A tree challenge

23 Sep
Posted on Author Iain 4

My last post was in April? Seriously? It seems like only yesterday. Where does the time go?

I’ve been busy. No really. Partly I’ve been occupied in the garden but mostly I’ve been working really hard at having a ball. There’s been some wargaming activity but that’s for another post. Just now I’d best just get something published so I can get the blog police (Andy, AKA Count Belisarius) off my back.

I inherited a large box of dubious quality ‘bottle brush’ trees and have been pondering their future.

The trees as they come. Fortunately very few are that horrible light colour.

To be honest, they are probably wheelie bin fodder but a challenge over on the Loose Association of Wargamers forum got me thinking. To paraphrase the challenge, ‘make something wargamey from junk already on hand’. So I had these trees and I had sawdust and paint to make flock. With a week remaining of the challenge I’m quite happy with how these things are turning out. They won’t win any awards but they’ll increase my wargames terrain by exactly 100%.

Trees trimmed to round them off a bit and open up the ‘branches’.
Finished tree. (1) Sprayed black (2) Slightly diluted PVA stippled on with a half inch brush (3) Rolled in my home made flock (4) stages two and three repeated.

I’ve made five or six batches of flock in various colours and texture and I’m working on the trees in batches so that they don’t all end up the same. I’ve finished about thirty trees so far and have about fifty to go……no pressure then.

A batch of trimmed trees waiting to be sprayed black.

I have no idea how I’m going to mount the finished trees. I think I’ll ponder that over a beer or two next week.

 

4 Replies to “A tree challenge”

  1. About time! 🙂

    They look fine. And when you’ve based them (and re-based them several times) you will have a veritable forest! All you need now are hills, hedges, buildings and roads and rivers and you ready for a game!

    A

    Oh… and walls…

  2. Use a piece of plastic rod for the trunks with a wide headed roofing nail for the base. Organise your bases and stick roofing nails randomly onto them. Texture and paint base. Ensure wirey bit fits inside rod and put unglued rod onto nail, cut wirey bit to fit inside.paint rod and glue rod with attached tree to nail . Job done.

    • Thanks Mick.
      I’m currently looking for a length of rod which will accommodate the wire. The nail is a great idea. I was thinking of screwing through but the nail will be cheaper, quicker and easier.
      Iain

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