Bushes...
What a busy day!
I've been really looking forward to this part of the build. The cottage-exterior set will have three bushes around the walls of the cottage itself. So, today we decided to get that done.
To make these bushes we are using a great material called "Seafoam". This is a real plant material. I believe it grows underwater. It has a great miniaturised branching form. It works great for minature trees and shrubs. I think Wargamers use it a lot for detailing their terrain.
The idea is that you select several pieces for each tree or bush. I am making bushes and for one of them I needed three pieces of Seafoam.
The Seafoam has large leaves which totally destroy the illusion of scale. So, Kjestine used tweezers to remove those leaves from all the pieces of Seafoam.
I then used a very thin wire to tie the various pieces of Seafoam into the form I wanted for each of the bushes. Following is a photo of the three pieces of Seafoam attached together to form one of the bushes. The branching form that results is very believable as a bush or tree form.
However, the branches are obviously completely bare. So, what is needed at this stage is to adorn them with leaves. For this job we used a tacky scatter-glue and two colours of leaf scatter. The scatter can be made from a range of materials. It's sometimes hard to tell what the companies use to make it. But they make excellent tiny leaves. I decided to make two of the bushes have a dark green coloured leaf, and the other bush would have a light green leaf.
The way to apply the scatter to the Seafoam bush forms is to apply some of the scatter-glue to the ends of the branch formations and then drop the scatter on from above. You then give the bush a tap to remove excess scatter and repeat a few times until the glue is covered with scatter.
It is best to do this in small patches so that the glue doesn't dry too quickly. This was a really fun part of the process as we got to see the bushes really taking shape!
The results really are great! I think these are going to really help the cottage fit into the landscape. The little "leaves" made up by the scatter look just the correct scale. What's more, the process of making these bushes was great fun. Kjestine and I had trouble getting the pieces of Seafoam to stick together. But, once we tried the very thin wire we managed to get them made pretty easily. I'd advise anyone making miniature trees to look at using Seafoam.
Oh - And I just want to add that the Cottage Exterior has two very large trees settled behind the cottage and that I will definately be using this technique and these materials to build those trees. Seafoam is such a great material!
I've been really looking forward to this part of the build. The cottage-exterior set will have three bushes around the walls of the cottage itself. So, today we decided to get that done.
To make these bushes we are using a great material called "Seafoam". This is a real plant material. I believe it grows underwater. It has a great miniaturised branching form. It works great for minature trees and shrubs. I think Wargamers use it a lot for detailing their terrain.
The idea is that you select several pieces for each tree or bush. I am making bushes and for one of them I needed three pieces of Seafoam.
The Seafoam has large leaves which totally destroy the illusion of scale. So, Kjestine used tweezers to remove those leaves from all the pieces of Seafoam.
I then used a very thin wire to tie the various pieces of Seafoam into the form I wanted for each of the bushes. Following is a photo of the three pieces of Seafoam attached together to form one of the bushes. The branching form that results is very believable as a bush or tree form.
However, the branches are obviously completely bare. So, what is needed at this stage is to adorn them with leaves. For this job we used a tacky scatter-glue and two colours of leaf scatter. The scatter can be made from a range of materials. It's sometimes hard to tell what the companies use to make it. But they make excellent tiny leaves. I decided to make two of the bushes have a dark green coloured leaf, and the other bush would have a light green leaf.
The way to apply the scatter to the Seafoam bush forms is to apply some of the scatter-glue to the ends of the branch formations and then drop the scatter on from above. You then give the bush a tap to remove excess scatter and repeat a few times until the glue is covered with scatter.
It is best to do this in small patches so that the glue doesn't dry too quickly. This was a really fun part of the process as we got to see the bushes really taking shape!
The results really are great! I think these are going to really help the cottage fit into the landscape. The little "leaves" made up by the scatter look just the correct scale. What's more, the process of making these bushes was great fun. Kjestine and I had trouble getting the pieces of Seafoam to stick together. But, once we tried the very thin wire we managed to get them made pretty easily. I'd advise anyone making miniature trees to look at using Seafoam.
Oh - And I just want to add that the Cottage Exterior has two very large trees settled behind the cottage and that I will definately be using this technique and these materials to build those trees. Seafoam is such a great material!
posted by Paul (Vortex42) at
3:59 PM
8 Comments:
These look great - I'm going to remember this for my next trees!
Look at those bushes!! They look so real I can't stand looking at them. Easily the best miniature bushes i've ever seen.
Wow! The last two posts are fantastic, Paul! I'd never heard of seafoam and the technique is so clever! I'm so going to copy your hinge style too, if that's ok!?
So good!
This is magnificent! I've been working with real (very small) branches before to create something that looked like bushes (sort of), but this is the real thing! Excellent technique.
Fantastic! In scale, detailed (no suprise) and realistic!
Like Shelley, I hope you don't mind if I copy your hinge idea, seems to work great! Since The Sword, the Stone, A King is set in medieval/middle age period, I need to make the same style heavy wooden doors with big iron hinges.
Shelley and Nofby - The hinge design is pretty bog-standard medieval post-card fare. So knock yourselves out.
Thanks so much for the praise on the bushes. I saw this Seafoam stuff and an example of it used in making miniature trees, and I just knew I had to use it. I had never tried it before - So I am really pleasantly surprised the bushes came up looking so good after the first try. Can't recommend the stuff highly enough.
Just noticed I am going to have to tone down the paint job on the hinge-pins as they are a bit too black compared to the hinges themselves. I'll do that when I'm adding the final paint effects to the Cottage.
EXCELLENT POST!
Thanks for shareing this great info.
jriggity
No problem Jriggity - It's a pleasure.
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