bushes

Xaniel

Xaniel

Member
Jun 8, 2002
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Lisbon, Portugal
modelismo.luislopes.net
hey gang, can any of you guys tell me how to do great looking green short bushes?


Need to know...

Speeking on green, I can't make trees, I'm still trying but can't get no satisfaction... So, I'll probaly buy some trees (then weather them, I know)...

Seen on the Walthers catalog trees from Faller... But What do you guys think?

thanks for your time. ;)
 
Luis, I think you should make your own trees. What type are you trying to make? What size are you trying to make? What materials are you using now?

You can make some really passable trees with nothing more that twigs (or weeds) and ground up foam. I have scores of trees (like the attached image) on the back of the layout that were all made in a couple of hours. All I did was take some dried up weeds, cut them to size, drizzled a little watered down white glue on them and dipped them in a plastic baggy full of ground up foam (I mixed some different colors of foam together to keep it from being too uniform). You can also make some great looking bushes this way.
See Mr. Alexander's thread on tree making if you want to do some bigger ones with superior detail.

Tom F
 

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If you cannot make ground up foam and don't want to buy any, use fine sawdust instead.

Add a very small quantity of yellowy green water based paint to an old plastic container...yougurt/margarine/icecream.
Sprinkle a little sawdust on the paint.

Now the fun bit. Use your fingers to mix it up. Gradually adding sawdust until all the paint is absorbed and the sawdust breaks up and looks and feels like loose green sawdust.

Lay out on paper to dry.

Wash hands....if you must.

Bushes are the same as trees, only smaller with no trunk.

Look round, use your imagination.
Some kitchen green scouring pads can be ripped up and make great bushes with no work.

You can buy odd tins of paint really cheap at some hardware stores.
Our rubbish tip has a place where you can take old tins of paint and collect any that you fancy.
 
Trees and Bushes

Hi Luis My Friend, At the risk of sounding like a schoolteacher I just wonder if you might be a little overly critical of yourself when it comes to your efforts to make trees and bushes. :) :D What I've seen so far from you has been just great!!!

My early efforts at making trees and scenery were to say the least "funny" and at their worst just plain horrible!!!:eek: But with practice things got better and better.:)

If you want to please post some pictures of what you have been doing. They may be a whole lot better than you think. It might just be like that ballast thing that you and I corresponded about..just a few tips and things worked out fine. :)

Some of us here have been in model railroads since trains were invented:eek: :D and we are always glad to help out and I can guarantee that no one here will critisize or make fun of what you've done:):)
 
Hi Luis,

I agree a hundred percent with Vic as his advice is very sound and helpful. I myself made a lot of trees from Woodland Secenics kits and they do make great looking trees. Of course like many things are they could be out of your young budget. I seen your progress so far and your doing a great job. Let us see those trees and I sure know some of these guys will get you to be a great tree maker. Keep up the great work. ;) Ron
 
I haven't tried that weed method, but tried everything else.

Vic, I'll post pics as soon as I can, becasue I don't have any digital camera. I don't have any trees because, I have thrown them away... ( sometimes I have this "virtue": Everything thing I don't like.. Garbage!!!! :D)

I'll try to follow your advices, guys. I'll be around. Thanks
 
Hi Luis!
I make all my trees from weeds...
I posted a thread in the N/z forum here, called N Scale Trees...Cheap, Fast & Easy. (I think it's on the 2nd, or 3rd page of that forum)
While the thread deals with a particular plant that I get out of my wife's flower bed, any branchy-type twig would work as well.Here's some trees I made using this method.
 

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Luis, the tall trees in N-scale would be around 5 - 9" . Here is a photo of an old N-scale layout I had, the tall timber is on the left.
hsb3.jpg

Shamus
wink.gif

 
In reference to "Biggles" idea of using sawdust. I tried this with extreme skepticism and have to say that I was VERY pleasantly surprised. Now I am going "bonkers" trying all different ways of manipulating the process.:D I found that if you dry the stained sawdust in an oven (I used 350 degrees F), you can make it brittle enough to crush to a very fine medium. This is great for bushes. It seems that different treatment gives you different effects, allowing one to use a variety of colors and sizes for many different things. I also baked some with no color and made a wood chip load out of some. A little reddish-tan water color wash and it looks excellent.
Thank you sir, you have introduced me to a whole new media to experiment with!

Tom F
 
Hi Tom.
Glad you are having fun.
I get my sawdust from a furniture making factory and they have different 'grades' and colours of sawdust .
We have a wood here called Jarrah, which naturally has a lovely red colour.
Coarse Pine sawdust, with grey paint makes good ballast.

I find the sawdust sticks better than foam.
 
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