I've been trying to make some trees for my vignettes and dios and while searching the net for reference I found this site wich I think will be very usefull for you Ardenne diorama builders. It looks realistic and it's cheap..

http://www.trevinocircle.com/sippin/

My attempts on making trees have ended nicelly thanks to armorama and the great feature articles. I've build them with the wire core and covered them with plaster...but I havent tried to cover them with foliage yet(!!!!!). I dont know if I should use woodland scenics foliage or tea leaves and a 3M spray to glue it directly to the tree branches or if I should use that Brillo/Scotch-Brite dish-washing thing to cover them and to give them "shape"...It's all a matter of experimenting I guess..

Any thoughts about it?

This is how my trees generelly look like before the plaster:



Bye guys and happy hollidays for all the armorama comunity! (:-)

I really like the tree. The comparison to the figure makes the tree look huge. What is the scale of the figure, 1/35?

It's in 72nd eheehh thats a coffee-jar lid

hey! that tree has great structure. I would suggest you use material underneith your tea leaves to get the bushy look to your tree. applying it directly to you branches doesnt look right
i made this mistake with my trees.
ian
heres a pic of my trees

Francisco - Thanks, thats a great link, can't wait to try it. Your tree looks like it going great too.

Ian - IMHO those trees look fantastic, just looks like sping and their not fully leafed out.

Tom
EDIT: Hey... Just got promoted, this was my 100th post.

I have to try this! Thanks for posting!!

Thanks for the inputs my friends

Here are some updates:





This is some kind of steel wool used for dishwashing, as I mentioned before (it's getting a bit rusty after I washed to clear it out of soap). I just thin it a bit and cover the tree so it creates a net of "small branches", if you know what I mean...Tomorrow I'll try to cover the core with plaster, paint it in some brownish tones and aply the steel wool. This wool will be painted green and with the spray-glue I'll cover the whole thing with some woodland scenics foliage. I guess that if I just left it painted green without the foliage it wouldn´t look that bad, like shading it with some brownish tones also..



Took it from this site http://www.wargamesjournal.com/painters/trees.asp

Cya guys!!

Thanks Francisco;
Thats a great site , I was just wondering how I would do a Pine tree, this method looks to be a winner, very realistic!

Cheers
Bruce

I can't figure out what "Selkirk Scenery netting (fine)" is...

(:-)

Just covered the wire-core with plaster. It has to be applied very thin so it flows through the "branches". It seems its not possible to cover it all at first try so, to give it a good finish, I'll apply some more plaster tomorrow, leave it to dry for 1 day or so and proceed to add some texture/colour.

cya guys!

awesome...what are you going to use to do the bark texture when you put the 2nd coat on?

I'm going to put that steal wool on the tips of the main branches to simulate the smaller ones and then I'll try to use that spray-glue technic to cover it with some woodlands scenics foam that I still have to buy. I'll be building another wire-core tonight so I can see the effect of just leaving the steel wool on (and painted of course), without covering with the foam..

I dont really know how am I going to paint the tree itself..I guess that if I use some acrylic paints i'll melt the plaster or something..I dont really want to use enamels but I'll use them if I have to (or maybe I can spray some varnish before painting to seal everything it).

Hi guys...you may be interested in seeing this article on this site...

https://armorama.kitmaker.net/article-135.htm

Jim