General Discussion (Model Railroader)

I guess I am "fortunate" in the respect I am modeling northern Oklahoma which is not known for its national forests.  There are trees, but not in the density that CNJ is modeling because of locale.  I do have to admit that CNJ's forest photos are very realistic and inspiring, but again, I do Oklahoma plains in summer (wheat rush time).

I also do not care for making trees, but I am fortunate that I am married to a woman who is an artist and she makes the trees.  often, when we travel, she rides along making trees while I drive and when returning home, I have a "new crop" to add.  Also trees in Oklahoma are for the most part different breeds than the northeast or the rockies.  But I love to do scenery, and I like for it to draw comments from visitors (good ones), so I applaud anyone who will take the time to "top off" a great layout with great scenery.

 I will say I am not a great fan of the cottonball style of trees, the scenery looks too condensed to these midwestern eyes.

Some great work in the photos posted.

Bob

For dense forests, I prefer polyfiber trees. It is the easiest and cheapest way to fill in a large are with trees. I use Super Trees and WS Armature trees for the foreground and that is where you really see individual trees. Beyond the first row or two, everything seems to blend together. You could go to great expense to get great looking individual trees, but is it really worth the time and effort? My feeling about background trees is pretty much the same as I feel about backdrops. They really don't need to be that detailed to be effective. You want the viewer's attention drawn to the foreground. All I want in backdrops and background scenery is to not be a distraction. If those are poorly done, that can be distracting. On the other hand, if they are too detailed, that can draw the eye as well. This is why the polyfiber method works for me. It suggests a large area of trees without really creating great looking individual trees. Here's a large hillside I did last year.

My layout is HO but the houses and telephone poles near the top of the hill are N scale. This was my first attempt at forced perspective and I think it worked fairly well.

The one big mistake people make is painting their trees one solid color, every trees has many different colors, even a stand of the same species of tree you can see many variations ,  in green trees add a bit of yellow to some branches, remember there are shadows, the inside of the tree is much darker than outer branches, I live in an area of massive hardwoods and the trees vary in size( do the same on your layout) and there are always a few evergreens poking up here and there,  get a book on painting trees from an art store. as some others quoted, get away from your forest looking like a smooth bunch of green painted cotton balls.

tatans:

The one big mistake people make is painting their trees one solid color, every trees has many different colors, even a stand of the same species of tree you can see many variations ,  in green trees add a bit of yellow to some branches, remember there are shadows, the inside of the tree is much darker than outer branches, I live in an area of massive hardwoods and the trees vary in size( do the same on your layout) and there are always a few evergreens poking up here and there,  get a book on painting trees from an art store. as some others quoted, get away from your forest looking like a smooth bunch of green painted cotton balls.

I think that's good advice for foreground trees and even for single trees in the background but for background forests, it is not necessary to work in the same level of detail. When we look at distance woods, we see a cluster of trees that tend to blend together and we don't see that same level of detail that we do when we look at a single specimen or at trees up close. As with all forms of scenery, the amount of detail needed diminshes as the distance increases.

That is certainly true if replicating long or vast distances. But in the case of my mountain as pictured, the scene there is only about 3' deep with the mountain going up steeply. Likened to CNJs scenery, there would need to be highly detailed trees of full size starting up the slope for a good distance before tapering off to smaller less detailed trees further toward the top. I know every single tree in full detail need not be placed, but interspersed with tree tops inbetween made of the super tree material should do the trick I think. You shouldn't be able to see any trunks and only a bit of branches the higher the mountain goes I believe.

Matt

Hi from Belgium,

My expansion of my Maclau River in Nscale go to an Appalachian look which need a lot of canopy on the vertical scenery.

I am not convinced by the puff balls trees and I am looking for something like a "cluster foam" canopy for the background. In foreground I will use like super amatures trees.

This wonderful layout is in HO but the hills are all covered with cluster of foam. www.zanestrains.com

He covered these acres of hills with a carpet like system; hardshell is made and after piece of roughly 12"x15" heavy paper are covered on the workbench with hotglued cluster foam. These carpets are glued on the hardshell. Seems are covered with individual pieces of cluster.

About the super trees the armature come from a natural plant. The name in french is "écume de mer". I don't remenber the scientific name but you can find it on the net.

It growth in the north of Europe and probably in the north of America. Seeds are avaible here in Europe at seeds flowers distributor. The armature are the flowers of the pant which is a pretty blauw flower.

It growth easily and come down in autumn. You just need to dry the flowers and after....you know what to do with it.

I see above a tutorial about making foam, nice; did anyone have a tutorial about to make cluster foam?

