I have been making several small woods for use with my 6mm Punic War project but its taken a little longer than I had planned because I had to wait for the trees to arrive from the other side of the planet! About three weeks ago I ordered fifty 1:300 scale trees from a Chinese seller on eBay for a ridiculously low price. The downside was that with free postage I had to be somewhat realistic and expect my purchase to take its time arriving... that carrier pigeon can only fly so fast! The parcel was dispatched the same day and took over three weeks to arrive, but I am more than happy with the scenic trees I received. So happy in fact I have just ordered 75 more.
The trees are very similar to the sort of thing you might buy for railway scenery, consisting of a brown plastic tree trunk and green clump foliage glued onto the branches. All the tree foliage was the same shade so I set aside half and gave the foliage a dusting with a dark green spray paint. However the next lot of trees I have ordered come in three different shades and a variety of shapes.
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| The trees can be removed when units move into the woods |
The bases are irregular mdf shapes that will approximately fit the 3" squares of my TtS! game mat. I have opted to make several small woods and a couple a little larger, but I may make more at a later date. After the usual steps of gluing sand on the bases, painting and dry-brushing I then set about adding several layers of scenic material. I started with a couple of layers of mixed turf and finished of with some trimmed down flour tufts. I deliberately kept everything short so these don't look out of place next to 6mm figures. With the base dressing complete I drilled several holes approximately 1cm apart in an irregular pattern on each base. The trees fit into these holes but I opted not to glue them in position. This means that when units move into woods the trees can be temporarily removed and replaced when the woods are vacated again.
The current batch of trees are a bit uniform in shape, even with repainting some the resultant wood is a bit 'flat'. However the next batch on order are different shades and shapes and as I have made these bases so the trees can be interchanged I will be able to mix things up in future for a much more realistic and varied look.
The current batch of trees are a bit uniform in shape, even with repainting some the resultant wood is a bit 'flat'. However the next batch on order are different shades and shapes and as I have made these bases so the trees can be interchanged I will be able to mix things up in future for a much more realistic and varied look.
While the trees from China (I have some in different scales) do all look the same and take 3 weeks to arrive realistically they are very good value for money. I found Palm trees very good as you could simply snip the base to vary the heights.
ReplyDeleteI should follow your lead and get some small trees for my 10mm Samuari Figures. Do you know what I think I will.
Nice job! I need to do this for my 6mm ECW project
ReplyDeleteThese look great
ReplyDeleteThey look quite the dog's. I've had a load of the Chinese trees for ages and might give your idea a go as a bit of variation from my home made types.
ReplyDeleteThose trees don't look bad Lee - nice woods bases :)
ReplyDeleteLee - I also get my trees from China. I base them on round bases of different sizes to cover large or small areas. I agree with the uniformity issue. The way I got around that was to 'paint' them in PVA then sprinkle different flock colours onto them. That way they look a lot less uniform and more like a mixed wood / forest. Its especially good for pine trees. If you visit my blog and look at Bridge at Remagen or Banja Luka battles you'll see the effect.
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