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It's A Jungle Out There (Part II)

Wild bananas

While not a very common jungle sight, there will be the odd small clump of wild banana plants. Physically their similar to their cultivated counterparts with the main differences being in their relatively smaller fruit sizes which also contain seeds. Bananas like bamboo propagate largely by runners which sprout not to far from their base of the parent plant. These sprouts or suckers (honestly that’s what they’re called) number anywhere from 1-4 or more plantlets surround the parent plant and thus give rise to the clump.

One of the methods of creating a banana is the use of a bamboo toothpick as the stem and preserved ferns for leaves. The method for the stem which is elegantly simple comes from one of our Armorama members whom I have not been able to trace. My sincerest apologies for not mentioning your name but I came across it sometime back in the Diorama forum and haven’t been able to find it since.

Just glue thin strips of jaggedly cut paper around the toothpick as ones seen in Photo # 6 with the jagged end pointed upwards. We have used kite paper as it takes paint well without warping. Stick the paper all round but leave the pointed end free of glue. Stick the paper in a spiral manner making it thick at the bottom. The paper represents the papery “bark” of the stem.

Leaves are made from fern leaves preserved with glycerin:water as in Part I. Aluminum baking foil can also be used. They’re attached with strips of bamboo split off a thicker bamboo skewer. These splints have been used as stems because they’re flexible and allow for shaping a natural bend in the stems. An average banana plant has anywhere from 6 (unhealthy or juvenile plant) to 12 or more leaves (healthy plant). Realism is achieved with the following:
(i) Make almost perpendicular cuts to the leaf portion on both side of the leaf stem, (photo #7) as banana leaves tear easily from wind damage. (ii) Having some grayish brown decaying leaves hanging down. (iii) Painting. The stem varies from a basecoat of light green to yellowish tips at the jagged ends of the strips of paper to grayish dark brown for the decayed portions at the bottom. The older leaves have yellowish to light brown edges. (iv) Modeling them as a clump with suckers at various heights.

Coconut

Unlike bananas, coconut palms tend to be restricted to cultivated areas such as farms and villages with wild coconuts occurring largely at beaches. While palms abound in a jungle coconuts tend to be pretty rare. Coconuts are in reality palms and like their cousins, date palms and jungle ones, share certain similarities. One shoot, straight singular trunk (rough due to leaf bases or smooth) with no branches. Photo #8 shows a canopy of a coconut. Take note of the arrangement of the fronds and their color as this will come into play when creating the canopy.

I’ve used a modified combo of Demodelbouwer’s method of making the stem and Viking’s way of making the fronds. The stem is a kebab skewer but of much larger diameter than that used for bananas. Coconuts sometimes have a gently bent trunk and by fashioning 1-2 of them in this manner especially in a group improves the realism. The skewer was bent by soaking it in boiling water for a few minutes and raising it at both ends with a heavy weight in the middle. Sag the skewer with the weight for an hour or so.

Photo #9 shows both the slightly bent skewer (left) and the skewer with string wound round (middle). The cotton string is tied at the top of the skewer, wound downwards and then up again with roughly equal spacing. Apply diluted PVA glue (30 PVA: 70 water) over the entire strung “trunk” and wrap with tissue. Facial tissues are the best. Use only 1 layer (single ply). Apply more PVA mix over the paper once it’s glued to the trunk. The finished trunk as seen to the right of the photo has bits of coconut husk fibers at both ends to simulate the feeder roots and leaf fibers respectively. The round peppercorn looking materials in the center are coriander seeds that will be painted as coconuts.

Here comes the tedious portion, the fronds. I favor the aluminum baking foil leaves used by Viking. As seen in Photo #10, the various stages of frond construction from left to right. Frond on the right has primer applied. There are also Photo-Etch fronds available but I kind of prefer these homemade ones as there are variations. That and mainly because they too expensive. Coconut fronds lengths average around 2-3m or 5-9cm in 1:35 scale. You can stack about 3-4 layers of foil to cut the individual leaflets (pinnae) easing the work. I wouldn’t stack more as it gets hard to separate the cut fronds after cutting the leaflets. Use a scissors instead of a blade as no matter how sharp a blade is it will tear the foil. Make sure you scribe the middle a bit where with a blunt instrument (i.e. blunt pencil) as seen at the bottom right. This will be where the leaf stems (racchis) sits. For leaf stems I usethe good ole flexible bamboo strips.

The disadvantages of foil or any material other than PE is that you can never cut the individual leaflets fine enough and sharp ended to truly resemble the leaflets. But then as with most things in life it’s a compromise.

Photo #11 is the finished palm with a couple of additional touches for realism. Coconuts can be added by appropriately painting Coriander seeds. Add some real coconut husks fibers to the top of the trunk and the slighty chunky bits of the same material to the base. The latter is to represent exposed feeder roots that sometimes can be seen when palms get taller and lean a bit due to the weight.

Painting again lends realism. Lower fronds tend towards shades of grey and yellow as the die. The midline of frond where the leaf stem is found underneath the frond is generally yellowish green tending to orange yellow in older fronds. Coconut trunks are in reality grayish light brown and a darker wash can be used to bring out the “rings” around the trunk. Tips of leaflets can be highlighted with a bit of yellow.

As in photo #8, fronds are arranged with lower fronds tending downwards while fronds located in mid-canopy dip slightly down from a horizontal plane (an imaginary plane parallel to the ground). Fronds at the top of canopy arch upwards at a 45-60 degree slope from the horizontal.