Marc

Hi again,

This post push me to make some research on the web with google about the plant which made the super trees armature.

If you ask "ecume de mer plante" on a google search, you can find a lot of informations about or little trees.

The scientific name is "TELOXYS ARISTATA" or for us "Ecume de mer" or "Zeeschuim".

Links are offerd to seeds distributor even on Ebay; I find seeds for 1.70euros for one bag of seeds.

Now , we are farmer, no more model railroaders!

Marc

jecorbett:

tatans:

The one big mistake people make is painting their trees one solid color, every trees has many different colors, even a stand of the same species of tree you can see many variations ,  in green trees add a bit of yellow to some branches, remember there are shadows, the inside of the tree is much darker than outer branches, I live in an area of massive hardwoods and the trees vary in size( do the same on your layout) and there are always a few evergreens poking up here and there,  get a book on painting trees from an art store. as some others quoted, get away from your forest looking like a smooth bunch of green painted cotton balls.

I think that's good advice for foreground trees and even for single trees in the background but for background forests, it is not necessary to work in the same level of detail. When we look at distance woods, we see a cluster of trees that tend to blend together and we don't see that same level of detail that we do when we look at a single specimen or at trees up close. As with all forms of scenery, the amount of detail needed diminshes as the distance increases.

I would suggest that we can takethis further.  It's not just distance that affects what we see... but whether we pay attention to it.  Without waffling to much - our brains are pretty busy just processing what we need to see or select to pay attention to.  In order to cope with the mass of information available we filter out huge amounts.

A big part of this involves "not bothering" with loads of stuff that is "normal" / that we are "used to".  On the other hand we very rapidly pay attention to anything that is new,sudden,unusual or (particularly) a threat.

We can use both things.  For the first we can get ourselves to assume that because there are very realistic trees in sight in the foreground then all the rest are very accurate. 

We can then elaborate on this by creating a focus point that will attract attention.  When this is very detailed it will "confirm" what the brain is already assuming.

So if we highly detail the front row of trees and maybe the second and then gradually reduce the level of detail as we go back we will have a good start... but then if we insert something into the trees, a track way,building or whatever and both make that highly detailed and apply the same concentration of details atound it... then we will further convince ourselves of the overall level of detail... that we are not actually looking at or paying attention to.

This is the art of camoflage... making everything "normal" and, where appropriate, distracting attention away from things we don't want attention paid to.

Dave-the-Train:

jecorbett:

tatans:

The one big mistake people make is painting their trees one solid color, every trees has many different colors, even a stand of the same species of tree you can see many variations ,  in green trees add a bit of yellow to some branches, remember there are shadows, the inside of the tree is much darker than outer branches, I live in an area of massive hardwoods and the trees vary in size( do the same on your layout) and there are always a few evergreens poking up here and there,  get a book on painting trees from an art store. as some others quoted, get away from your forest looking like a smooth bunch of green painted cotton balls.

I think that's good advice for foreground trees and even for single trees in the background but for background forests, it is not necessary to work in the same level of detail. When we look at distance woods, we see a cluster of trees that tend to blend together and we don't see that same level of detail that we do when we look at a single specimen or at trees up close. As with all forms of scenery, the amount of detail needed diminshes as the distance increases.

I would suggest that we can takethis further.  It's not just distance that affects what we see... but whether we pay attention to it.  Without waffling to much - our brains are pretty busy just processing what we need to see or select to pay attention to.  In order to cope with the mass of information available we filter out huge amounts.

A big part of this involves "not bothering" with loads of stuff that is "normal" / that we are "used to".  On the other hand we very rapidly pay attention to anything that is new,sudden,unusual or (particularly) a threat.

We can use both things.  For the first we can get ourselves to assume that because there are very realistic trees in sight in the foreground then all the rest are very accurate. 

We can then elaborate on this by creating a focus point that will attract attention.  When this is very detailed it will "confirm" what the brain is already assuming.

So if we highly detail the front row of trees and maybe the second and then gradually reduce the level of detail as we go back we will have a good start... but then if we insert something into the trees, a track way,building or whatever and both make that highly detailed and apply the same concentration of details atound it... then we will further convince ourselves of the overall level of detail... that we are not actually looking at or paying attention to.

This is the art of camoflage... making everything "normal" and, where appropriate, distracting attention away from things we don't want attention paid to.

My thinking exactly Dave and you said it better than I did. That's why I use a mixture of Super Trees and WS trees for the foreground and it creates the effect I want. Sure, if you stare at a puffball tree for very long, you can see it for what it is, but how many people will do that. It is the same reason effective forests can be painted on a backdrop without painting individual trees. I used to watch the Bob Ross painting series on PBS and that was how he painted his backgrounds. The artist's trick is to suggest that there is more there than meets the eye.

