More scale leaves

An earlier post covered the scale leaves from the Little Leaf Company.

I managed to pick up some more variants from Green Scene.

Oak is a slightly sandy brown colour.

Ivy has a distinctly darker green tone.

 Leaf Litter is definitely post autumnal.

Having read an article by Gordan Gravatt, the material may well catkin heads.

Little Leaf Company scale leaves

Many years ago I bought some leaf scatter made by the Little Leaf Company from Green Scenes at a model railway show. I had not had an opportunity to use until this week.

Here is the result.

We Demand More... Shrubbery!

After pondering the decision on leaves or no leaves, and putting the question out to the Lead Adventures Forum, I decided that it was going to be leaves.

The first task was to reduce the fluffiness of the poly fibre.

Here is the before.

I reduced the amount of fibre, it looked like by a half by the amount I put back in the box.

One of the things I did notice was that against my normal grey background the fibre foliage was rather opaque, however if I looked at it silhouetted against the window it was a lot less dense, so here is the same tree against a white background.

Many years ago I bought a packet of "Mid Green" leaves by the The Little Leaf Company. from Green Scene at a local model railway show,

The packet contains very small flat pieces of material in a nice mid green colour.

I applied PVA with a large paintbrush to the poly fibre to areas then added the leaves to the poly fibre.

Here is the tree against a white background.

I need to spray the tree with a fixative to try and keep the leaves in place.

We Demand A... Shrubbery!

Woodland Scenics do a range of plastic tree armatures for different scales. What will function as a tall tree in one scale will work as a shrub or bush in a larger scale.

The armatures come in two parts. A rather flat tree armature and a stump/base. As I am going to be gluing them to Renedra plastic bases, in a number of cases I have removed the peg from the bottom of the armature, drilled and pinned with some 1.5mm plastic rod.

As you can see, the armature is rather flat. It is easiest to clean the mould lines (of which there are many) while it is flat. I warmed the plastic with boiling water (you can also use a hairdryer) and the application of brute force via a pair of pliers.

I rotated each branch such that the whole thing made a near circle. The base of the trunk and the Renedra base was drilled and pinned with 1.5mm plastic rod, and glued with copious quantities of liquid poly. Once dry, the trunk was painted with Citadel Agrellian Mud technical paint (it cracks to simulate bark).

The base was sprinkled with Woodland Scenics Fine Cinder Ballast and some granite ballast for additional texture.

The whole thing was sprayed with Citadel Chaos Black.

The trunks were painted with various brown and grey shades from a wet palette, dry brushed with Citadel Terminatus Stone and then washed with Citadel Agrax Earthshade. The bases were painted with Vallejo Burnt Umber.

The foliage on the trees is Woodland Scenics Green Poly Fibre, cut into clumps and glued using PVA applied to the branches.

The bases were decorated with a mixture of Peco Patchy Grass Tufts, Gamers Grass tufts, various shades and lengths of static grass and fine turf (minced sponge).

Some of the "trees" were shortened by cutting the trunk with a razor saw just below the first branches. This was to give them a more shrub or bush like appearance rather than being short trees.

Some haircutting is required to trim the more "fly away" bits of poly fibre.

There is the question, do I add "leaves" to the bushes, either using fine turf or some cut out leaf material?