FORUM CLINIC: Building realistic scenery

[AggroJones]

Hey Joe, how does this clinic thing work? Can anyone chime in with helpful info or we all just listen to YOU?

[jfugate]

I need to add some additional notes about doing conifers ...

In order to get the right texture, when applying the foam, first spray adhesive on the bare bottle-bru***ree and sprinkle on dark green coarse ground foam (similar to what is done for the decidious trees).

However, conifer needles generally are much finer that the broad leaves of decidious trees, so after applying the coarse ground foam, spray the tree again lightly with spray adhesive and sprinkle on fine dark green ground foam.

The coarse ground foam gives the tree body, but the fine ground foam gives it the proper texture contrast to decidious trees.

Make sense?

[jfugate]

NEXT TOPIC: From the ground up - Realistic conifer trees F-A-S-T!

My favorite technique for making lots of good looking conifer trees fast is to use a variation on the bottle bru***ree technique I got from Dennis Brown of Chico, CA. Dennis's techniques are described in great detail in the March 1997 issue of Railroad Model Craftsman. I first learned these techniques directly from Dennis at a PCR convention in 1995.

Another favorite technique of mine for making highly detailed foreground fir trees is the methods used by Pete Vassler of Canyon Creek Scenics ( see http://www.canyoncreekscenics.com/frm_supplies.htm for a great tree kit with instructions ), however, these trees take more time to build and are best left to the onesy-twosey foreground trees ... not entire forests unless you have lots of time -- or money. I'm sure Pete would be glad to sell you a small fortune in trees if you're so inclined! [;)]

Anyhow, back to the Dennis Brown conifer tree technique that I use for my general "conifer forest" tree construction.

Get yourself a variable speed drill, a couple of spring clamps. Take a finishing nail, bend it into a hook shape, and chuck one end of it into the variable speed drill so you can hook onto the central wire of these conifers and give them a good spin with the drill.

Okay, on to making the trees themselves.

Start with electric fence wire (it's soft galvanized steel wire about 16-18 guage or so), bend it into a hairpin U shape.

Then take some sisal rope ( http://doityourself.com/store/6431225.htm ), cut it into chunks about 3" long, and separate the rope completely into its smallest hairlike individual strands.

Spray the U-shaped wire lightly along it's length with spray adhesive (check out the last post for where to get this stuff), then distribute the minute sisal rope hair-like strands along the length of the wire. You can get different densities of tree by how many sisal strands you use and how much you clump the strands along the length of the wire.

Clamp the open end of the U-wire to a table with the spring clamp, hook the loop end of the wire U with the finishing nail hook you chucked into the drill and spin away! In a few moments, this will spin the wire tight and make you a real bottle-brush shape.

Unclamp the bottle-brush and trim it to a christmas tree like cone shape with scissors. The most natural looking conifers are not perfect, so trim the tree inevenly, snip out spots almost down to the trunk, and so on.

Plant your newly trimmed conifer bottle-brush upright into a strip of styrofoam. I keep making these raw bottle-bru***rees until I have 5-10 of them planted into a strip of styrofoam.

From here on out, the steps are nearly identical to the steps used for the deciduous trees.

Spray paint the trunks gray or tan and highlight lightly with flat black.

Spray with spray adhesive and sprinkle on dark green ground foam.

Spray with craft paint to establi***he actual tree color ... for conifers I prefer Design Master Moss green (see: http://www.afloral.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=535 ).

Instead of using light yellow to highlight the conifers' darker foliage, highlight the conifers with Design Master Basil green (see: http://www.afloral.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=535 ).

As before, to plant these trees, I use a small sharp awl to poke holes in my soft vermiculite plaster scenery, put a dab of hot glue on the end of the tree trunk and poke it down into the hole.

Dennis actually would take these bottle bru***rees and stick them into bare tree trunks so the bottle brush formed the top 1/2 to 1/3 of the tree and leave the bare trunk to form the lower part of the tree. However, I prefer the Canyon Creek Scenics' method for trees with trunks showing because they look much more natural. I use the bottle bru***rees for conifers that have foliage going all the way to the ground -- mostly large stands of trees between the tracks and the background.

NEXT TOPIC: Doing realistic rock faces

[jfugate]

Okay, excellent!

We'll also do roads and water.

Hope to post the conifer piece at noon today.