I love Super Trees but they do have one drawback. When using them to depict larger trees, their trunks are too small. I don't think such narrow trunks could support a large tree in nature. When I do find a nice big bushy section of Super Tree to depict a large tree, I will place it in a cluster of trees where it's trunk is not too noticeable. I also avoid placing a Super Tree near the front of the layout where a clumsy elbow can snap it off. If I do put one near the front, I will surround it with WS trees for protection.

 Why are everyone's trees so juvenile?   Forests tent to be established with mature and post-mature trees....which are typically much, much taller than locomotives.

David B

 Brilliant thread.

 One of the best tree threads I've come across in a long time.

 Mark me down as a non-puffball guy.  I spent a lot of time researching trees and taking pictures of canopies here in western New York and western PA over the summer and fall.  And puffball forests are much too round at the top... Too much "puff" if you will.  

Real canopies in this neck of the woods are much more "pointy" where each individual tree comes through... You don't have a big puff, but much more of a point.  Even at a great distance you don't have the round "spherical" look that puffball trees create. 

 And when it comes to colors, most layouts don't use anywhere near enough tree colors– even in the peak of summer, the number of greens mother nature throws at us is extraordinary.  Granted we can't replicate every single color, but I think we can use more color variation.

 Here is a tree using a Woodland Scenic armature as a base...

Several points that really should be addressed further...

It is indeed true that in the real world, when viewing a broad and complex landscape, the brain registers only about a half of what the eyes actually see, "filling in" the rest do to the overwhelming complexity, especially toward the outside of the field of view (this in itself is a very intersting subject when it comes to camoflage and explaining seeing supposedly odd events/things that aren't really there). HOWEVER...when viewing a restricted area, like a small portion of a layout seen relatively close-up, most everything before the viewer is being seen with the central area of vision and in great detail and the same situation does not prevail. This is why puffball trees look so unrealistic. Likewise, there really can't be any modeled transition from detailed Super Trees to the puffballs at any point as one moves away from the viewer, since the viewer will immediately precieve any such break.

The same holds true if you attempt to place say a house in a clearing well back from the front of the layout. If you place more detailed trees immediately surrounding it, the eye will precieve the sudden change in the level of detail between it and the surrounding forest.The only real way to give the impression of great distances on the layout is to employ a graduated series of ground foam "leaf" sizes, decreasing from front to back. That will be far more likely to trick the viewer. Even better is to simply avoid creating scenes of considerable depth, unless the scene can be complosed of a series of distinct hills layered to convey increasing distance. In that situation, other rather more complex tricks can be employed to fool the viewer and make the scene look truly realistic.

The point also came up about the rather spindly nature of Super Tree trunks, with the comment being made that forest trees often have stout trunks. But again, it matters exactly where and when you are modeling. In much of the eastern U.S. the trees, even in heavily wooded areas, are typically young second growth, often on former farmland and often becoming established post-1960. Such trees, usually densely packed, have experienced slow growth and have very spindley trunks, even though their tops may reach 60'. In my area of NY and I'm sure a great many other areas, stands of trees with trunks more than a foot or so in diameter are very much the exception. In Canada, or the Pacific Northwest logging regions, I'm sure that the situation is quite different and the modeling would have to reflect this.

Another aspect not so far touched upon here are the effects of atmosphere in modeling. Believe it or not, I weathered my forests! The density/moisture/amount of atmosphere between the viewer and more distant objects in the real world distinctly alters what the viewer sees in the way of color intensity and definition of detail. This is something one quickly learns in landscape painting and is why most of even the very best looking model railroad photos can't be mistaken for the real thing, even at first glance. I really can't go into detail here about this (a separate thread perhaps?) but it should be a significant consideration for the advanced hobbyist.

CNJ831

 Wow CNJ you took a great thread and made it even better!

 Solid point about the transition between using real trees and puffballs... You're 100% right.  You just can't do it cleanly.  No matter what you do you end up trying to transition from an area that looks one way to one that looks totally different– And it's very apparent...

davidmbedard:

 Why are everyone's trees so juvenile?   Forests tent to be established with mature and post-mature trees....which are typically much, much taller than locomotives.

David B

It's a form of selective compression. I live on a five acre wooded lot in central Ohio and am surrounded by 70-80 foot trees. To make scale trees that tall, you would need 9-10 inch trees in HO. That would dwarf most layouts. In N scale, you might be able to get something a little closer which is one of the advantages of N scale, but that is a world I dare not venture into.