woodman Looking for recommendations for trees for my layout. HO scale, not modeling any particular part of the country. Small hills, no large mountains. Also looking for trees for residential areas. Where can I find a good selection, brand and reasonable prices.
Looking for recommendations for trees for my layout. HO scale, not modeling any particular part of the country. Small hills, no large mountains. Also looking for trees for residential areas. Where can I find a good selection, brand and reasonable prices.
To me, trees are kind of a signature of particular regions and areas. For instance, here in the mountains of Colorado, a couple of kinds of pines (somewhat altitude dependent), aspen, and spruce dominate the landscape. At the lower elevations, one finds cottonwoods along the stream beds. Oregon coastal forests are likewise dominated by Douglas Fir, with groves of cedars and redwoods at the southern end of the state. New England forests are very different from the Midwest which is different from North Carolina and Virginia. And in the latter 2 states, the trees change as one progresses from the coast to the Piedmont to the Mountains.
For good looking trees, I want trees that look like the species found in the area I am modeling. It really helps locate my layout. Grand Central, Scenic Express, Woodland Scenics are all brands of decent-looking trees found in the hobby shops in my area. Not all brands make good-looking models of all tree types. And as mentioned, it's not cheap to buy ready-made trees in any sort of quantity. So finding a way to make good-looking trees (of the right species) inexpensively is high on my list.
Another consideration is tree height. Once you get away from residential or tree farm areas, trees tend to be a lot bigger than we tend to buy. Because commercial model trees are priced by size, the temptation is to buy 3"-5" tall trees. These don't look right sitting beside our model trains because they are really too small for full grown trees in the wild. But using smaller trees further back without a scale reference works to force perspective.
my thoughts, your choices
Fred W
....modeling foggy coastal Oregon, where it's always 1900....
I've found that mixing and matching several suppliers of trees, including making my own from different materials is a great way of putting together a good looking forest. Below are some of the brands I've used...
SuperTrees
Woodland Scenic's armatures and polyfiber
Bachmann Trees
Scenic Express "bulk" Trees
Woodland Scenic's Premium Trees
JTT Professional Trees
Currently working on trees for my layout.
Haven't worked with Super Trees, but by the looks and what I understand they make nice trees.
Used puff ball trees for background to cover hillsides. Like the look, but I did a better job with later batches (the learning curve).
Put a few bulk conifers in among the puff balls (along with a few dead trees), looks quite realistic as to what I see daily.
For larger forground trees I have some WS armatures with clump foliage attached with Hob-e-tac. Need to improve my adhesive application, still getting some fall off. May place the foam on rather than use the roll in a bowl method. The other problem I have with them is getting the branches bent to make a rounded tree, they tend to end up a little flat on two sides, despite conciderable branch manipulation.
Am currently working on WS armatures with poly fiber streched over them. Plan to spray with Matte mediumm or hair spray, then shake on some ground foam. Will see how I like those.
One thing I will say is that making trees, when you add in the armature, foam and adhesive aren't really cheap. I do have some natural materials and that will eliminate the armature cost. Sprinkling foam over adhesive should be cheaper than the clump foliage or poly fiber and foam, I'll see.
Micro-Mark does have bulk trees, both conifer and deciduous. Haven't seen them in person, but the rather inexpensive little conifers I have used so far look fine when mixed in the woods with other trees. Will concider getting some of them when/if I ever get to my larger layout. They are quite reasonably priced, about $0.70 for conifers and $1.60 for deciduous. From the picture they should do alright for mid distance trees.
Have not tries to make bottle brush conifers yet. Plan to at some point.
Do a little experimenting and see what you like to do and like the looks of.
Good luck,
Richard
cacole And if your local hobby shop doesn't sell Super Trees you can get them from the Scenic Express web site. http://www.scenicexpress.com The only 'local' hobby shop near me is 70 miles away in Tucson, Arizona and they sell only Woodland Scenics products. I haven't seen any up close and have no idea about their pricing, but MRC now sells trees made by a company called JTT. If you can believe their full page advertisements on the back cover of Model Railroader magazine, they look nice.
And if your local hobby shop doesn't sell Super Trees you can get them from the Scenic Express web site.
http://www.scenicexpress.com
The only 'local' hobby shop near me is 70 miles away in Tucson, Arizona and they sell only Woodland Scenics products.
I haven't seen any up close and have no idea about their pricing, but MRC now sells trees made by a company called JTT. If you can believe their full page advertisements on the back cover of Model Railroader magazine, they look nice.
The JTT trees come in three levels: Super, Premium, and Professional. All of them are excellent quality, but they are pricey; even the "low end" Super line. I got some free samples at the National Train Show two years ago, and they really look great. The armatures are metal, not plastic. The Premiums cost about $4.25 each in HO; Supers $3.00, and the Professionals $6.00 and up, depending on how big you want them. You can order straight from the manufacturer, or several on-line retailers.
Still, I agree that if you need a lot of trees and are on a budget, making your own is the way to go.
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