15-28mm Floral Stem Trees Project

For those who think the visual appeal of their games is very important, we're often trying to balance realism against playability. This is where I may have erred more on the realism side. BUT playability isn't impossible here, just altered. You'll see what I mean - read on!

First, the point of this exercise was threefold: one, to see how Expanded PVC worked for basing terrain items. Two, could I make these floral stems into something that looked a bit better then the standard wargame tree options? Three, I wanted to try Flex-Seal to see if I could 'rubberize' these stems into something really durable.

Expanded PVC - the YouTube's Terrain Tutor did a review of this material a few years ago and I was smitten! Having lost bases to warping and curling, I really was looking for something other than plasticard or wood. This stuff is a miracle product - the only pain is cutting and shaping it. It's really durable and firm and I had to score and rescore, then rescore again, then saw the 9 bases I made out of one of the three sheets I bought. Then I had to hack away at the edges like a bumpkin whittler to bevel them down. Unlike foamcore, there's no core here - it's solid all the way through, but it's also very light and I saw no warping at all. 

I never know if I'm going to make a blog post out of everything so I failed to photograph every step of this. Over the top I spread out some Ready-mixed Concrete Patch. Normally I use Modeling Paste, but this stuff is way cheaper, roughly the same weight with maybe better durability. It's sand and glue basically and dries with textures all its own. I left gaps where I'll put the trees in.

These were on sale at Michael's and come in two? foot lengths - a central trunk and then several branches. The tip is good and the side branches are good. After removing those I was left with a number of lengths of logs I'll use for something else later - barricades most likely. The central puzzle to this project was how am I going to affix these soft plastic trunks to the flat bases? Pins of course. I drilled a hole in each trunk and glued a length of wire up each of them leaving just enough sticking out to penetrate the depth of the base without breaking through the bottom. Before I glue them down I want to do the messy bit first. I blue-tacked them to this box. Outside, I sprayed each one liberally with the Flex Seal spray, coating the "leaves" thoroughly before returning them to the box for drying.

While those were drying out, I started with my box of loose flock, lichen, clump foliage and other natural colored detritus from the bottoms of tree filled storage boxes. Even these stems, prior to fixing, contributed new shapes and textures to the mix. Lots of tacky glue, then randomly dumped it over the bases, firm presses then left it all to dry. I shook off the excess for use in other projects.

I only had enough trees to make eight instead of the nine bases I made. And X marks the spots where I was going to drive the tree trunks in. I needed to blend the edges with flock first.

Almost done edging - I do a part at a time so I have a clean place to grip the base, When that dries I do the other half. I also tried to leave the impression that there were overgrown trails, paths and clearings in the woods there.

Done and dried!

Number 2 takes an interest and is helping out. Will I start a gaming dynasty? Fingers crossed!

Placing what tree on what base was a puzzle - four-tree bases needed tall trees with less branches at the bottom. the three-tree bases could have a bigger spread and had slightly more room.

That hot glue though. That's a problem that needs addressing. This is one of the worst of them. Most wooded forest floor spaces are covered in leaves. Nope, didn't do that.

Number Two wanted to get in on the photography - this and the next are hers. Thanks doll!

The evidence of glue was too obvious to disguise with leaves so I went back to the scrabble box and applied more foliage to the outside corners to keep the big snotty looking bubbles out of sight.

Mr. Brown and Zeke peer in; Mom's exercise ball menaces from the valley to the west. Compared to most of my trees these are much closer in scale to the miniatures. the only ones of this size in my collection.

West Wind Zombies frolic for your entertainment. One aspect of the Flex Seal was I applied too liberally in spots, badly frosting portions, that said, not seeing much shedding.

They cover a fair amount of ground - probably unplayable space in the end so these will have to be perimeter woods or some other inaccessible parts of the battle field.

More size comparisons - this is the Pegasus Hobbies a 1/72 Russian Izba.

Proper height for trees and they look ok.

Essex 15mm ACW Zoaves for comparison.

15mm ACW Zoaves with an example of trees I usually use for this scale.

Honestly, with the trunks being so thin, they work perfectly fine for 15mm I think.

These have been in the background of several other projects recently, but I thought I'd detail how I made them. They are unusual for my collection because of their size but still useful. Expanded PVC I am now committed to. Flex-Seal, sure I like it. I'll have to be more careful in how much to apply next time, but it has increased the durability of these pretty delicate pieces. 

Thanks for looking - questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged! I'm doing more and more on Facebook so follow my page there too! https://www.facebook.com/One-of-My-Men-Became-Restless-100659928063858

Winterized White Birch Project, Part 1

 Still not totally back into the hobby world, but I did bite today and picked up some things from Hobby Lobby to try my hand at making winterized birch trees for the Russian Retreat game.

I figured there would be a learning curve of some kind, the biggest hurdle was figuring out floral tape. I was about to return it for being old and not sticking until I checked online first. Very sticky stuff after all! 

Just seven strands of white floral wire netted me these three trees. There are 70 such wires per $6 bag, of which I bought three, so should net me, so long as I don't vary the thickness or heights much, over 600 trees! I'll never make that many.  This was a trial and will be a very time consuming process with no obvious way to streamline it. I'll put together a few here and there when idle. 

 My thumbs hurt from the twisting and bending it takes to screw these into shape plus the ends can be sharp and will let you know if you're not careful. 

