Background Trees

[DocDan]

I sort of tried this question once before but...

Does anyone have any opinions on using polyfiber balls with ground foam to make background trees? I'm particulalry interested in creating a fall scene. I'm tinkering with this polyfiber idea versus autumn-colored lichen. I currently have a large suply of polyfiber from some comforters my dog ate through.

My foreground trees, of course, will be more detailed and more fully representative of real trees.

Thanks for any opinions.

Dan

[cmrproducts]

Dan

I am planning on doing the Autumn colors on my layout (25X75 in eastern US)and will be needing a LOT of background trees as I have a 3ft high by 15ft peninsula depicting a deep valley and this will have to be all trees.

I have read a lot about the polyfiber and have used some of the Woodland Scenics green. It is nice once you get on to making the balls. There is also a black polyfiber fil that makes the painting of the white unnecessary. I have not gotten any of this yet.

As for the white it needs to be painted. I tried a green gloss paint but it did not want to cover so I will be trying to use flat black. The flat color covers well on other types of plastic (and this is what polyfiber fil is) so it should work on the white polyfiber.

I plan on using toothpicks (painted black) stuck in the foam and then just stick the puff balls on the toothpicks.

BOB H Clarion, PA

[CNJ831]

Unfortunately neither process is as easy nor straight forward as many might think. First off, colored lichen looks pretty much like colored lichen, even from several feet away (unless at least partially covered with colored ground foam). The white poly fiber balls, as Bob points out, must be painted black in some fashion (as a base for the colored ground foam) but this process has pitfalls. It's hard to handle the extremely stretched poly fiber while painting and often difficult to hide all the white. A shortcoming I've noted with my poly fiber tree-covered hills is that, with time, even the slight weight of the covering foam often tends to "deflate" or cause a decrease in the puffiness of the poly fiber balls, resulting in the leaf canopy flattening out and blending to a certain degree. Still, the poly fiber is probably the best current choice for mass planting.

A dense poly fiber forest will look much more convincing if you start out the edge nearest the tracks or foreground with some short visible tree trunks. Blackened screening it hot glued to the tops of the trunks and the poly fiber attached to it. The screening need only extend rearward several inches before touching the ground but this adds a great deal of realism to the forest.

John

[DocDan]

I've mangaed a couple of test runs this weekend. First, I experimented with coloring the polyfiber. I sued flat black spray for one run and Pullman green for the other. Both look passable.

I'm initially satisfied with my test trees. John makes some good points about polyfiber. I would add for the fall folaige to use a variety of colors including different shaeds of green moving into the browns as well as the more colorful varieties of foam.

I tried to place the more colorful concentrations in the "higher altitudes" with more greens and yellows down low to reflect the varying rate of changes.

Thanks for the great feedback. Both were quite helpful.

Dan

[Anonymous]

Just a color tip......in real life, your bringhtest and boldest colors are close to you and color tends to mist or fade as it gets farther away from you. Kind of a clouding effect..........Jamie

[DocDan]

Great point James. I hadn't taken that into account. I also wanted to add that I'm getting some good results masking the lack of trunks on some trees by strategically placing coarse foam low growth and talus in front of the polyfiber background trees.

Dan