What colors for forest floor in fall?

[secondhandmodeler]

In western wisconsin, we have a mix of conifers and deciduous trees together.  All of the different trees grow in close proximity.  I do agree that my trees are too much of a solid color.  It's diffecult to add depth with sedum.  They're probably too dense to begin with.  I realized one thing that I'm missing, grass.  We have grasses growing on the hillsides.  I wish it was fall right now. It would be easier to mimmick nature.

[larak]

Try not to have all your trees these bright, bright colors...it's unrealistic.  ...

And all trees don't turn at the same time.  There will still be plenty of green in trees until at least mid-fall, often later. 

This is very true. Note that there will be green IN trees as well as green trees. Trees turn gradually, usually the inner leaves stay green longer, so don't model each full tree in a single color if you can help it. Perhaps mix your foams or apply in several layers. 

I  know we've gotten away from the forest floor here but it's a package deal. As for the floor, browns with hints of color. Underbrush may still be green, purple or redish (berry bushes for example).

Have fun,

Karl 

[shawnee]

Actually, if you're modeling all those yellows, deep oranges and reds, you're modeling mid-to-late fall.  Early Autumn, greens still hold sway.

A true forest floor tends to be brown.  Always.  Leaves, by the time they fall, are desiccated, they've lost their moisture (after all, that's why the fall), and on the forest floor they've lost their color if they've been there a day or so. And in a forest, last year's leaves are still around too...brown.

Try not to have all your trees these bright, bright colors...it's unrealistic.  One thing that's true, the predominant color of fall is really brown.  It's the bright colors that highlight through the complementary browns.  Most trees in autumn are actually shade of brown-yellow. That's why you really notice those bright red ones.  New England postcards-of-our-mind notwithstanding, do browns in autumn.

And all trees don't turn at the same time.  There will still be plenty of green in trees until at least mid-fall, often later.  So avoid a uniform landscape that's a cacaphony of color.  Pick places to highlight.  And if you're late fall, some trees are bare, some just turning...oaks and beeches, for instance, keep their leaves through the winter. 

And remember that trees generally grow in groves, so having trees with similiar colors, perhaps with subtle shadings, is more realistic than wild oranges next to wild reds.

A ditto to the comment on conifers, above.

So it's about a mix, a randomness within an order of nature.

[simon1966]

As Dave's photo so well illustrates, in early fall the under brush and bushes are still very green while the taller trees are well started on fall colors.  If you are modelling a dense forest canopy with lots of trees then you are only going to see the underbrush at the edges.  In this case you really don't need to worry too much about the ground cover except at the visible edge.  In later fall when the really vibrant colors have faded the underbrush loses its leaves.  So it would not be out of place to have some shrubbery in greens at ground level.

[Dave-the-Train]

Does this help?

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=125350&nseq=95

[Dave-the-Train]

One thing to recall is that the really bright colours are a product of the translucence of the leaves and light passing through them.  Once the leaf is on the ground this won't happen so that the leaf will not have the same "shine" to it... but then you pick it up, the light can pass through again...

Confusing isn't it?

[secondhandmodeler]

I was a little hesitent(sp) to do a fall scene.  For the reds, I mixed red and a rust to try and tame the colors.  I didn't do anything to the orange.  I think I need darken them a little bit.  I also used more of a tan color for the yellows.  Around here, the maples arn't as vibrant as in other locations.  Do they make clump foilage in browns or tans?  Are there cheaper ways to make grasses for the hill than woodland scenics?  Thanks again for your help.

[bogp40]

Thanks for the replys.  I think I might just have to muddy it up.  I was trying to look at the bluffs here in La Crosse WI.  The problem is, the trees are soo thick.  You can't really see anythng underneath them.  I'm also missing trees with no foilage at all.  That's kind of hard to do with sedum.  Also, june in the midwest is not the time to look to nature for inspiration.  I'll try to squirt some watered down paint underneath there and see what that does.  Thanks again for the help.

As many have explained, the vibrant colors are very shortlived once they hit the ground. If you feel you need to tone the coloring down but not actually show dead brown leaves, use very thinned washes of various browns. You can apply the thinned acylics with the same method as your scenery glue.

Even though I live in New England and here we have some of the most beautiful fall folliage, I find it difficult to model these colors and have them look very realistic. Even on a clear day, there is always some haze. This will mute the brighter colors. Onlt the imediate forground trees will show the full intensity of the color. When we use the greens for that full forest canopy the greens can be dulled by using the burnt green to even a spritz of yellow for showing the distance. I have even sprayed a fog(diluted white) to the very distant backdrop trees (polyfiber or lichen).

This effect may be used to knock down the extreme bright reds, oranges and yellows to make them appear somewhat more credible.

[ARTHILL]

You are right, June is not the best season to research a fall scene. I grew up in Winona so I know the look you are after. I would suggest three things.

Get some Super trees. I would guess that Jeff in Winona at the Ace Hardware has them or could get them.

Go to a Craft store and get some Candy Tuft in the dried flower section. Two or three together with florists tape and some spray paint make a nice fall tree.

Find someone who can get you some Sage Brush from the Southwest. It makes a great Oak tree or Walnut.

Later Astilbe, Queen of the Praire and Bridal Wreath give good tree armatures for fall.

Also I found that the fall colors of Noch's leaf foliage looks real nice.

