I'm almost done with my Sd.Kfz. Ferdinand and I am planning to attach bushes as camo. How do they do it on real tanks and applying it on modelled armour kits?

Ariel,

The crews would use wire, rope, netting, convienent vehicle fixtures (lifting eyes, tie downs, etc), or all of the above to hold natural camouflage materials. The material would have to be fixed so as to not fall off during movement. A common method might be to trim some of the branches to form hooks which could be inserted into or under the fixing / holding point.

Keep in mind that except for static maintainence or assembly areas (where no combat is expected), any on-vehicle stowage, including camouflage, would be arranged to not interfere with or block vision devices, weapons, crew hatches, turret or gun traverse, and would not touch antennas (causing signal grounding problems). These were matters of life and death for the crews and haphazard or dangerous stowage would not be allowed by tank commnaders and other crew members. So, model stowage should follow the same general rules.

Here's a model example:

Operation Tractable

HTH,

Thanks mike, really appreciate it. As we speak, I've already saved it in my reference materials.

They also used foliage loops. Tiger Models has them.

What I would like to ask is how you mimic Evergreen boughs and cut turf as 'Yeti' level camouflage. I have to assume it's partly to aid with thermal sight masking and partly 'because we can' as the tanks are so powerful and the exercises so specific, relative to where and when they are captured on film-

Tree Branches
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/b5/c2/44/b5c244c6be88e639b43bbba0751ba436.jpg

http://www.gmfus.org/sites/default/files/styles/hero_header/public/images/Leopard_2A6%2C_PzBtl_104.jpg?itok=LBi9CSni


Cut Turf
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/40/19/3d/40193d744458bc44731d7d49f43f4891.jpg


But I have never seen this done believably on a modern tank model at this level and as it becomes more and more common IRL, the question becomes whether it is possible to accurately replicate the look without resin.

I can certainly understand wrapping a gun barrel in 'netting' (gauze bandage) fragments and then tying Hessian droops to or threading foliage through the net.

But my investigation has shown that the standard railroad approach of making evergreens by trapping pulled apart twine between wire and twisting the wire with a drill to spread the fibers around the circumference before going with the Hairspray and Flocking treatment, simply does not look accurate in scales above HO.

Some of the Bachmann Products trees show a fair bit of individual needles and come as large as 1/48th which means you might be able to fudge with a tree replicating a limb etc.


http://www.trainsetsonly.com/page/TSO/PROD/160-32112?gclid=Cj0KEQjwk-jGBRCbxoPLld_bp-IBEiQAgJaftVUxdz05OET6gtvOl01-IopjQSelSNGzt90lv3uGQHIaAlOC8P8HAQ

But that's a lot of 10 dollar tree packages for the kind of thick coverages shown above.

And so the question remains: are there better solutions?

And what have you used before?


Thanks.

Glaarg, with reference to the last part of your post, the pre-made trees and the expense of using them. If you think that the static grass / flocking finish might be acceptable, then it seems to me that for your purposes it would be better to buy a static grass applicator and do your own flocking on to your own custom made boughs. As well as probably being cheaper it would allow you to make the boughs to the size and shape that you want rather than trying to cut up, adapt and bend pre-made trees. Your branches could be shaped to fit on to the model before the foliage is added. It would also allow you to use different lengths of fibre in order to achieve variation and particular types of tree bough.

The railroad method you describe of twirling twine etc. is, I would think, partly used by railroad modellers that want to create large numbers of trees that are to be placed in a forest, so they are not so bothered by the appearance of many of them as only the tops are visible, and they want a quick method. If you want trees to have variety and look individual then basically you need to custom build each one, probably from wood and wire and some sort of coating to achieve the overall wood / bark look. It seems to me that this is more like the approach you would need to follow.

It may be that others think that the flocking type appearance is not as good as some kind of textured sculpt from putty, resin etc., and I wouldn't argue with anyone on that. Natural materials like this are without doubt much harder to model than man-made items, and it all depends on what you mean by "believably"...

Don't know if that helps at all.

You could try stuff like this: http://www.abeautifuldifference.com/airfern.JPG
You could even grow your own and harvest it!

H.P.

Thanks FC,

I came across a product from a railroad models company called 'The Scene Factory' which is actual, preserved fern leaves and appears to match an evergreen bough fairly closely.

May do the trick.