MAP66

Normally, when this happens, I always invite them in for a nice cup of tea and slice of cake. However, I shall take heed and have drawn the curtains, lights off and am currently cowering behind the sofa. If you could let me know when its safe to come out, so that I can build some more trees

I was looking into some suitable figures for the garden diorama, the idea being to have 4 or 5 but not all featured at the same time but all will be engaged in various gardening type tasks. I have a lawn mower but was struggling to find a half decent moulded figure to push it. I settled with a Loco Crew figure and changed the peak cap into a beret by simply slicing off the peak. My Grandad apparently wouldn't be seen without wearing a beret, but was no more French than English mustard and bore no resemblance to Frank Spencer. The clothing of my lawnmower man isn't quite period of the time but it will have to do. The other figures I have, look a bit more fitting for the period and are waiting to be painted up. So, I introduce the Lawnmower Man - apologies for the poor lighting on the close up.

Thank you Jack, glad it has been of use - still lots more to come, hopefully!

That’s an excellent idea, inserting the test armatures into the tree to see how different finer scatters behave in comparison to the coarse turf. I agree, the course turf looks the best for your trees, but all 3 products have their particular uses. Not just for different species of trees but for depicting the seasons as well. The ‘airier’ look demonstrated by the finer scatters would be just right for modelling trees in spring and with a change of colour autumn. With the Silver Birch, I am being super critical on myself as I have now seen what is possible from Gordon Gravett’s book on trees. He has a Silver Birch which passes as the real thing, you can’t tell the difference from the photo. So, I will embark with (Silver Birch Mark II) after I’ve finished the Oak.

The plot thickens, are you embarking on a layout or putting up some extra shelves in the kitchen?

Well, you wouldn't know it going by the results from your first tree. It's definitely not 'plane', I would say it's impressive. Thanks for the shout out and I'm vey pleased that you found working with the seafoam a good experience. I'm thinking about doing the Silver Birch again as I have some thin copper wire and postiche which I want to experiment with, which should result in a far more realistic tree. Now looking forward to seeing an avenue of your trees in front of those fine black railings.

Here's a bit more on the diorama before I return to the Oak tree. I needed to order a couple more items for the tree, hence I dropped back onto the diorama. I managed to position the chicken coop onto the base and add a bit of ground work, meant to represent some dusty earth where the chickens have scratched about. I have some left over mesh material from a security fencing kit which will be used for a chicken wire fence, the posts for which are in. There is also a gate into the pen which I have just loose fitted in place to see how it looks and I have glued a piece of the mesh material to represent chicken wire. I will wait until all the static grass and greenery has been completed before I attach the gate and rest of the chicken wire, as I discovered that the loose fibres stick to the mesh which is very annoying.

Well you got there Keith and managed to push your first scratch build over the line. Looks like you enjoyed the process as well, as did I following your endeavours. With your newly acquired skills, I hope you don’t keep us all in suspense for too long, before you reveal your next "adventure". Wishing you the very best of luck with Home Depot in CBC.

Careful Chris, make sure you have a lift plan in place and I wouldn't recommend the lift if wind speeds are over 12mph in your area. Perhaps the hand of God could assist while no ones looking

Yes, I was expecting this kit to be in plastic and was quite surprised when I felt the weight of it when it arrived. Not a real problem though, just that the chickens resemble blobs rather than err chickens. Filing can be quite therapeutic I thought that this little model was different enough (but still fitting) for my diorama which is meant to portray a larger garden belonging to a detached suburban house of the late 1930's period - That's the idea anyway.

Back to the garden diorama and I have started on the chicken coop. Its a Woodland Scenics white metal kit and I would recommend it for anyone who enjoys filing stuff as there's a lot of flash. Some time later in the evening, I started on the assembly using super glue gel and it went together reasonably well, considering the filing involved. Just finished painting the coop apart from the roof which needs a tad more filing.

Yes, I do have the grasslands one. I think I purchased it from your recommendations from your Rustons Sidings thread, or it might have been from one of your comments on Tyteford Halte - anyway, no regrets with that purchase, hence why I am looking forward to the tree book

Thanks for commenting, much appreciated. The railcar is by Dapol model No. 4D-011-004D and I had it converted to P4.

Thanks again Steve and guess what, I went online last night and managed to purchase a copy of Gordon Gravett's book on trees part 1. Can't wait to get my hands on it, so I can see how to do it properly. This making it up as you go along malarkey is very tiring on the old noggin. Great fun though.