Keep the pics coming, we are all learning this together.

[secondhandmodeler]

Thanks for the replys.  I think I might just have to muddy it up.  I was trying to look at the bluffs here in La Crosse WI.  The problem is, the trees are soo thick.  You can't really see anythng underneath them.  I'm also missing trees with no foilage at all.  That's kind of hard to do with sedum.  Also, june in the midwest is not the time to look to nature for inspiration.  I'll try to squirt some watered down paint underneath there and see what that does.  Thanks again for the help.

[Dave-the-Train]

Do you have a mix of deciduous and coniferous there?

Conifers drop there needles even though they stay green all year round... anyone actually see them shedding?  You almost certainly know that they create a bed of browning needles under and around themsleves.  This changes the acidity of the soil ... this impacts on what can grow near them... if anything can grow close at all.  The needles stay grren for a very short time after falling.  Some trees seem to drop stems rather than individual needles... or do they do both?  They also drop cones of course... interesting to model.

Anyone modelled a Monkey Puzzle tree?

Deciduous.  As noted everything ends up as soil going 57 shades of brown on the way.

When we look at a tree we look as much at what we can see beyond it as at the tree.  This applies to leaf fall I believe.  We're not just looking at the soil and/or leaf mould and/or new fallen leaves... we're looking at the whole shooting match that has developed over time.  So we need to start from the ground up and from some past point in time.

This usually adds up to a lack of uniformity... because different things have happened in different places.  Animals have moved in some disturbing things, maybe a vehicle has been there... all sorts of things.

[jeffers_mz]

I think it looks pretty good right now. You used the same colors as the trees, which is a given, considering that's where the leaves came from in the first place, but you are right, it's just a fuzz short of that elusive...reality...thing, and I think it's because leaves on the ground and other forest floor debris, only match those on the trees for a short time before degrading, eventually to a shapeless sodden mass of gray and brown leaf pulp that eventually turns to soil.

I don't know how to actually accomplish it, but a mist of watered down light brown and tan,  splotchy in just some areas, and a second mist of a drab gray in other splotches, with a few leaves left original color, ought to take the shine off your "park" and come closer to a natural forest.

 

If you figure out how to make it happen, I'd like to hear it, I've been looking for a good way to alter the hue of grasses, ground foam and foliage beyond the basic colors offered at retail, for a long time now. Brushes don't work, they just clump everything up, and an old perfume spray bottle just clogged the nozzle about ten seconds into the effort. Mixing different colors of grass or foam doesn't work, because the simple colors offered are so radically differentfrom each other, it just looks strange. Painting under the grasses doesn't work, because the dust or foam just covers up the paint, so for now I'm stuck with acres and acres of grass and foam that has all the monotony of a golf course, while reality is always an infinite mix of subtly different shades from place to place, and even side by side.

[tomikawaTT]

Thinking back to my woodlot in Central Tennessee, my immediate answer was 57 shades of brown.  Even colorful leaves fade to somewhere between raw umber and burnt sienna after a few hours in contact with the ground.  There were a few things that stayed green until the first frost, but only a botanist could say what they were.

Locally, the "forest floor" under my one sorry little palm tree is the same color all year - white (as in quartz gravel.)  Anyone looking for significant greenery in Clark County, NV, is doomed to disappointment unless he gets above the 5500 foot level.

Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[secondhandmodeler]

Nick, thanks for the pictures.  Maybe I need to fill out my hill with more trees before I go too crazy with anything else. 

[secondhandmodeler]

Would light green lichen with mixed colors on top look bad? 

[nbrodar]

My forest is denser then yours, so you can only really see inside if you crouch down and look in from the side.  Here's what I did...(please ignore the push pins holding a few of the trees upright.

 

I put down layers of ground foam.  Starting with medium and light greens.  Then I added the highlights with red/yellow/orange foam, followed by brown.  Last I planted the trees. I also added some larger underbrush using clump foliage and poly fiber mats in both greens and fall colors.

Nick

Nick

[secondhandmodeler]

Thanks for the reply.  I started building this hill scene kind of half cocked.  I liked the look of the colored foilage that fell from the trees that I made.  Now looking at it, you would probably only see the leaves like that on a lawn.  I'm trying to avoid the bright yellows as much as I can.  My version of fall is from living in southern Minnesota.  Most of the yellows aren't as bright as in other areas of the country.  Thanks again for the ideas.

[tstage]

Art,

Did you use a mortise and pestle to crush your leaves?  Or did you use a coffee grinder or blender?  If the latter, was your wife in the room while you were doing it?   Thanks.

Tom 

[ARTHILL]

Red, orange, yellow and browns. I went out in the fall and got a variety of leaves, sorted them by color, crushed them and put them through a sieve and used that. Some of the Noch leaf material would work. You will want sticks and bushes as well. Little pieces of super tree work as well as small pieces of caspia. I also add some tall grass from WS and little chunks of Faix fur.

The point is lots of variety and clutter.

[secondhandmodeler]

I was wondering what to use for a hillside forest floor in fall.  Right now, my hillside looks like a park.  I was going to use different clump foilages from WS.  Now I'm afraid that it will be too green.  Any ideas ?  Here is a picture of what I've done so far.  I still have a few trees to plant, but I'm not going to completely fill it in.

Any suggestions?