My farm diorama is "finished" as far as major scenes go, mostly because I'm out of room.
To satisfy my modeling jones, I add little details here and there as they occur to me. One thing you can always use more of is trees.
Many are commercially available complete trees (or kits) that you can just plant in the landscape. Most of these are less than realistic but okay in a background or planted densely.
Some I've made from scratch using various things for the trunk and branches and foam or cut paper leaves for the foliage. Much more realistic, but also very time-consuming to make. One-offs are fine, a forest's worth is more work than it's worth.
I have one tree in the foreground by the house that I've never really been happy with. Too spindly. Being more than a tad bored this Winter, I decided to replace it and also try a couple of new techniques in the process.
Wire armature trunks and main branches are pretty common and I've used them before. The difference here is that I used MUCH larger wire (welding lead) and soldered the main trunk and then separated out limbs, branches and twigs, soldering smaller and smaller divisions as I went.
Another difference is that I coated the trunk, major limbs and as many of the branches as I could in air-drying modeler's clay to disguise the wire and have a more bark-like finish.
After a coat of gray and an overspray of flat black (trees are not brown if you ever noticed) and then teased out some poly fiber to drape over the branches and twigs. It's held in place by a combination of wet paint and hairspray.
Finally, another generous coating of hairspray (great spray adhesive, and cheap!) I sifted some dark green "leaves" over the fiber, sprayed again and highlighted with some light green leaves. In retrospect, I think the light green is a little too much, I'll add some brown (actual leaves chopped up in a blender) to tone it down.
Little modeling project
Re: Little modeling project
Gorgeous results, and an interesting post…thank you for sharing it. Sent the link to my 40-something son, who put up a nice Lionel setup the last few years and is interested in the scenery. Said your tree was awesome.
Re: Little modeling project
Thanks. Here's a shot of it "planted" on the diorama.
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- Posts: 65
- Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:59 am
Re: Little modeling project
Is that you going in the front door?
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
Re: Little modeling project
Nope, but it could pretty easily be my Dad!
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
Re: Little modeling project
Paul, every time you post a new entry of your amazing modeling project I tell myself "this time I am, really!, going to get me one of those airplanes or cars kits" that I like so much.lol
Hairspray huh - clever!
Hairspray huh - clever!
Re: Little modeling project
Went on another tree building binge today...
Re: Little modeling project
The tree projects got me all fired up to work on the diorama after a long layoff. Part of the problem was that I was out of room and in the current configuration of the hobby space, there wasn't anywhere to expand.
Before
After considering various (expensive and involved) approaches, I decided to clean up, remove unused benches, move shelves and furniture and gain more space in the existing room.
The diorama was added onto over the years with whatever I had laying around and was pretty rickety, not to mention ugly, so I built a new table to consolidate the various sections.
That also gave me more real estate to work with so now I'm adding features. The first is a pond with a beaver dam at the outlet and a guy fishing from a canoe. I've got a good start on the basic shape of the terrain and have a raft of trees on order to populate the area.
Haven't decided what I'll do with the flatter portions yet. Part of the fun is thinking about and creating a vision.
Before
After considering various (expensive and involved) approaches, I decided to clean up, remove unused benches, move shelves and furniture and gain more space in the existing room.
The diorama was added onto over the years with whatever I had laying around and was pretty rickety, not to mention ugly, so I built a new table to consolidate the various sections.
That also gave me more real estate to work with so now I'm adding features. The first is a pond with a beaver dam at the outlet and a guy fishing from a canoe. I've got a good start on the basic shape of the terrain and have a raft of trees on order to populate the area.
Haven't decided what I'll do with the flatter portions yet. Part of the fun is thinking about and creating a vision.
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- Posts: 65
- Joined: Tue Jul 18, 2023 7:59 am
Re: Little modeling project
My hands are so shaky, all I can do is dream about the things you do. I really enjoy seeing the model work that you do and reading about how you it.
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
![Smile :)](./images/smilies/icon_e_smile.gif)
![Wink ;)](./images/smilies/icon_e_wink.gif)
Re: Little modeling project
Still contemplating what to do with the rest of the new real estate.