Hi folks! I’m about 70% done with the application of my hardshell plaster terrain and beginning to think about what I will do for trees. Specifically those that cover mountains. (This seems to be a popular subject in the presses and online this fall.) Quick overview of what I’m doing and what is going on in my basement for those of you unfamiliar with my lone wolf efforts: HO scale, New England late October scenery. 32 x 18 feet of railroad with 2 mountains and other higher elevation terrain. I will have to post another “progress report picture” thread soon to bring the folks who follow my endeavors up to date.
I have been modeling about 20 years or so and am very familiar with all the different methods out there for replicating tree canopies across mountains. I’m asking for some pics and ideas of what many of you fine folks have done in the past before making up my mind what method I will use. I am not interested in making tons of trees, plopping them on a mountain and have to tear them all out and ditch them because I don’t like the end result for one reason or another.
At this stage I am leaning towards the dark painted poly fiber wad, rolled, dipped in diluted white glue or matte medium, rolled in fine ground foam and dried method but I am not sold 100% yet on that idea. I’ve seen beautiful layouts, with very realistic looking mountains, with this method and I’ve seen other layouts with mountains that look like someone covered them with a million colored golf balls.
Keep in mind I will need to replicate probably 1000 or so trees in full Autumn splendor. Lots of green shades, yellows, reds, red/greens, orange and browns and brown/greens. Lastly I hadn’t gone searching yet, but does anyone offer bulk quantities of fine ground foam in various fall colors? I would hate to have to make my own of that stuff.
Matt, although you may be offered some well meant and supposedly “quick-fix” approaches to addressing your scenicking desires, the simple fact is that one only gets realistic (even just acceptable?) results through expending significant time and effort when it comes to building autumnal-hued forests.
I’ve probably personally seen 100 layouts where different forms of fiber balls (really a dated technique by today’s standards) and suc
Thanks for your quick reply CNJ831; and thanks for the pics. You really nailed it and this is exactly what I’m talking about! I plan on using lots of the super trees and scratchmade ones in the foreground and beginning up the slopes of the mountains. I am not totally clear on what you mean by “a matrix of complete tree” (I cant find my dictionary LOL!) If I’m getting the gist of what your saying and by your great photos, you have complete trees all the way to the tops of your mountains filled INBETWEEN with tufts of the super tree foliage minus the trunks. Correct? One other question: In the 1st photo there is another part of a mountains behind your super trees. Is that a dulled down photo backdrop or small pieces of foliage glued directly on the backdrop itself or is it neither of these? I couldn’t quite tell from the angle of the photo. I am probably several months away from beginning the process and it may take a year to finish once started. That toy appearance you talked about is certainly what I am NOT after! Again, thanks very much for your reply!
Matt - Indeed, you got the gist of my meaning. If one “plants” moderately densely flocked, full-sized, Super Trees in a checkerboard pattern on a hillside, leaving spaces about equal to the size of their tops between them, one can infill the open spaces with just “tree top” pieces of Super Tree to give the appearance of the forest consisting entirely of complete (top to bottom) trees. This can extend the package of tree material considerably. I can get about 350-450 trees from a $100 box of Super Trees, plus countless bushes. That amount covers a great deal of layout.
Wasn’t there a varient whereby one did that and used nails/spikes to stick the foliage clumps on? In my N scale layout that is what I’m sort of thinking about doing in the valley I’m building up. Then, of course, one ends up looking at getting ‘dead fall’ as well----
CNJ: I edited my second posting with a question re: your back drop. And dear “blownout”.: I suppose you could do that if you use foam as a scenery base but mine is plaster and to drill a zillion little holes to plant would be nightmarish. Why couldn’t you use full strength white glue directly to your ground instead of adding another step to the process?
If one is dealing with particularly steep, mountainous, terrain and uses a minimum of a 3 row depth of complete, full-sized trees (i.e. trunks, branches, foilage) at the front where the forest meets the train tracks, or open field (be sure to include underbrush between and infront of these trees), then you can indeed get away with just “treetops” for the rest and avoid drilling a large number of holes. One goes about this as follows. First, attached a narrow strip (~6"-7" wide and as long as practical) of screening elevated at the front by small dowels to reach just below the tops of the 3 rows of full-sized trees. The screening is glued right down to the scenery base at the rear. On top of this screening one places just “treetops” and then continues on rearwards gluing them to the scenery base itself and up the hill. Obviously, the scenery base and the screening must be painted either a solid very dark color, or dappled in darkened autumn hues. I would note, however, that obtaining just the right depth, or thickness, for the layer of glued-on treetops, such that the base doesn’t obviously show through, can often prove be tricky. Worse, one may not really notice any problem until scenicking is far along!