[ukguy]

I'd like to second JSoule on the roads request, and also the blending as I am starting to place buildings around the layout and roads need to be in place and blended and then the buildings need to be placed and blended properly. I also have a road crossing three parrallel(sp?) tracks, on a curve, sheesh, which is about ready to go in.

Last month I would have been grateful for the water clinic but I steamed ahead with the little knowledge I could get and came up with the below, not too bad for a first try I think, I have to add the details so it looks quite raw for now. Water will still be very helpful for the next layout though.




Have fun & be safe
Karl

[potlatcher]

I'd like to see how you do water on your layout.

Tom

[Anonymous]

Joe, in addition to what you have planned, how about something on roads:

paved
dirt
rail crossings
blending with surrounding scenery
etc.

also blending structures with scenery

John
Austin, Texas

[cwclark]

If i may, i'd like to explain to ya'll how i paint rocks...i like colors from the southwest namely, the reds, sienna's, and yellows of the southwestern part of the United States...after building the shell and incoorperating the textured rock faces in, it's time to paint them...my first step is to paint the rock faces and the shell with flat white latex or acrylic paint....then after it dries, i'll look the whole thing over and pick out the spots where the room lighting cast shadows in the rock...ill take a fine mist spray bottle with a mixture of alcohol , wet water , and india ink mixed together and squirt it in all the areas where shadows are cast in the rock face....let it dry....now I'll mix 4 different colors of acrylic paint in plastic throw away cups with 50% wet water and 50% paint in each one..i'll mix yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and red iron oxide in the four different cups...i'll start at the top of the elevated areas first with the lightest color...yellow ochre and stain the upper section of the mountain, then i start working down painting in the desending levels using the next lightest color and work downwards to the darkest color towards the bottom (red iron oxide)...let it all dry... once it dries i''ll take full strength white paint and with a small artist's brush, highlight the ends of the top of the rock faces where the light is cast on the rock at it's brightest points on the tips of the rock face...Chuck

[jfugate]

"You're welcome!" to everyone who has enjoyed this forum clinic.

With the soon to be posted piece about constructing conifers, I'm nearing the end of the scenery topics I have that I can discuss. Perhaps I could do a post about painting and detailing rocks, but that about covers it.

Does anyone have a favorite scenery topic or question that I have not covered? Something I may have overlooked, perhaps?

Speak up, or we'll be closing out this forum clinic soon and moving on to something else.

[electrolove]

I have just discovered your articles about building realistic scenery. The only thing I can say is WOW, I love it! Absolutely fantastic... I'm just started to build a HO layout and this is exactly what I need. Thanks again.

[jfugate]

John:

Excellent ... tell me how it goes. Anyone else on here use SuperTrees?

[Anonymous]

Cannot wait to try this one, Joe. Thanks once again.

John
Austin, Texas

[jfugate]

NEXT TOPIC: From the ground up - Realistic deciduous trees F-A-S-T!

My favorite method for building great looking deciduous trees quickly involves a natural delicate plant Scenic Express calls "SuperTrees" and that Noch calls "Seafoam".

You can buy an entire small "tumbleweed" sized bu***hat will make 50+ trees from Scenic Express for $20. Call 1-800-234-9995 and ask for their catalog. It's a gold mine of scenery materials!

Also FCSME member Bill Carl and I have some similar techniques for making these trees -- see the FCSME website for one way to do supertrees: http://www.fcsme.org/bcarl/how_to_make_scenic_express_supertrees.htm

I pull sprigs from the raw tumbleed and throw them into a large bowl. Next, I dip the sprigs in a 1:7 matte medium solution, then hang the sprigs upside down to dry. Some sprigs have an unnatural curve to them ... while they are drying upside down, I will clip a clothes pin onto the end of these sprigs to pull them straight while they dry.

The matte medium treatement helps a lot to stiffen and toughen up these delicate sprigs so they're more durable on your layout.

I let the sprigs dry overnight. I ususally do at least 50 sprigs at a time.

The next day, I take these sprigs down and stick them upright into styrofoam blocks usually 5-10 trees at a time. The next steps you need to do outside where there's plenty of ventilation. Do the following steps one right after the other without waiting for the paint to dry.

First, I spray the sprigs a tan or grey color using cheap spray paint.

Next, I lightly mist the sprigs with a hint of flat black. You just want to create a kind of shadow effect on the ends of the branches and the tree trunk. Most of the tan/grey color should still be showing.

