Tehachapi, BC

[railnerd]

Any way of taking one of those attempts cutting it in half and trying to spread the wire out more? — it seems like you are on the right track, but the density of branches looks too high.

-Dave

[mark dance]

An actual creosote bush up close has a rather rag-tag branch structure with very small waxy leaves that make it quite airy:



The examples in Mojave are about 18-36" tall and pretty water starved, typically.  Cultivated one can be much taller, and the leaf colour ranges from quite light to quite dark.  I'll go for something a bit lighter than the above trials.  In any case, I'm looking for alternatives for the branch structure.  I've tried making static grass tufts, but mine usually look too radial, and they didn't take ground foam all that well.  I've also tried twine, but could not get it to hold a shape at all.  (Anyone have a recipe for stiffening twine a little bit?)

How about these?  They would need to be cut down. 



or this



md

[Bendtracker1]

After thinning them out a bit as suggested, I'd also try pushing them deeper into the ground, they don't have much for a trunk base.

[Angus Shops]

Gary, it strikes me that your California Creosote bushes are not all that different from a lot of other line side bush species. Visually they are characterized by a scruffy bunch of dry dead grey branches with a greater or lesser cast of living green leaves that sort of hover above the dead bits. Up here in B.C. those shrubs would probably be Willow and Alder shrubs and they’d be struggling to survive in very nutrient poor and dry (free draining) gravel and loose rock. Maybe not as hot, but very bit as “deserty” as California. So this is an issue I’m going to have to deal with as well.
I would suggest you try a couple of options. One would be to continue with you wire armatures but paint them a light grey colour and only light passing of green ‘leaves’. Or maybe the wire armature with a little twine mixed in to give more branch structure. I’m not sure what material or product was in the photo posted by md, but the shrubby stuff looked pretty good, if a little to healthy (green) looking...
Geoff

[Philip H]

your initial wire armature density looks right to me - its the leaves that I am having trouble with.  Your leaves appear too green on my monitor and go too far down the stems.  The wire might be too thick as well but its hard to tell from the photos.

If you can use a thinner wire and get the leaves to just hang at the tops I'd try that.

[nuno81291]

You may give teased poly fiber a try, paint base color and add foliage. I bet that would get pretty close (looking for images to compare)

[davefoxx]

Actually, I think you're being too hard on yourself.  I think these are a reasonable start.  One suggestion to open up the airiness and get rid of the candelabra look (as you put it) would be to bend those branches outward.  They look too curled up and in to me.  Maybe snip a branch here and there, too.  That might make enough difference for these samples to work for you.  Oh, and as @Bendtracker1 suggested, get them down in the ground more.

DFF

[C855B]

For a possible RTR solution, @John suggested military modeling tufts in one our Zoom meetings, specifically an Army Painter product called "wasteland tufts". British company, tho' I found 'em stateside at Competition Minis.

"Wasteland" is certainly appropriate for the area around Sandcut that Gary is modeling. I used to live near there.   

[GaryHinshaw]

Thanks for the input gents - good suggestions to explore.  A bit of follow-up if I may:

* Mike, do you have any of these tufts on hand?  If so, please try to snap and post a pic if you can.  It's very frustrating to try and find good close-up product photos on the web.
* Nuno, I did try poly fibre, but I found it super hard to work with as a standalone element because it won't hold a shape very well.  It might help to have an armature, but then it's super hard to avoid puff balls.
* Mark, is that first product you posted one of the Martin Wellberg mats?  It is a bit lush for Mojave, but I'll revisit their line.
* As for the armatures, I think they still have promise.  I'm going to try getting some finer stranded wire which might be easier to make look random while still holding a shape.   I used 18 ga in the above examples, but I think something like 20-22 ga with 15-20 strands might have a lot of promise.  I'll keep trying!  I'd also like to find a way to capture the crazy low bare branches, which are supposed to help the plant sustain high winds (which, as Mike and the wind energy companies know, are very prevalent around Mojave).
* Another idea I was considering is very old school: some brownish-grey lichen teased to shape and dusted with fine foam.  It probably ends up looking like lichen though....

One last thing: does anyone know a source of extra fine ground foam (finer than Woodland Scenics fine blend)?  It's not essential, but I think it would help to keep things airy.

For reference, here is the specific look I am going for (sans the wind mills):



The other task on my list is how to deal with the low dormant grass infill.  Woodland Scenics 2mm straw & honey fibres are pretty good, but probably just a bit too "lush" (tall) for this look:



Anyway, thanks as always.  I always knew scenery would be hard (but fun).

[svedblen]

How about steel wire wool? You would at least get the lower dried out branches "for free".

[C855B]

...* Mike, do you have any of these tufts on hand? ...

Not yet. I need to get off my tushie and order a few in multiple shades, especially now with the Afton Canyon work. @John said the "wasteland" color was about right for sagebrush in his case. For the military modelers, 1:87 is the smallest their product lines support, so these grass tufts are good candidates for N shrubbery.

[Angus Shops]

I was thinking that steel wool might actually look pretty good, but I don’t think it would be resilient enough. One errant elbow would permanently flatten an acre. Plus any loose bits would cause electrical nightmares.
Geoff

[GaryHinshaw]

Oh, the steel wool idea is very intriguing.  I'll try it tonight.   Durability may be an issue, but at least this scene is mostly on the back side of an upper deck, so not too exposed to stray arms.   First challenge is to see if they can be made to look convincing to begin with.  Thanks for the ideas.  And @John, if you have any of these wasteland tufts on hand, I'd love to see some photos.

One of these days I'll join the zoom fun.    (Alas, I spend so much time on zoom for my day job that I'm pretty fried by Sat....)

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Have you looked into the stuff from Martin Welberg?
http://www.martinwelberg.nl/

I feel like his tufts might be worth looking at.

[mark dance]

Have you looked into the stuff from Martin Welberg?
http://www.martinwelberg.nl/

I feel like his tufts might be worth looking at.

This ...

is MW stuff sold through Scenic Express

md