I have had great success with green polyfibre, natural twigs, and various shades of ground foam using very cheap extra hold hair spray in a pump bottle (no CFC’s and no odour), to make dozens of detailed trees for my around the room shelf layout. My problem is I need larger amounts of the polyfibre to make sections of heavily forested areas in the backround. Green or brown polyfibre is not always available at hobby shops, and I have only been able to find white at craft and fabric stores. I have tried painting with both latex and oil based paints but in each case the fibre comes out an awful smokey gray.
My actual question is, would RIT dyes work on polyfibre, or has anyone had other successes colouring this pillow stuffing? Or, where can I get copious amounts of cheap coloured fibre? Dark green, brown, or even black would work for my needs. Thanks!
I dye my polyfiber with a product called Dye-na-flow I have an article about using it to dye fake fur for grass. It really works well on the the white polyfibre. See my faux fur article at:
http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/fur_grass/
The bush in the foreground is a polyfibre and the one further back is a faux fur bush
Thank you if you visit
Harold
See if this helps;
http://www.dansresincasting.com/Puffball%20trees.htm
And don’t forget to check out the article on making your own ground foam too.
Thanks folks, I will try both methods to see which works best. I will start with the die method, then if that is not to my liking, I will paint the poly as pcarrell did. ( I really hate painting this stuff but will try again, thanks!). If I ever get a digital camera I may even share my results. Thanks again.
If you can wait a bit to buy it, a lot of craft stores carry black polyfiber at Halloween time. Go in the day after and you can sometimes get it 50% off.
I’ll keep the Holloween fibre in mind, thanks for the tip!