Hi,
Some trees I’ve made from wire and noch foliage. I’m a starter, any thoughts would be very appreciated.
Viorel, http://www.myhobbymodels.com
(you can find the larger size pictures on the link below) http://myhobbymodels.com/Article:Sweet_country_style_-_some_trees_(2)
For a starter, thats not a bad job you did there at all. Very Nice!! You may wish to share with the other here who are ““Starters”” as well, how you did those. it may help them out as well. Plus us older folks who love fresh ideas.
Welcome to the forum. There are quite a few of us who are into making trees. Any help we can get is appreciated. Those are nice Lombardi poplars. I have not tried that species. My only negative would be that the leaves are more like weeping willow leaves than the round leaves of a poplar, but there may not be round leaves available and that comment is kind of nitpicy any way. They are nice trees and I thank you for sharing them. Plase continue to be part of ther never ending struggle for better trees and better forests.
I like the grass [:D]. How are you doing it?
The light touch and the toned down colour are very good.
The tree isn’t a type I’ve looked at modelling… I’m not sure what I make of it. For my taste it is kind of solid… I like to be able to see sky (or whatever) behind trees through the branches/foliage.
Good start!
(You could give your work a better image - in the photos - by softening the flash… you can do this by bouncing it off the ceiling or a sheet of paper… or you can put s thin tissue between the flash and the subject - DON’T set fire to the tissue! Hope this helps).
I, too, really like the grass. If you could let us know the process of making the trees and the grass, I’m sure a lot of us newbies could get some good pointers. Also, please continue to update with photos…it really help us non-creative types.
Great work
Hi guys, thanks for your good thoughts.
I’ll certainly post more details and pictures on how I’ve made these. The problem is that I have have no pictures at this moment, I will certainly make more trees and take photos during the process (hope to have time for this in the next few days).
Arthill, you are absolutelly right. I agree with you, the leaves are indeed the weakest point of the trees. Guys, it would be really interesting to know, what products are you using for foliage (I’ve used Noch) ?
Thanks for the photo tip, Dave. I’ll try it [:)]
Viorel,
Nice trees, Viorel - and terrific grass!
I use Woodland Scenics foliage mats - I like the look of Heki mats too but am yet to try it. For fine branches I’ve had fair results with coconut fibre painted shades of grey coz it’s too brown as it is.
You’ve got some very realistic grass there, how’d you do it? And thanks for posting this, we’re always looking for new or different techniques.
JaRRell
Interesting ideea the coconut fiber…I’ll buy today a coconut for myself [:)].
Viorel,
What size wire are you using, how are you bonding it together and what are you coating it with to make the bark?
I use different sizes of cable armour wire.
If you strip something like co-axial TV cable you will find that one layer - near the outside - is made up of many strands woven together around the inner layers forming a tube of criss-crossed wires - depending on the cable these will vary from very fine {usually copper} to about 1/3mm on heavy power cable –
You can fit the tubes of thin stuff over the strands of the thick stuff — so the thick stuff makes trunks and main branches - and the thin stuff makes smaller branches.
I usually find that the heavy stuff is a pretty low grade metal that doesn’t solder well… so I bond it together with a really strong epoxy… although I have managed to wire it together and then dunk it in molten lead… with the wires already dunked in flux this works but it’s still a bit hit and miss that it will all form a solid mass that holds together. I think that making the wires clean and bonding them in epoxy is a lot easier… and cooler!
Once a trunk has been formed the branchs can start to be spread out. If you can find suitable meshed wire you can slip the sleeves of wire over the big branches and solder or epoxy the lower end in place… where you start to cut the mesh and seperate small branches away is up to you.
When it’s all as solid as you want to make it it’s a matter of pasting an epoxy or whatever to make as much bark as you feel right.
I settled on this method after spending hours and hours winding tree armatures together and then doing a bit of wiring that involved some armoured cable… I just thought “this stuff is already wound! Wy am I making my own”? So the answer was to do the job the other way round… fit the wire mesh onto or into a skeleton and unwind it to make the smaller branches.
Sorry! I’ve never taken any pi
Thanks for the detailed message, Dave [:)]. I promise to post more details myself, but I’m very very busy these days [:(]. I’m hoping for the weekend…
Viorel,