I am doing a Vietnam jungle dio. I have a tree made using the wire skeleton technique from the features section. I am thinking of using actual plants for the leaves and smaller branches. I found a perfect plant, a Creosote bush here in the desert, that has leaves that look 1/35 scale. My questions: How long will they last before turning brown and falling apart? Is there a way to protect/prolong them? I was thinking about possibly sealing them w/acrylic clear coat, Krylon, and then painting them. Would that work? Any ideas are welcomed.

Gino,

I soak mine in Future then dull coat then (w/ alittle drybrushing).

Works OK so far.

N E O

Gino some plants preserve well and some don't depending on the method used. For some plants its drying for others I've managed to preserve them with a glycerin water mix.

On a very rough approximation the more woody the plant material the more likely it'll preserve via the drying method. Desert bushes tend to have a fair bit of woody content. I reckon your best bet would be to dry it either hanging upside down on a string if its a big branch of just lying down on a paper towel in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight. Should take 5-7 days. With a bit of a gentle touch the leaves can be painted afterwards. I'd avoid enamels/oil based paints though.

If its branches with tough leathery leaves as some desert plants have you could lacquer it with wood varnish after the drying process to further preserve it.

The other way is to use a glycerin:water mix at 1:10 to 1:20. You'll need a freshly cut material and this method usually works best with fleshy leaves. But from your description its likely to have been a while so I doubt this will work for your plants.

If it helps I've written 2 part article on jungle plants in the Diorama portion under Jungles in the Feature section.

After thinking over it a bit more, perhaps you could show us a pic of the plant so I may hazard a guess as to what would be the best.

Thanks for the pointers so far. The Future method sounds pretty good. Here are some pics:

Creosote Bush


Closer pic of leaves, no flower son mine though.

Yep as I suspected most plants growing in arid environments tend to have thicker, waxy leaves. It is also likely the wood content may be high as well.

I'd go with the drying method Gino. No offence to Neo but future doesn't really preserve vegetation other than to give it a glossy look. Not to go into the technical stuff too much basically leaves drop off coz they dry up. Now if there's enough wood content after the cells dry structurally the leaves may stay on and may even not shrink too much. Haven't work with this plant before but if I had to hazard a calculated guess besides the drying method I mentioned is to give it a light coat of wood varnish after its been dried as it helps preseve wood. Once the varnish dries you can paint it with acryics or enamels to give it color.

As an asides the use of glycerin is merely to replace water in the cells allowing the leaves to remain expanded and supple.

Thanks CK. Sounds like drying and varnish it is. Great info. Good articles too.

Oops...sorry Gino I think it may take longer than 4-5days of drying time. Looking at the leaves its more like 5-7 days. Good luck and let us know how it turned out.