One thing it's difficult to have too many of on a diorama is trees. There are ready-made trees that are quick and easy to plant in bulk at the sacrifice of realism. Great for dense planting in the background, not so much for up close.



Hand-built trees can be made in a variety of ways, my favorite is to start with a wire armature. Multi-strand copper works great, solder the trunk then divide out limbs, branches and twigs as needed, soldering as you go. These will be birch trees which typically go right from trunk to branches.



Once I have the armature shaped to my satisfaction, it is coated with a mix of plaster and diluted glue and painted with some black oil paint to resemble a paper-bark birch.



Some tufts of teased poly fiber are glued to the branches as twigs.



Cover the fiber with a liberal dose of hairspray as an adhesive and sprinkle the paper leaves over it. Overspray the leaves with another coat to lock things in place.



Larger trees can be made using the same steps, just start with a larger trunk and divide trunk into limbs, limbs into branches and branches into twigs. This one took about 6 hours spread over a couple of days to make. The birch trees were done in a morning.

Interesting, great winter project too, that's a quite a collection of roach clips you have there

Wow, PH; I appreciate your patience! Very nice scenery!

Amazing!
Do you run trains?

quote:

Originally posted by xd45man:
Amazing!
Do you run trains?

I used to, but found that I enjoyed doing scenery more than running trains, so I went to a static diorama.

I've posted a video of it here before, but I can repost if anyone is interested.

Those are amazing! The detail in the bark and the foliage is impressive!

Very nice work.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Interesting, great winter project too, that's a quite a collection of roach clips you have there

Whistles tunelessly, looks at ceiling...

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
Those are amazing! The detail in the bark and the foliage is impressive!

Thanks!

I've wanted to add a clump or three to my diorama for a while, but wasn't sure how to replicate the look. Found a video while surfing that covered it. The "secret" is the plaster/glue combination for coating the trunk. Plain plaster just flakes off, the glue gives it a bit of flexibility.

Very nice job, ending up with a much better look and a much cheaper coverage on your diorama than trying to do it with prepackaged trees from Woodland Scenics or the like.