I did the puffball method to get the mountain on my layout covered quickly. I am not sure if I am going to leave it as is or eventually redo it with super trees.
The next two are of some of the super trees that are on the layout
Why not learn to make your own quality trees (youtube has some good videos) and then invite 10 of your best friends over for a night or 2. You might have to buy the beer, but the less cost and effect would be well worth the effort.
Please note that all forests have DEAD trees and trees that are NOT entirely covered in foliage. I have yet to see any trees of that sort on this thread.
I agree, and I would also like to see some patches of conifers sprinkled here and there, as well. It is often the case that deciduous trees will manifest early, particularly after a forest fire, but they will eventually die out and be replaced by sprawling stands of the more enduring and hardy conifers.
Nice images above. John already knows how I feel about his version of the fall. [:)]
At risk of being number 101, and agreeing that it’s very difficult to beat SE Supertrees, I did attempt to use the fiber ball method. However, I did vary it so that the patterned look was broken up.
The first shot shows the black fiber balls being supplemented with lichen:
This shot shows the final outcome (using varying shades of ground foams):
Please note that there are foreground (Supertrees) trees and other details to be added. This is also an N-scale layout, so the ‘scale acreage’ that needed coverage is likely larger than you might need to cover in HO scale.
I think CNJ’s canopy scenes are stunning, and as I’ve used Supertrees before (and plan to again), would wholeheartedly recommend them. However, I noticed that the acreage he needed to cover in HO (at least in his pictures) is noticeably less than I needed in N, so creating and planting that many Supertrees (even supplementing with treetop armatures in-between trees) becomes a far larger task.
I’m going to make this short because I’mpretty much going against the flow and because I’ve never had the chance to do it large scale… but I still want to suggest an alternative…
Again this fall I’m collecting pics of individual trees and groups of trees… maybe I’m cheating and only selecting the ones that confirm what I already think…
I think that trees in leaf are semi-see-through. At least half of what one sees is not the tree itself but what is beyond the tree… which might be another tree or trees. This means that one sees a wide variety of colours but also depth. Light does all sorts of interesting things in these circumstances.
These are the reasons that I don’t like the “heavy blobs” of foliage. Foliage should be light and see-through…
From a model point of view I am convinced that really good trees are achieved by a combination of very high quality trunks and branches in the foreground, light leaf material applied to the branches in ways that mimic the real thing… and good ground cover beneath the trees.
I haven’t been able to prove it but I reckon that the front three rows of a band of trees should do the work to give a solid appearance for low angles. This will inevitably mean that they should look right from high angles. Beyond the front three rows a lot less effort need be put into the trunks and branches for the lower levels… they are simply not going to be seen… so the effort of production need only go into the higher parts of the trees - saving an awful lot of effort.
I have never really seen really good trees other than those made by building up a trunk and then branches using multi strand copper wire. This can be done particularly well using welding cable.
Some years back I sat through a clinic at an NMRA national convention titled something akin to Forests–Not Trees; the clinician addressed this very issue: autumnal coloration and the incorporation of individual trees into a forest panorama. CNJ831 has done an outstanding job of integrating his “trees” into his “forest”–his colors are distinct without being garish and they tend to cluster as is generally the way things are to be found in nature.
This clinician pointed out several things of interest: model railroaders, he suggested, tend to make their forest appear as if they were colored with an exploding Sherwin-Williams paint truck. As I mentioned above, nature tends to cluster trees into, if you will, “communities.” Wander through a woodland and you will find that one species tends to dominate an area. This can be readily apparent in the Rocky Mountain region where pines will eventually come to dominate an area crowding an initial rooting of Aspens to oblivion–find a dense Aspen growth and take a picture. Stand in the same location twenty years hence and you will find that the Aspens are thinning out as they begin to be crowded by encroaching pines; twenty years further and it is likely that there will be no evidence of Aspens at all on this particular spot. In many instances one species grows taller than another and, as it gains height advantage, sooner or later tends to dominate the forest cover. In situations such as these the lack of sunlight tends to stunt the growth of all others. Sometimes, I might mention, you will find a particular species in which one hearty individual has managed to defy the odds and reaches into the canopy cover where its ‘red’, for instance, sticks out like a sore thumb in a panorama of yellow. Like trees generate like colors in the fall of the year–i.e. if you fly over an area in September or October you are likely to see a nearly solid sea of, say, oranges or red-oranges.
