree to me. The foliage looks a little too green-y in color but that might just be the camera. Definitely better than your previous tree.
Paul
So how does you do it.
Lee points out an often missed element - tree size and proportion. Most trees made by modelers are too short; the train cars are taller than the trees when it should be the other way around. Having 40’-50’ trees provides a sense of scale not only to your trains but to your buildings also.
The only big thing I noticed is the color of the trunk. It has that platic or shiny clay like look to it. I would maybe shine it down with dullcote or spray paint them with an alternate color also giving it a little bit of texture perhaps. Oh someone said it before The tree is too round on top. Pull the stuff up to make it uneven
If it looked any more realistic I would ask where the tree house was. I like it.
I noticed that myself. I recently put some manufactured formed trees in and I thought they were waaaaaaaaaaaaay too tall at first, but then I placed a 2 story farm house next to them and ran a train near it and was like “duh”! There are many trees that are taller (in real life) than a 80 Y.O. 2 strory farm house.
Nice, i prefer to use Modeling Lichen
I make some nice fall colored trees 
~Tommy Single