In defense of Puff Ball Trees

[wm3798]

Photo by @DKS

Discuss.
Lee

[nscaler711]

I doubt anyone will disagree with you here, puff ball trees are perfect for the background.
However, its the foreground where they are a hard sell. 

[wazzou]

I really think it depends on the distance from the layout edge.  If you're 12-24", it's probably not ideal, IMO.

[Missaberoad]

Tony Koester put it best... Puff balls make terrible trees, but they are excellent at representing the forrest canopy.

[dem34]

The key thing is ensuring that you use as dark a color as possible for the filter material and that the color used is subtly varied with every puffball. Like if your making a summer forest you should atleast have 4-5 different green foams on hand. And of course, making sure the forest begins with normal armature trees made with similar methods for the leaves.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I would posit that there are few things that puffballs do that a good backdrop could not achieve far more effectively. 

[Philip H]

I would posit that there are few things that puffballs do that a good backdrop could not achieve far more effectively. 

A good backdrop won't fill the gap between itself and the tracks.  Nor does it create effective representations of verticality in that zone.  As you are keenly aware, there are many parts of the country where the steep climb starts track side and ends many hundreds of feet above at a significant angle - all covered in trees.  Representing that in any other way is futile, especially a few trees a night.

And frankly, have you seen a better use of them then on Todd Treaster's layout?

[Ed Kapuscinski]

A good backdrop won't fill the gap between itself and the tracks.  Nor does it create effective representations of verticality in that zone.  As you are keenly aware, there are many parts of the country where the steep climb starts track side and ends many hundreds of feet above at a significant angle - all covered in trees.  Representing that in any other way is futile, especially a few trees a night.

And frankly, have you seen a better use of them then on Todd Treaster's layout?

Yes, but the reality is, in MANY of those places (the ones where puffballs work), the scene would benefit more from having more scale scenery between the puffball face and the tracks.

Here are two examples from a recent trip out to Western Maryland.

This is from the Foley overlook. In this case, I feel like the "puffball approach" would be to include the hillside right next to the tracks covered in puffs. My approach would be to include more of the "flat" scene (that's one locomotive length wide) and represent the hillside with a backdrop behind a few trees.

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The reason the puffballs in Lee's example WORK is because he actually did the same thing.

[chessie system fan]

The key thing is ensuring that you use as dark a color as possible for the filter material...

This is part of my conundrum. Where does one find a cheap supply of that?  There's the woodland Scenics light green variety and the white kind used in pillows.  But what we need is a dark greyish brown.  And I'm skeptical about spray painting white polyester because some white will likely show through here and there.

[chessie system fan]

I'm still perfecting my methods, but I've become a fan of the yarn on a wire style of tree making.  They are indestructible (so great for T trak or other easily bumpable situations!) and greyish brown yarn is easily available.  But most importantly, trees in a forest aren't perfectly rounded mounds.  The canopies are more irregular and jagged than that.  And there are different varieties of tree types in a forest, too.

Here's a quickly planted example. The lighting washes out the brown branches, but you can see the effect in person.

[Dave V]

On my old Juniata Division, the puffballs only really started to work after @Ed Kapuscinski convinced me to add Supertrees to the foreground scenes. It's only when that happens that the eyes and brain are fooled into believing that the background trees have the same level of detail.

[pjm20]

I'm still perfecting my methods, but I've become a fan of the yarn on a wire style of tree making.

Can you elaborate on this? I've not heard of this technique before and the results look really good.

[dem34]

This is part of my conundrum. Where does one find a cheap supply of that?  There's the woodland Scenics light green variety and the white kind used in pillows.  But what we need is a dark greyish brown.  And I'm skeptical about spray painting white polyester because some white will likely show through here and there.

The base material is intended to fill out upholstery and occasionally used as a heavy particle filter in HVAC systems, not as commonly recently. But still you can buy human sized bags of the white stuff for $100 on amazon. I recall the guys going that route that used black clothing dye watered down in a tub and just soaking the fibers in it then drying out.

[JeffB]

The base material is intended to fill out upholstery and occasionally used as a heavy particle filter in HVAC systems, not as commonly recently. But still you can buy human sized bags of the white stuff for $100 on amazon. I recall the guys going that route that used black clothing dye watered down in a tub and just soaking the fibers in it then drying out.

There was a time when Micro Mark was selling black poly fiber for such a purpose.  Not sure if they still carry it, but I bet if they do, it's a lot more expensive than it should be.

Jeff

[Mike C]

This is part of my conundrum. Where does one find a cheap supply of that?  There's the woodland Scenics light green variety and the white kind used in pillows.  But what we need is a dark greyish brown.  And I'm skeptical about spray painting white polyester because some white will likely show through here and there.

  Cheap spray paint works fine . I used a dark green paint , but I think black would work better . This was on my N & W layout 20 years ago . And as everyone commented trees with trunks on the front edge help them a lot .     Mike