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Adventures in Dirt Texturing and Tree Building
With the coming of spring my basement has once again become a hospitable habitat suitable for the migration of Model Railroaders. Once the wife goes back to work, I expect to have more time to myself to spend working on my layout. I figured it was time to fire up the Journal again..
I have done a lot of experimenting with tempera ground texturing as shown in Joe Fugate's scenery DVD #1. Most of his formulas called for 24 parts plaster. Once I realized that a half cup is 24 teaspoons it became a lot easier. One of the reasons that Joe gave for using the Tempera versus, say, natural dirt was that it was easier to control the final color under layout lighting. I have found this to be somewhat problematic. I have had trouble finding a mix that looks like the local dirt I am trying to emulate.
This picture shows some of my earlier attempts at dirt texture. The original attempts came out way to black. You can see some of that peaking out under my later attempts. Other areas came out far to "plastery". Other areas came out almost right.
The scenery here will feature cast rock sometime soon in the area where the track turns away. You can see a depression I left for the rockwork. I try to disguise all my tight curves. This is a similar idea to the "Bellinadrop" that Craig Bisgeier wrote about in the Fall 2008 LDSIG journal. I am attempting to 
disguise a 11" radius curve by preventing the viewer from looking at the outside edge of the curve. I am taking a somewhat more subtle approach then the full-blown Bellinadrop but the concept remains the same.
The next picture shows more attempts at dirt texture as I tried to find a color similar to what you see peeking out at the top of the hill from my earth paint. The problem I have is that the colors seemed to come out either too dark or too red. I have black, yellow, blue, and brown tempera. I think I need some purple to mix with the brown. The yellow lightens but also shifts to red thanks to subtractive color mixing.
The other project I am working on is to come up with a convincing pine tree. The more like an Eastern White Pine the better. This one at the left is NOT it. Its an early attempt using the furnace filter material method.
I used 1/4" dowel which is a bit thick for general use (40 N scale inches..). I used a Hogs Hair style furnace filter material I found at lowes for a little more then $5 for a 20"x32"x1" sheet... or something like that.
The foam is cut into disks (I was to discover later stars and squares work better..) that is thinned and painted brown. These are slid over the tree. The bottom is coated in a darker fine green foam, the top is a blended foam with some yellow bits for highlight.
I have some 1/8" dowels and some bamboo skewers to try. These are about 20" diameter trees. I need to find some 3/16 material to make 30" trees which I think will be a bette choice for "large" trees. I need to cut the wafers thinner, create more seperation, and make them longer. The proportion of my local pines tends to more airy open branch relative to the trunk then the western fir and cedar trees I see in modeling articles more commonly.
I may try flocking with the foam, I have seen that done and it looks good although in N I am not so sure..
For bark texturing I have been spraying my trunks black then dry brushing grey. I am not entirely thrilled with the result. The black is a bit overpowering and my small trees don't have enough texture to really show the detail properly.
Using a nail board helped.. it allowed me to get some nice grooves in the dowels, but it did not solve the problem. WIth the next batch I am going to try using a base of grey then using washes to create the darker colors. Then a slight dry brush of brown for accent. Hopefully I will have some more tree pics next week.
Btw- my spray booth is working great. This is the first time I have given it heavy use and it does all it should in keeping the air clear. I can see the paint moving back to the filter..
This next shot shows my entrance to the staging track (yes, the track..). I was having a hard time figuring out how to hide it. However, once I held some trees in place I found that the curve allowed me to make a "forest" tunnel that will very effectively hide the backdrop transition. I just need to ballast and I think this will be the first spot to get some trees..
Over the next few weeks I hope to make more pine trees and do some ballasting. At some point I have to bite the bullet and finish casting and painting abutments. Then I will just need to detail and weather the bridge. I should probably hold off on actually installing the bridge until I have completed the water.
Another project on the horizon is building my static flocker. I have all the materials to build the AC version and our own scarpia gave me some 2mm flocking material that I am looking forward to applying.
Much more to come! I am excited to get going again now that its Layout season in the basement!
Regards,
Chris
5/8/09 update..
This tree had already been constructed but not trimmed or foamed when I made my blog post. I had already been starting to provide more air in between the wafers.
The trunk is still to thick, the branches are still to short and the wafers too thick. The trunk color is too dark. But.. headed in the right direction.
btw- how about that pot-topper material at the base? Tear a little off, put it around the tree, and instant ground cover. With a little airbrushing that stuff has real potentiall..
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Nice to see som eprogress. I'm following your tree attempts with interest - pine trees in south Louisiana where my layout is set look more like yours then the western pines so often commercially produced. Keep up the good work.
Philip H.
