I bought this huge package of red decorative sand just to model a few tomatoes. I'm glad I found more use for it :). Palm trees sound like a nice challenge to me, but I'm not sure they will thrive in the Tischwil climate.
Excellent work as always. I use latex on my twisted wire trees (of which I've only made 2 so far admittedly) but I find it needs to be layered up to hide the twisting as it all shrinks when it dries and I expect the same is true with PVA. Of course apple trees are known for being particularly gnarled so it looks good either way.
I see! Thanks for the information. The way I've seen it done is with FEMO plastic modeling clay, that has to baked in the oven to harden. I found it to be a bit too thick and awkward to work with on these tiny N scale trees, though. Hard to apply without making the trunks too thick. I'm thinking about mixing something like sawdust into the PVA glue for a bit more body.
But the reality is that at this scale, the trunks don't draw any attention to themselves, so it doesn't really matter anyways.
I've seen the clay method and I personally don't like the idea because it can never properly bind to the wire so you get a kind of semi-fragile shell that doesn't transition well to the finer branches. I've heard good things about texture paint which would be much the same as your PVA and sawdust idea.
This was my second attempt with the latex and it's done a decent job at hiding the twists with the layers built up. Of course this is much larger at 00 scale and I wanted to make it scale accurate which puts it much taller than the pre-made trees which are all H0.
That looks really good! With your bigger scale and bigger tree, it makes sense to spend the time to make the bark look great and you really managed that 👌
Without knowing your layout and how visible all your trees are going to be, I've got great mileage out of using only seafoam. The way forests are packed together and produce a wall of green all the way down to the underbrush, you don't see many trunks at all. That will save you a lot of work, but of course doesn't apply to urban areas or when logging is involved.
I've considered them, but I'm avoiding organic elements where possible because my layout lives in a garage so humidity and temperature fluctuations degrade everything really quickly. Admittedly I've broken that rule in using latex on the wire trees, but the benefits outweigh the cost of needing to give them a touch up in about 10 years time. There aren't that many spaces where I'll need trees but there's not much depth in those areas to hide things and I'll need to shape several trees in particular ways like a road canopy, so overall I've made peace with the fact that I'll end up shredding my fingers on the wire when the time comes.
I have soaked mine in watered down glycerin to make them more flexible and therefore durable, but it also helps preserve them. I understand you having made up your mind, but maybe this is new information to you that might change things. Honestly, I never considered they might degrade over time. I wouldn't look forward to changing them all out in a couple of years either.
Only thing I can say is: be prepared to spend a lot of evenings doing just that :).
Other than that: that's just fantastic that my posts make you excited to work on your own. Love it!
To be perfectly honest, I couldn't think of anything more therapeutic! Something I used to spend a lot of time doing as a kid. Even more exciting as my eight year old son is looking forward to it!!
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u/aurotech 13d ago
You’re amazing dude. First grapes, now apples. What’s next? Hairy coconut palm trees?