Some of you have seen the start of this at the seminar given by DanCap and me at AMPS East. I have made some more progress. Comments always welcome.

Hi John

Fantastic job love the tree and the ground work did you make the leaves on the tree stump every thing blends together really well.
Cant wait to see it with the figures did you find any.
Cheers Chris

Everything looks really nice. The tree and its root system are very realistic. What is the scale.

Reallly nice. Very well executed.
My only comment is that in the last 2 pictures the tall grass looks very uniform. The first couple photos don't seem that way so I can't say if it's just the photo or not.....

Ah yes, I saw your grass "planting" technique at the AMPS seminar. It came out very nice. The tree is absolutely amazing. The tall grass is a bit of a distraction for me. IMO the long grass looks more like a bunch of sticks stuck into the ground. I am not sure what else you have planned in terms of the grass but the way it is right now, the tall grass doesn't look convincing. Don't mean for my comments to offend you. This is just the way I see it.

Again, I absolutely love the tree!

Hi Guys, thanks for the comments, here are some answers.

Chris, the leaves are silver birtch seeds.

Here are the figs I chose - Thanks Al!

http://www.milminwh.com/images/Military%20Miniatures%20Warehouse/1602frontweb.jpg

http://www.milminwh.com/images/Military%20Miniatures%20Warehouse/1603frontweb.jpg

Keenan its 54mm.

Scott and Martin, you are seeing just the begining of the tall grass, there is a lot more to go - one stalk at a time, ugh!

Again thanks for the comments.

Looking good John! I loved your seminar on the differant types grass available to modelers today. I was hoping maybe you could remind me as to where I can purchase that little demo pack of matted grass that you pulled apart and stood on end. I absolutely love the effects, plus the fact you could hang it over the edges of terrains etc. Oh (takes another look at the photos), can you also include a link to where I can get the leaves on the tree and the moss also? LOL. I know you told us, but I have an excuse.

To whom it may concern:

EasyOff has a memory problem do to the daily dose of drugs he has to ingest and possibly some minor brain damage from being dead for a prolonged period of time.

Signed, EasyOff's Doctor

Thanks

EasyOff :-) :-)

Easiest place to get the grass (the kind you glue not the kind you smoke :-) ) is the Scenic Express. Heki, Noch or Silfor will work equally well.

Thanks Marty!

OMG! 28.00! For grass? When the doc said it was expensive, I didn't think that he meant EXPENSIVE!

Nice site though, thanks for the tip. I'll have fun poking through there.

Silfor does seem expensive although you get a large qty of it in one sheet. You could of course get Heki or Noch for much less but then again, you get a smaller qty.

John:

Very impressive. Everything is scaled together nicely. Nothing seems out of proportion. The colors and subtleties are really what makes this a special piece.

Is the tree stump an actual dried piece of wood, or is it a resin casting?

Also, as far as the tall grass/sticks go, I don't mind them at all. Even as sparse as they are. I don't know about the areas that others live in, but here in Wisconsin you will see tall reeds, or stick like plants growing around wildly in fields. So to me, they are very cool.

Thanks for sharing this wonderful start to what I'm sure will be a great vignette.

John

Thanks again guys. Yes the grass is expensive -but well worth it, nothing else looks as good. The leaves are silver birtch seeds, hard to find - these came from hudson and allen. The moss is ground turff from woodland scenics. . The tree is two different sized dowels, hollowed out, scraped up, then covered with magic sculpt. The roots are magic sculpt and fine rootlets from maple tree sprouts.

Cheers!

John excellent work so far. How much "tall" grass will you be adding? I look forward to seeing the next steps. Got to love the grass mats Kevin

Thanks Kevin! What you see now is about 25% of the final tall grass. And yes Love those grass mats!

What did you use for the base itself, and is that a granite-spray on the edges?

I never get my base edges to look any good, so I end up painting them black.

Mika

Hi Mika,

I used pink insulation foam, and coated it with spray faux granite.

Really love it John. I also agree with the tall grass being "right", it looks to me like last years growth and in an undisturbed area it would remain for a long time. As mentioned your detail on the roots system is really amazing and shows us what something as simple as roots and dirt can do for our dios, great stuff. The one part that doesn't look right for me is the part with the "indian paint brush"or what ever the pink plant is. Grass would not grow that well in a "puddle", and being it a rut it would have been trampled on so it wouldnt be as established
as the grass above it .
Looking forward to seeing the finished product.

Thanks for the comments Bruce. Actually the area you are talking about is a ditch between the road and the bank. There is a puddle, but it doesnt extend the full length of the ditch. As to the Pink flower, Its not glued in, I was only giving it a test run. I may add some more, I may removed them all. I am planning a hornets nest for the tree, and some toadstools and fungus and such feeding on the dead wood.

Lookos really good as the others have said. The purple flower looks a lot like purple loosestrif. which we see a lot of here in New England in late July through early September. Thing is, though, it's an introduced plant and would not havebeen here in the time period you're depicting.
What will you be using for toadstools?

Yes it does look alot liek purple loosestrif now that you mention it. I have the same faux flower in other colors, I may use them insted. For the toadstools, fungus etc I will sculpt them from magic sculpt. The stems will be from streached sprue. The shrooms will be on the ground, while the fungus will be on the tree trunk. Kinda like this:

http://www.wrybread.com/gammablablog/images/11-3/tinsley/tree-fungus.jpg

Excellent groundwork, John. The tiny and often overlooked details make this vignette base stand out. Very realistic setting as well.

Do you have any pics of the FIW figures you will be using ?

Cheers

Alpen

Really outstanding !!!!!! Congrats !

Thanks guys.

Robert the figs I ordered turned out to be 120mm! So I have started to search again. I did find a promising set on the Historex site. http://www.historexagents.com/images/sl/sd9.jpg

But I really only need 2 or 3 of the figs in the set.

what did you use for the tree? Is is store bought or made from scratch?

Nate the tree is scratchbuilt from Magic Sculpt - an apoxy putty, and wood dowels.

AJ as to the flower looking like loosestrife, they do, but they also resemble Lupines which are native to the eastern United States.