These are still really sticky to the touch so I believe I'm to let them dry a few days. I've not divined the ideal basing system but there'll be singles, some rows and then clumps on cd-roms I imagine.

These aren't done, just the shapes are completed. A sharpie will came out after they are dry and the customary black markings will be on them in a flash, followed by the basing. Should be a simple process.

Thanks for looking -questions and comments are welcome and encouraged!

15mm ECW Hedge Row Tutorial (Updated 4/19/17)

I documented my attempts at making hedgerows primarily so I could remember how to make more if my technique worked. Having seen many tutorials online already I thought I saw room for improvement. I'll let you be the judge. (Battle mat is the Cigar Box  - Plush - Just Fields one that came out recently. See more of that, and the finished hedges here.

Two pieces of basic kit for any modeler is the white glue and the lolly stick. I have a bigger bottle of glue I feed into this smaller one for more dexterous handling.

Save those old sprues gentlemen! These all had flat round protuberances along the lengths into which I drilled a central hole with the hand drill at right. You'll see why below.

White glue was perfectly adequate for this part. Allow time for adequate drying.

Further, I had Woodland Scenics cut and broken stumps lying around for ages and unused so thought I'd add these in to break up the lengths.

Part II - The Hedging: Scotch Brite scouring pads cut into one inch strips then folded in half and hot glued to the sticks. This had to be done almost in one step as the hot glue dries fairly quickly. First I cut the the inch strips then found appropriate lengths between the stumps and what will later be trees. Hot glue going, I folded and pressed them along the lengths. I was here concerned about leaving space on either side of the hedge  - next time I won't bother - let the hedge go the the very edge of the stick. They are a bit lower that way but I think it's a better product then trying to then grass up the very narrow strips of ground that remain after.

I only cut irregularities in the hedge tops to a minimal degree - mostly rounding edges off at the ends rather than the tops. Glue had penetrated fairly deep up the interior of the hedge such that it didn't make for easy cutting.

Stumps, trees, rocks and later, other bushes, break up the lengths.
Here is the start of a stone fence here where the hedge grew inadequately. It is also evident here why drilling the sprue was necessary. 

I've had these odd metal trees from what was a HO Scale Woodlands Scenics "Hedge Row" set but they seemed too tall and were loose, dusty and without instructions or a means of basing them. Better to make them small saplings or larger bushes.

Also a few odds and ends from outside - washed and dried first of course.

If someone were to tell you that you'd get eight feet of hedges out of this project, you'd think that'd be plenty. On the contrary, I should have probably tripled this amount. To enclose a single large field takes about half of what I made here in these sixteen 6" lengths.

Finishing up ...

Everyone has a container of loose flocking debris in various colors and textures. Here I applied some of this scrap to conceal the sprue and to add some continuity with the hedges themselves. Probably helps these somewhat delicate lead tress have a firmer base as well.

Note the one with the open entry - exactly one cavalry base wide. With modeling paste, I created some ground for the logs to rest upon.

Part III: The Painting: Rustoleum Camouflage Brown spayed over the lot. I didn't worry too much about penetrating the green scour pad - seems it'd be ok if that came through if I missed a spot. And because I wanted the bases to be dark brown, I didn't miss anything.

There's no reason for fancy hobby sprays for this kind of thing. Please save your money here.

On to painting. Wood furniture is brown, but natural tree trunks are often brown tinged variations on grays. Cheap craft paints here. Again, save your Masterclass paints for the miniatures.

Tracks, also in modeling paste, grooved in with a toothpick. Note to self: when you do go back and make more of these, do a couple with a small gate.

Piled stone wall - this does not look authentic to me and I won't do it again.

Part IV - The Flocking: Super Leaf! I love this product! It appears on close inspection, to be colored and shredded plastic bag material. Tacky glue for the bulk but I needed to get into tighter spaces with the white glue - especially around the stumps. Also, I used the white glue to spot-fill places I missed without already disturbing the tacky portions.

Not perfectly evident here but I did the tops with a light dusting of the lighter colored Super Leaf as a highlight then put the darker over the rest. They intermingled enough at the top to subtly blend. I poured the leaf over these over a plastic container and used that overflow when I could, to ensure there was a mix of light and dark leaf randomly all over.

Why are only half of the hedges done? So that I had something to grip while brushing on the glue on the other side.

Some finished ones. Spring tufts and what used to be the standard "Green Grass" from Games Workshop. Trying to glue down a tiny strip of grass, as I mentioned above, wasn't worth the effort. Had to be done, but I'll cover the entire lolly stick for the next batch.

The tree foliage came in the form of the pull-apart fibrous sheets that were included in the "Hedge Row" kit. I hate this stuff - and applying it is difficult as you have to wrap it around these soft lead branches. I used regular clump foliage on the short multi-limbed bushes - like that one at the back on the right.

All were sprayed with Scenic Cement as a final touch.

For scale purposes, I included Magister Militum figures from their Age of Reason range. I've been using them for Napoleonic engineers to assist in throwing up earthworks- and there's some eight more with shovels and picks and others with wheel barrows. Thanks Steve for the ID. They are right at 15mm high I believe.

You'll see these hedges again as I complete my Blue Moon ECW forces. Thanks for looking and as always, questions, comments and followers are welcome and encouraged.