There are a lot of guides out there on the 'Net on how to create tabletop trees for different kinds of games. Most of them don't really appeal to me, since the trees don't look very real or are very flimsy. Some of the kits that use plastic trunks that you dip in glue and then add flock look decent however. I decided to come up with something that would look very real and be durable, and it turns out it was a bit of work but worth it. What follows is the basic process I use to make my trees.
1) The first thing I do is get some coat hanger wire. I cut pieces into segments of various lengths, and then I use pliers to twist these segments together. Coat hanger wire is very strong, so the tree will last forever. Just don't ever step on it, as I assume it will not give to much and hurt a foot pretty well.You could also use floral wire here which is easier to bend.
2) The next step in my process is to create some smaller branches for a more realistic effect using a twisted strands of copper wire or the like. Twist up the wires around the tree to make smaller branches. The ends of the wires were split for more realism. Now we start to see a tree skeleton that looks plausible?
3) After the skeleton is done, it gets messy. I coat the entire frame in toilet paper or paper towels dipped in PVA glue. This is not easy, but I basically wrap the skeleton like a mummy. The paper is very wet at this stage and extremely sticky. Also, to the outside observer, this stage looks very dubious.
Once the paper has dried overnight, I glue the entire sculpture or mummy tree to a piece of MDF board ...a circle cut using a
box cutter...with wood glue or the like. Some kind of glue that will
last and not break or crack. I did not use PVA here since I don't trust
it to hold the heavy wire over time.
4) When the mummy tree is dried to the MDF board, the fun and the magic happens. This is the painting of the bark stage where something that looks silly actually turns into something that looks very cool. I first coat the tree in a dark base coat of black using a large brush. When that dries, I drybrush various shades of brown starting with the darkest and going to the lightest. You can lighten your brown with yellow or even an orange. Using white made the color look mauve and not pleasing to my eye at least. You can see how the twisted toilet paper has the sort of texture of real tree bark. Very cool indeed.
5) After the painting of the bark is done, it is time to add foliage. This is the step that can be done many ways. For my trees, I use Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber in green color. I add PVA glue to the branch extremities and glue clumps of the fiber to the tree. I repeat this process until I get a nice, bushy look. You can also base the MDF with some sand or small rock or whatever at this point. Things look good here, but the leaves do not look convincing to me being all one color. The fibrous look of them does not bother me for some reason. So onto the next step..final highlighting and base work.
6) The final process is very fun and easy to do. I dip a large drybrush in shades of yellow and orange, and I lightly overbrush areas of the fiber to give the foliage a multicolor look. Yellow is used for extreme highlights, and darker green is used in the cracks and crevices. At this stage, the base is painted and flocked with some of the static grass which makes it really pop. I also like to add some rocks around the roots to hide holes...usually made from broken up pieces of cork and then basecoated black. I highlight these rocks with various shades of grey. This is the final product, a very nice looking and long lasting tree that should not bend, break, or shed any leaves.
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