Just wondering if any body models early Fall trees? You know the type when there just starting to turn colerfull? Any commercial trees that are these out there. Tim
trainfreek92;
I live in the land of four seasons (Summer, June, July, and August) so I am not an authority on fall foilage. This subject was batted around here on the forum a few months back, bnf (Before New Forum) if I recall right. I wish I could direct you to the topic so you could do a search.
My (admittedly limited) experience with fall foilage and my observations at layouts is that it is easily overdone. Changes occur subtly so I would probably mix a slight amount of color with a substantial quantity of green and then sprinkle my tree frame liberally.
As far as I know, there are no commerially avalable early fall trees.
However, you could easily model them using Super Tree kits, or adding some early fall color to green Woodland Scenics trees.
Nick
I remember reading about how to model this in one of the model railroading magazines recently, or maybe it was one of the special annual editions that MR puts out every year. I forget where I saw the article.
Anyway, the gist of if is that when the trees first start to change color, they do so from the top down, starting with the outermost leaves first. So the method basically called for making a deciduous tree with standard green foliage (this guy made his own trees, not commercially made), then sprinkle some orange/yellow/whatever on the top. This gave the impression that the tree was in the early stages of changing colors.
Hope this helps a little…
Okay… I’ve redone this in word and posted… I hope it comes out so you can read it. (Hope it’s worth reading).
Are you somewhere where you can go out and look at the foliage and take lots of pics? This isn’t a silly question. I’m going to give you my #1 all time answer to everything but high summer and dense pine foliage though…
No matter what angle you look at trees you are looking at three things:-
- Light passing through the foliage
- what is beyond the foliage
- the foliage
But we usually think that we are just looking at the foliage.
If we were just looking at foliage why would all the world’
Woodland scenics has a number of products to help make fall foliage. If you go into my Webshots site (see my signiture) I have several pictures of trees turning colour.
http://travel.webshots.com/photo/136660433/1136767906055190408AmxCDN
Fergie
Thanxs for all the info. I am modeling Fall on my Maple Leaf and Pine Tree Central RR in N scale. I am more intrested in early fall for my next years project a PRR based layout. I use woodland scenics pre made trees. Dave-I will check out those 2 manufactures. Thank you for such a long post! Fergie. Thanxs for the photos. Do you have pictures of a layout with early fall trees? I live in New England so I can see real trees right out my window! But a very nice scene! Tim
Scenic Express (http://www.scenicexpress.com) has a couple of different types of Autumn Tone Deciduous trees, both kits and assembled. The kits, especially, could be made to order using different colors of ground foam.
Trainfreak, it’s early fall now, get out and get some pictures, most trees ate just starting to fade from bright green to a yellower shade. Some leaves are turning brownish also. A lot depends on which trees you model.
An easy trick is to lightly spray tree tops with some yellows, and reds to give hints of color changes. Also note that vegetation and grass also change shades, and some lose color quickly.
Dave-The-Train;
Your post is outstanding; trees exist in a setting and in order to model true to nature trees one must insure that they are placed in an equally true to nature setting. At the NMRA national convention in Seattle two years ago I went on the N-Scale tour and, believe me, those characters were paying attention to that very fact; I saw some of the most dynamic forests I have ever encountered in model railroading.
The best thing for trainfreek92 to do is to go out on an observation expedition and look at the trees in the state in which he wants to model. His profile identifies him as a student in Taxichusetts; I’m not sure just where he is at there but I served an assignment with the Air Force at Leftover Air Force Patch in the western part of the state in the '60s and my recollection is that by mid-September temperatures were getting down into the forties and fifties each night and the trees - particularly on the upper elevations of the Berkshires - were already beginning to paint.
Although perhaps just a bit further into the autumn season than trainfreek92 is asking about, I’ll offer an image from my own layout that is intended to depict about the first week of October in my area. As has been suggested by others, when I did it I based my tree modeling/colors on photographs I took at the appropriate time of year, standing the pictures right on the front of the layout while I worked on the final shadings of the trees. Interestingly, I had to subdue the colors slightly to make them more acceptable to most viewers as the actual autumnal hues in my area are an absolute riot of intense colors. The final blending of colors went on and off for about 2 months until I was fully satisfied.
And no, I can’t say that there really are any out-of-the-box commercial autumn trees out there that do any justice…you pretty much have to make your own or it looks fake straight away (typically the colors of commercial trees are way too solid or single-hued).
CNJ831
Very nice work. I am modeling Early October on my layout. To I wanted to no about early Fall as I stated for a PRR layout. So you do not like Woodland Scenics trees?
Dave Frary has a technique called “polyball trees” that you can see in his Pennsy Middle Division series. There are two ways you can get the adding trees chapter which also uses fall foilage:
[1] The out-of-print special issue (which is hard to find), “The Pennsy Middle Division in HO Scale” at => http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=BOOK&MO=9&YR=1996&output=3 => for chapter descriptions.
[2] Go to eBay and bid on Model Railroader 1993 to get the entires series plus extra articles.
The trees chapter also discusses three types of evergreens, weed trees, mixing ground foam & foam putty to place ground cover where it does not want to go, and building roads with 3/16 foam core board.
Plus it is Pennsy geography!
Woodland scenics has a net product with ground foam attached, Il’s meant to be stretched and glued to some kind of tree shaped armature. It comes in a pack that contains both early & late fall.colors
SWEET!