Weekend Update 12/18/11

[Puddington]

Honestly Pud, I think the super trees go much further than the woodland scenics stuff for the same price. It's $25 for a box that does a decent amount. $25 doesn't get you much WS stuff these days.

Could be..... I just "gulp" at the price of basically all trees....now I know why people model the desert and mountains......urban as well...............that's it; to hell with the interior of B.C.... I'm modeling the prairies...one tree per 100 miles....................

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Urban being cheaper? Instead of trees you need to build forests of $40 building kits...

[mcjaco]

Pud, MiNi uses Supertrees.  Jamie's turned making them into an art. 

Cheap, and well worth it over the Woodland Scenics.

[MichaelWinicki]

Urban being cheaper? Instead of trees you need to build forests of $40 building kits...

That's about the size of it.

And when it comes right down to it, for the price of a new loco or four higher-end freight cars you could make yourself one very large large SuperTree forest.

-Two boxes of Scenic Express SuperTrees (the Value Pack) @ $25 each
-One Scenic Express Green Tones Flock & Turf @ $42
-One bottle of Matte Medium @ $6
-A couple bottles of cheap hairspray from the dollar store. 

$100 total.

[Scottl]

I`m still working through my first box of Supertrees.  To me, what really makes a great textural difference is the Noch leaf flock:

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1009

It``s oversized for n scale, but still gives a much more leafy and detailed texture than ground foam does.  Like the armatures, a $10 shaker goes a long way, and Ed`s suggestion of giving some color variation with paint spray worked for me as well.  I use spray glue rather than hair spray- much tackier.

[Dave V]

I went through the same Super Trees versus foliage cluster/puffball drill about a year ago.

This is what I ended up with...  A mix:



When viewed at a lower angle the foreground versus background tree thing works out better:

[rickb773]

1) Woodland Scenics lost their original poly fiber manufacturer and their substitute was an ugly tangled mess. Micro Mark came out with a much cheaper black alternative polly fiber which was black (worked fine) and I understand their current product is brown-black which should be even better and is significantly cheaper than WS.
2) "Puff balls" do not have to be balls. You can shape them significantly before you affix flock with hairspray. You just happen to get lazy when you are making 2,000-3,000 of them (my old 18'x19' L shaped layout).

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I think another thing Dave has going on there is that with the supertrees, the scene became much more vertical because the Super Trees are a more prototypical height about the trains. Puffball trees fail when in close proximity to trains because they're almost never the correct height.

[rickb773]

But since they are used more in eastern scenery they are hills which nicely dwarf the trains. Mission accomplished.

[Smike]

Super Trees, Puffballs, WS this and that, its all good "if" you have variety. Variation in size and color is the major key ingredient in realistic wooded scenes. I used everything in my arsenal to make this scene (mainly super trees, but no puff balls, which I would if this scene wasn't only 12" wide) I even used a package of those super tuffs ($$$ but they are totally pimp)

I second that statement that a box of super trees goes a ridiculously long way in N scale. (and nothing matches the variety in one box) 

[seusscaboose]

wow. that picture is no joke.

[Scottl]

Holy cow, that photo is incredible.  You've been holding out on us (or I've missed it!).

[DKS]

Holy cow, that photo is incredible.  You've been holding out on us (or I've missed it!).

Missed it. https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=24699.msg243414#msg243414

Also https://www.therailwire.net/forum/index.php?topic=22597.msg214980#msg214980

[chuck geiger]

Love the tufts in the rock talus

[Scottl]

Thanks David.