Hi John That's very kind of you to say so. I've just spent some time looking through some of your blogs on tree making. I need to go back and have a more thorough look as they look incredible. I really need to get Gordons book and bag some postiche, hadn't thought on using that before! Regards Mark

Thanks, Mikkel I agree with your comment on trees earlier, each one is so different. I think people have general perceptions of what a tree should look like though and yet in nature you get all sorts of oddities and fantastic formations which if you modelled faithfully, would probably be viewed as not realistic – you would then have to constantly pull up an image of the real thing to prove a point that the tree actually exists. I am aiming to keep my trees visually acceptable, if possible, but at the same time keep them all different. This is actually quite easy to do by using different armatures and forming the branches to different angles. However, the real magic happens when you apply the filler as even if you tried to replicate the last tree you did, it will always be different. The minute variations in the surface texture of the filler will cause the washes to behave differently when applied resulting in different light and dark shade variations. Then a few pinches of tea dust sprinkled here and there while the washes are still tacky forms the basis of where the moss will grow, which springs into life with the aid of some green oxide weathering powders. If you have a go, I would be interested to know how you get on. I think you will produce something incredible, being the master modeller that you are. Good luck

Starting to add some colour...

Its coming on a treat Mike. Good luck for tomorrow. All the best Mark

Well its back to tree construction at long last with me making a start on the Oak tree. I've gone for a tree about 50' tall with a girth around the base of the trunk of 17' in 4mm scale. This places it at about 300 years old or thereabouts. I am using plastic armatures in 6 sections, all glued together with superglue gel. Before I did this I manipulated all the branches into the directions I wanted using the usual immersing in very hot water method - ouch, fingers. I had decided I wanted to use a different material instead of seafoam and have been looking into hemp rope. It certainly has potential for the root system and I'm sure I can model the gnarly, bulbous type of roots, using hemp, that you see on some Oaks. Not too sure about its use for the smaller twiggy branches as it takes a lot of teasing out and fathing about with to get it to look right. Might have to be sea foam after all or copper wire. I am going to experiment with both on a couple of single plastic armatures to see what looks best and put it to the vote. Next stage was to add the filler, allow to dry for 24hrs and then cover in a dilute wash of black grey and black brown acrylic paints. The washes highlight the bark detail and show where additional filler is required which you can see on the images below where I have added more filler.

Hi John, take a look at this link for types of tree found near Lochs https://www.walkhighlands.co.uk/news/our-pick-scotlands-native-forests/ Have you thought about making your own trees? Regards Mark

Too late Chris, it's out there, everybody knows now. Keep it stum next time

Hi Mikkel Thanks again, just looked through Kaustav's video Wow, I certainly would not have the time and dedication to produce something as detailed as that. The method I used for applying the scatter as follows; I used a scenic aerosol can spray glue from Wws Scenics (other glues are available). It’s true, if you blast the glue inwards into the tree canopy, then the glue will stick to the trunk and branches and so will the scatter material, which is not a realistic look. I start by holding the tree upside down and working on a small area at a time, I spray outwards, just catching the ends of the seafoam and then immediately sprinkling on the scatter material. Complete this and then do the same again with the tree held upright. Finally, the same again with the tree held horizontally, each time just catching the outermost seafoam sprigs with the glue. This way you should have all sight angles covered with a good spread of foliage over the entire tree canopy. I then give it all a liberal spray of hairspray just to ensure any loose bits of scatter stay in place. When doing the spray gluing make sure you have some old card or something to protect the surroundings from any surplus glue and then have a bowl or something beneath the tree when adding the scatter to catch all the surplus which doesn’t stick. Now that Oak, I am going to try a different material than seaform for the branches. If it it turns into a disaster I will still post anyway, just so others can avoid my mistakes and learn from the process. After all, its all about trial and error in this game. Worst case scenerio, you can always buy a ready made Oak, or any tree for that matter, but where's the fun in that!

I had a little more thought about making an Oak tree and will make a start on it soon by running the build alongside this diorama. Thought that would be best seeing that this thread is meant to be about tree building and there hasn't been much activity on that front for a while, as there is so much which needs attending to in the garden and its sort of taken over the thread a bit. Speaking of which, the lawn and crazy paving are now down. The lawn is in a state of half mown and I tried to lay the static grass in two lengths, the mown section being shorter with the lawn mower being placed where the two meet (all done with a puffer bottle using 1mm and 2mm grass). I keep on thinking of more things to add and I've decided the garage needs some barge boards fitted and a weather vane. The greenhouse also needs some bargeboards to disguise the join where roof meets wall section. I still need to lay out the vegetable patch, chicken coop, compost area and then add some plants and vegetables. Here's a few more progress pics...

Huzzah! Indeed Sir. The 'Great' West Riding Monorail Transportation Co.

Hi Steve, Base Toys (BT-Models), offer a range of small flat beds lorries and also do accessory lorry loads like full and empty coal sacks which you could leave as is or paint up to look like something else. You could also use vehicles which came out in the mid 70's as many would have still seen service well into the 80's. That well known auction site has quite a few BT-Models at the moment which might be suitable including the coal sacks.