I apologize for my absence on the board and obviously lack of responding to others work.
After the finishing of module 7 and the work I had to do at home on 1/1 scale I struggled a bit to start again with disciplined modelling and the build of the missing 8th part.
The first parts which I will show later was basic rock work, but what I started already last autumn, put down again for a few months and restarted 3 months ago, had the potential to win even over my proofed patience.
I always wanted to build a high Evergreen tree, as high as they are normally as adults, some 10 meter high, around 35 cm (or 1 foot) in 1/35 scale.
As I do mostly I wanted to depart from the usual methods to do it, no synthetic stuff and also no Aspargus fern. Although the use of moss is not new, the way I choose to approach the use of it for the sake of a better detailing is not seen a lot, never until now I think. After a few months work on it, I understand why.
What I used is this kind of moss

It's freshly collected and still wet. It will thin out a lot more after drying.
I did not use it with it's entire branches but cut instead all the individual side branches from the stem

and reassemble branches for my tree with all the small bits of moss glued on one by one

This is the same procedure, used on the lower branches with moss from my stock, collected a long time ago already and with all original colour lost.

I first put together the branches, then airbrush them and put them on the trunk. No colouring is needed any more when the whole tree is assembled. That way , I am not going to spoil the trunk again.
The tree having 30 cm and every step of the tree needs at least 5-6 branches, I estimate the whole tree having around 100 branches and probably around 5000 pieces of moss!
One of the problems I had was the presence, just meters away from my working space, from a tree in my garden. This made me permanently look for the best way to imitate the real thing

The branches are natural too, coming from a few different plants with suiting branches. The advantage versus wire is the natural thinning out of most of them. On top of the often to smooth branch I sprinkled a very fine sand and pigment mix to imitate the bark.

Neat the trunk I added of course dead wood as it is typically seen on these trees.
The tree is finished, with the exception of some touch ups with the branches and the replacement of missing or unsatisfying moss pieces, and of course the adding of a lot of cones!
I will cut some of the trunk when I decide on the final rest place of it, right hear near the new rock part or near the Villa Prüm to fill a big empty space. The headless figure is of course just to get the height relations.


The tree will be part of the display at the SMC expo in Veldhoven , but I will probably not leave it on the dio for it's final rest place in the museum in the real castle of Clervaux. There is already enough to see on the dio.
After Veldhoven I will try to make the Evergreen the centre point of another diorama. The work invested warrants using it more then once.
I hope you like it and I hope to be back on the board more regularly from now on.
Greets to all
Claude
PS I have still a lot of books to sell and by the way, there will be a review in MMiR 61, getting distributed right now