Best Of Interactive Scenery Clinic Week1: Ground Cover: Trees: Shrubs

[shark_jj]

I quickly "greened up" a piece of Sedum and placed it in the area.  Nothing is glued and the photo is a little fuzzy since I am hand holding at 1 second, but it does allow me to visualize.  I prefer the effect of the Sedum tree and its branches to the Woodland Scenics trees.  Since this is a Clinic, I think we have a very good Learning Tip developing here, which is that in the Transition Area you require a greater level of detail, i.e. tree trunks and branches, than is required in the background area. 

[DKS]

Some tinted Sculptamold, applied around tinted Hydrocal rockwork, prior to adding ground cover. The darker band across the top is a dirt road that was shaped into the Sculptamold as it was setting.

[wm3798]

If you want those sedum trees to really pop, combine a couple of stalks to make a more vertical canopy.  As is, they look a little too much like umbrellas...



Check it out...
http://wmrywesternlines.net/scen_trees.php#tree_top

Lee

[chuck geiger]

I have been using real dirt. I sift it through a strainer into flat latex paint which is the same color as the dirt. It is a sand color in the area of California I am modeling. I do not spray the dirt with water and glue. It causes the dirt to darken. After drying, I shop vac the area. I am coming back with the static generator with WS Honey Gold static grass. After it dries, I come back over the area again to layer the grass. I dribble in just a touch of WS ground cover like turf, burnt and yellow grass to represent flowers, weeds and seed pods. This looks scale, like John said, In N scale you have to be cognizant of the size of scenery attributes.

[3rdrail]

I've been mixing brown concrete coloring with plaster for years. The only time I still use white plaster is for rock faces, since I use thin washes to color rock.

As to dirt, I use NO ground cover, just paint, as any granular material resembles pebbles in N scale.

Lots of rock on my little layout:

[chuck geiger]

For you guys modeling the East and PA. Louie my scenery mentor at the Lehigh and Keystone Valley Modle RR club in Bethlehem, PA taught me a trick.

1.) Use clusters for background trees
2.) Small to medium trees for the foreground
3.) A mix he called "spinach" for the clutter up to the trees
from the right a way. Mix several colors of WS foam in
white glue and use it for clutter.

Here's how he uses it on the club:

[wm3798]

The "clutter" I've used is the ground foam that mixes with the black spray paint when I'm making puff ball trees.





It comes out dark and coarse, and does a pretty good job representing thick underbrush.  If it looks too dark, you can dust over it with some lighter ground foam.

Lee

[railbuilderdave]

This topic is full of good help.
Thanks,
Dave

[DKS]

Before the advent of all the neat stuff like Supertrees and Silflor, I made trees using dried weeds from florist shops, sprayed with flat gray paint and topped with Woodland Scenics foliage. Ground cover was static grass topped with fine ground foam, chopped up pieces of foliage clusters, and hand-planted bits of tree moss (my layout was small enough that I didn't need to use mass application techniques). The forest floors were covered with a mix of brown dyed sawdust, chopped up weeds, and bits of twigs for tree fall, bonded in place with dilute carpenter's glue. Rock was all cast in place.

[Skip]

I have some background mountains on my new layout that is to hide the return loop on the second level.  I have built it with blue foam and plaster cloth.  I plan on painting it flat black.  I have recently (last 6 months) picked up some black poly fiber.  Can't remember where.  Anyway, I am going to use this for my "puff ball canopy" after coating with ground foam.  The plan, as I have stated here before, is for autumn.  I'll put Scenic Express type trees up front.
 Pictures to follow.

[davefoxx]

What an awesome thread and what talented modelers there are out there!  Here's my theory on the following subjects:

Transition area: I observed the real world, and, in my area, I noticed that adjacent to highway and railroad right-of-ways, there often is a taper in height from ground cover and brush to the trees that become the forest.  So, on my layout, I used Scenic Express turf and flock as the ground cover and Woodland Scenics Fine-Leaf Foliage in various shades to represent the brush.  I blended these materials together and used them to transition to the forest.


Trees: I use trees with trunks, because I have a small layout and do not believe that I could effectively force the perspective to get away with modeling just the "tops" of the forest canopy in the distance.

I think a lot of people really under-estimate the height of real trees, so, to me, poly-fibre balls and ground foam always look like just that and do not capture the look of a real forest.  There needs to be the vertical element.  To effectively model the forest canopy, I believe that you must force the viewer to believe that every tree has a trunk in your woods.  To do that, the first row of trees, at a minimum, must have trunks and be tall.  That is, the entire tree in the first row or rows must be modeled.  This scene is a long way from being finished, but look what trees that are not too selectively compressed in height do for it.


Dave Foxx
Rising Sun, Maryland

P.S. Sorry to recycle old pictures, but I'm still at the office.  I couldn't wait to get home to respond to this great thread.

[chuck geiger]

A couple of RAILWIRE HEADS have talked about painting the area to be sceniced, flat black. It is a great way to give depth to the scenery and it covers up and plaster or foam. Joe Fugate tip: Spray the tops of the trees yellow, it pops them out of the background.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Oh man, Dave Foxx, I think it's something in the water supply around here, because you just said almost EXACTLY what I'd have to say about trees!

I'd just like to add that I think even commercial trees are WAY too small. Take a look at the way these relate to the train:




3 times the height, at a minimum.

So:

[davefoxx]

Ed,

We are definitely on the same page when it comes to modeling trees.  The scenery, including trees, should dwarf the trains.  Don't get me wrong, trains are big, but Mother Nature is much larger.  In my case, I just don't have the time or the desire to hand-build the hundreds of trees it will take to cover my layout.  I think the selective compression of the height of the trees that I chose is a nice balance between size and cost.   The manufacturer of my trees does make taller trees, and I admit that taller would look even better.  But this isn't exactly the dream layout, so I'm willing to compromise here and there without losing sleep.  Your scenery, by the way, looks fantastic!  How are the rest of us supposed to compete with that?! 

Dave Foxx

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I agree Dave, actually. I think you've done a really good job with it, don't get me wrong.

I'm just about pushing it...