Some very good thoughts on forests. Thank you for getting my rusty brain gears moving. In my 1st post I said I was leaning towards the puffball method because some well known modelers have used it with a good degree of success (think Harold Werthein’s Erie RR), but have now been swayed far away from that. As someone mentioned above, forests have some see-through to them. Even the most densest standing woods you can think of. Bits of light, sky, and other trees or objects can be seen when viewed from either below or straight on. In the puffball pics above, there is certainly a good visualization of forests going on there and if I was to do the puffball method I would want it to turn out as good as these modelers have shown. However in terms of colorization, texture and pure realism I believe CNJs work stands out as something to be emulated. In the pic I’ve attached below, you can see one of the two mountains under construction and you’ll note it is rather steep in spots. I plan to incorporate rock outcroppings in areas as well. This photo should help you see what I’m working on and hopefully stimulate some more discussion. My goal is not to worry about the speed of planting a forest, but getting it right. My whole layout has a goal of 10 years to a reasonable degree of completion but I don’t want it to take 20!
I guess I am “fortunate” in the respect I am modeling northern Oklahoma which is not known for its national forests. There are trees, but not in the density that CNJ is modeling because of locale. I do have to admit that CNJ’s forest photos are very realistic and inspiring, but again, I do Oklahoma plains in summer (wheat rush time).
I also do not care for making trees, but I am fortunate that I am married to a woman who is an artist and she makes the trees. often, when we travel, she rides along making trees while I drive and when returning home, I have a “new crop” to add. Also trees in Oklahoma are for the most part different breeds than the northeast or the rockies. But I love to do scenery, and I like for it to draw comments from visitors (good ones), so I applaud anyone who will take the time to “top off” a great layout with great scenery.
I will say I am not a great fan of the cottonball style of trees, the scenery looks too condensed to these midwestern eyes.
For dense forests, I prefer polyfiber trees. It is the easiest and cheapest way to fill in a large are with trees. I use Super Trees and WS Armature trees for the foreground and that is where you really see individual trees. Beyond the first row or two, everything seems to blend together. You could go to great expense to get great looking individual trees, but is it really worth the time and effort? My feeling about background trees is pretty much the same as I feel about backdrops. They really don’t need to be that detailed to be effective. You want the viewer’s attention drawn to the foreground. All I want in backdrops and background scenery is to not be a distraction. If those are poorly done, that can be distracting. On the other hand, if they are too detailed, that can draw the eye as well. This is why the polyfiber method works for me. It suggests a large area of trees without really creating great looking individual trees. Here’s a large hillside I did last year.
My layout is HO but the houses and telephone poles near the top of the hill are N scale. This was my first attempt at forced perspective and I think it worked fairly well.
The one big mistake people make is painting their trees one solid color, every trees has many different colors, even a stand of the same species of tree you can see many variations , in green trees add a bit of yellow to some branches, remember there are shadows, the inside of the tree is much darker than outer branches, I live in an area of massive hardwoods and the trees vary in size( do the same on your layout) and there are always a few evergreens poking up here and there, get a book on painting trees from an art store. as some others quoted, get away from your forest looking like a smooth bunch of green painted cotton balls.
I think that’s good advice for foreground trees and even for single trees in the background but for background forests, it is not necessary to work in the same level of detail. When we look at distance woods, we see a cluster of trees that tend to blend together and we don’t see that same level of detail that we do when we look at a single specimen or at trees up close. As with all forms of scenery, the amount of detail needed diminshes as the distance increases.
That is certainly true if replicating long or vast distances. But in the case of my mountain as pictured, the scene there is only about 3’ deep with the mountain going up steeply. Likened to CNJs scenery, there would need to be highly detailed trees of full size starting up the slope for a good distance before tapering off to smaller less detailed trees further toward the top. I know every single tree in full detail need not be placed, but interspersed with tree tops inbetween made of the super tree material should do the trick I think. You shouldn’t be able to see any trunks and only a bit of branches the higher the mountain goes I believe.