Next, spray the sprig branch bodies (but not the trunk) with spray adhesive (like Elmer's spray adhesive shown here: http://www.pearlpaint.com/shop~parentID~984~categoryID~975.htm ) and sprinkle on medium green coarse ground foam. I don't worry too much about the exact color, since I control the exact color with later steps. Any medium green color will work.

You can control how dense you make the tree foliage by how much adhesive you spray on and how much ground foam you sprinkle on. I generally try for at least some amount of see-thru look to the trees, so I don't get too agressive with the spray adhesive and the ground foam sprinking.

After the trees have their foam applied, now it's time to give them the proper coloration. I use craft spray paint of various green shades. A favorite of mine is Design Master Basil green (see: http://www.afloral.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=535 ) -- this is a nice yellowish green that I think simulates the color of summer-time deciduous tree foliage for Maple, Ash, Alder, Elm and so on.

Oaks tend to have darker foliage, more like Design Master Hunter Green. Avoid painting the trunk part of the tree ... keep to the foliage area with the spray paint. If you do happen to get a bit of green onto the lower tree trunk, don't fret. Moss and green "mildew" are not uncommon on real tree trunks.

Then to finish, I'll take a pale yellow spray paint and mist it lightly onto the tree from above to simulate the effect of sunlight on the foliage.

And there you go -- your trees are ready to plant!

Once you've prepared the sprigs overnight with the matte medium solution, you can crank out finished trees 5-10 at a whack in just a few minutes time. And to top it off, they look *great*. I use this technique for most of the decidious trees on the Siskiyou Line and they look wonderful. Like this:


(click to enlarge)

To plant these trees, I use a small sharp awl to poke holes in my soft vermiculite plaster scenery, put a dab of hot glue on the end of the tree trunk and poke it down into the hole.

NEXT TOPIC: From the ground up - Realistic conifer trees F-A-S-T!

[jfugate]

Yep, hope to post it over lunch hour today here in the Pacific Time Zone (Oregon).

[Anonymous]

Bump and hoping Joe is about ready with:

From the ground up - Realistic deciduous trees F-A-S-T!

John
Austin, Texas

[Anonymous]

Thanks once again Joe. Hope this formum keeps going for awhile. I plan to try some of your techniques this weekend on the small (4x8) layout my grandson and I are building.

John
Austin, Texas

[jon grant]

I've also tried using Silflor in a couple of scenes. I love the stuff, although it's a wee bit expensive to do a whole field with






Jon

[RoyalOaker]

Joe,

and everyone else that is offering tips.

This is some great stuff! Keep it going.

[krump]

excellent stuff here guys, thanks Joe

[jfugate]

Ron:

I used DAP Weldwood contact cement in a 3 oz bottle.


The stuff smells to high heaven, so be careful! Here's a link to an online source:
http://www.thehardwarehut.com/catalog-product.php?p_ref=2054

I applied it, let it sit for a couple minutes, then pressed down the sweatshirt material into the cement, fuzzy side down. Then I waited overnight, came back and ripped up the sweatshirt material, leaving behind all the fuzz. A light dusting of tan plaster-tempera powder, mist with water and voila! You get what you see in the photos.

As to the material, I purchased white sweatshirt material and dyed it a nice golden yellow using Rit fabric dye.

[n2mopac]

Joe,

One quick question. I am very interested in your "fuzzy sweatshirt" grass now that I have seen the pics you posted on the previous page. I think this might work for taller N scale grass. My question is what type of contact cement did you use to glue to grass down before ripping the material off to leave the grassy texture? Thanksk,

Ron

[jfugate]

Bump ...

[ukguy]

Well I guess its good to know I'm not completely insane, I came up with the feather idea a couple of weeks ago for ferns but havent had time to try it out yet (although I immediately bought a bag of feathers when the idea dawned on me) which is why I havent passed it on to you Spacemouse. I plan on using a slightly darker green and brushing on a thicker paint to give the 'leaves' some body. I'll let you know if it works out.

Thanks again Joe for ALL the help/info. Like Ray I have been following the thread daily since the beginning, usually checking more than once a day to make sure I dont miss anything. Excellent tips and advice, many thanks to everyone.

Have fun,
Karl.

[SpaceMouse]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jfugate

SpaceMouse:

I'd take the feathers and spray paint them heavily with green paint to give them the right color and some body. As it is, their texture is too "fluffy".

Might be worth a try, and could be a source of fairly cheap, nice looking ferns.

Exactly what I was thiniking. Although that is O scale there.

[jfugate]

SpaceMouse:

I'd take the feathers and spray paint them heavily with green paint to give them the right color and some body. As it is, their texture is too "fluffy".

Might be worth a try, and could be a source of fairly cheap, nice looking ferns.

[SpaceMouse]

The color is a little off, but that can be solv-ed.

Great. thanks. I bookmarked that sucker.

[hminky]

QUOTE: Ferns are a tough one

I have a web article about making ferns from feathers:

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/ferns/



Hope that helps
Harold[:D]

[Anonymous]

Awesome. The grass techniques are more like artistry - the depth of field illusion created by using the different methods is amazing!

[jfugate]

As promised, here's a photo showing what's been discussed recently about scenery textures front to back. The foreground is fuzzy sweatshirt grass, the middle ground (behind the tracks) is the scrap sweatshirt material that was used for the fuzzy grass in the foreground, and the distant background is yellow plaster-tempera with just a hint of blue-gray color added to give it some distance.


(click to enlarge photo)

There's a canyon between the middle ground and the background with a river in it, and that river runs to the right (just out of the scene), turns toward the fascia, and runs under a two-span truss bridge, and to the edge of the fascia.

[jfugate]

TOPIC THIS POST: From the ground up - Realistic bushes and ground cover

For bushes and other low ground cover I use four basic techniques. In all cases, I glue the bushes / ground cover in place with hot glue. The hot glue enables me to plant a bush and immediately move on. Do use some glove protection on the main hand you use to plant with because hot glue can cause very nasty burns if you don't protect yourself.


1. Woodload Scenics Foliage

This is the stuff that comes as ground foam bonded to a mesh netting. You can tear off chuncks, roll it up into a ball-like shape, and plant it with hot glue as an instant bush. It comes in 4 colors: light green, medium green, dark green, and conifer green. I use mostly the first three colors for bushes, with a preference for lots of light green, because that's the color many real bushes are as compared to trees. I only use conifer green once in a blue moon as foliage on background conifers.


2. Lichens and ground foam

Lichens has a form of branch structure that looks good under ground foam foliage. I typically spray the lichens a light tan or brown-gray, then hit it with spray adhesive and sprinkle on green ground foam, and it's ready to plant with the hot glue gun.


3. Horsetail foliage from Scenic Express (see note below)

Scenic's Express horsetail foliage is great stuff ... I love using it to model vines, blackberry bushes and the like. It has a nice leafy look, with the underside of the leaves being noticeably lighter than the upper side. This looks great in the foreground for low, vine-like growth. It also looks great growing up buildings and tree trunks where approriate. The stuff's a bit pricey, but you don't need use a lot of it to be effective. I have one mat of horsetail foliage that has lasted me for nearly two years on various scenery projects. I use hot glue to plant the horsetail foliage.


4. Scraps from Deciduous trees (see next topic post for details)

These look the best, because they have a nice branch armature under all those leaves. And when you're making deciduous trees using the techniques I'll be describing in the next post, you'll end up with some ratty looking trees now and then that can better live their life as a collection of bushes instead of one big ugly tree. Again, I use hot glue to plant these tree-scrap bushes.

Here's some photos showing the kinds of bushes and ground cover discussed here, and how they look in a scene:


(click photo to enlarge)

And in case you can't figure out what is what, here's the same photo with everything labeled:

(click photo to enlarge)


Next, realistic deciduous trees you can make quickly and that don't cost you an arm and a leg.


NOTE: Scenic express sells a plethoria of great scenery products. Go to their website, click "About Us" and call their 1-800 number, asking for a catalog.

Their web site is: http://www.scenicexpress.com

Frankly, their website is pretty sad. But their catalog is amazing -- I keep one in the "reading room" just to thumb through and use for planning scenery projects. Much of the catalog is full color and it's like the "who's who" of model scenery products. If you are serious about doing good looking model railroad scenery, the Scenic Express catalog is one resource you don't want to be without. (No affiliation with them ... I just love their catalog as a resource).


NEXT TOPIC: From the ground up - Realistic deciduous trees F-A-S-T!