Chief Everything Officer
Baton Rouge Southern Railroad, Mount Rainier Div.
Good to see the progress and that you'll be getting some more time, hopefully. Keep us posted.
Dave
Working on the chainsaw
Great looking start to what I am sure will be a fantastic sceen. Love the detail explantation of what and how you are doing always can use someone elses ideas.
Art Houston
Grande Pacific RR
ahouston3@charter.net
I think the trees look good - but I wonder if they're almost too full? Looking out my window, I can see a fair amount of clear sky through the ones near me.
Trunk size may not be relevent, as long as they are not in the "front row". The extra thickness may not be noticable if they're in the back.
www.garbo.org/MRR
The only thing I would say is too not make your trees too perfect. Nature tends to beat them up a bit. So far I think you are doing great!
Regards,
blue
Not staff but here everyday all the same.
Model Railroading in HO Scale
Thanks for all the positive feedback!
Yes, I completely agree. Its the biggest issue I have with my early trees. Right now they are still too much of a fir and not enough of a white pine. I have a few things to try to bring them more in line with the prototype:
-Use thinner wafers. The current wafers are thick for N. Its problematic, this stuff is not easy to cut that way and still leave a pleasing branch structure behind. I am working on that.
-Space the wafers further apart. I may try without the small spacer wafer shown in the video. That was to provide depth and shadow to the finished model but I think it works against me here. You can see my attempt at this on one of the "under construction" trees in the spray booth image..
While I can work on the space between branch clusters, I think the problem within branch clusters is more problematic..
When I look at the protoype the pine needle structure provides the tree with a certain airy look. I am hoping to get some of that look by using some flocking. The 2mm flocking will be 6" in N.. kinda big.. but might work used in moderation. However, it still won't give that airy look. I think, though, as long as I am using furnace filter and foam I am going to somewhat opaque trees.
Part of my issue with the large trunks is they make the branches seem smaller. I am hoping that with a smaller trunk the branches will seem longer.
I agree. Once I have the technique down I will work on cutting pieces out more. One thing about this pine is it tends to spread out more and have branches lower when its in the open. Trees that are left standing from inside a forest that has been cut.. like when a ROW is cut into a forest.. will have most of the greenery toward the top and may be missing branches on one side.
One problem is the furnace material itself.. its gets skewered by the trunk so it can be an issue making those classic "all the branches on one side" pines I see around..
Chris
“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” My modest progress Blog
Chris:
When it comes to modeling a specific tree species, it helps to search out tree silhouettes and then analyze the differences.
For instance, here's your typical fir tree silhouette (represented by a Balsam fir):
Notice that the foliage is basically a solid cone that goes to a nice point at the top. Now let's look at your typical Eastern White Pine silhouette:
Notice how much more sparse the foliage is, and how the overall shape of the tree is more like a box and less like a perfect cone. The top also tends to be bushy in all directions.
Based on these silhouettes, the best method for making an Eastern White Pine will be the bottle brush method, not the furnace filter method. I'd be deliberately sparce and uneven with how I placed the bottle brush bristles, and I'd deliberately trim the spun tree armature so it was more boxy and scraggly on top. I'd also first hit the tree with a light dusting of coarse ground foam to get some clumpy foliage - then I'd add a thicker layer of fine ground foam over that to simulate the tiny pine needles.
Working up the tree, also notice you get a wide set of branches layer, then one or two very narrow sets of branches, then a much wider set of branches again. If you did try to model this tree using the furnace filter method, you'd want to skewer on a larger furnace filter pad, then skewer on 1 or two very small pads, then skewer on a much larger pad, back to 1-2 very small pads, etc.
Also, when doing furnace filter trees, don't cut the pads into ovals - the secret is to cut the pads into STAR shapes with points. This creates a much more realistic "conifer" branch look to your trees, instead of just an amorphous mass of foliage, which will look rather non-descript - which is essentially worthless if you're aiming to model a *specific species* of tree.
By carefully observing tree silhouettes and realizing you can deliberately shape and form branches more appropriately, you can better nail a certain key tree species even when you're trying to model a specific region.
Joe Fugate
Publisher, Model Railroad Hobbyist magazine
Thanks for the insight Joe! I will give your tips a try. I like how the silhouette illustrates the differences between the tree types. It makes the point rather strongly. Perhaps I print some pics on regular paper then outline them in marker. Even better.. perhaps I can scale them to 1/160 to get the proportions right!
I have found cutting furnace material into stars (or anything, for that matter..) very challenging. I don't know why. I think I need to cut out some templates to use.
I used the coarse followed by the fine foam, sparsely, on some super trees and found it made me think of Red Pines with their "clumps" of pine needles but the super-tree trunk was too thin and perhaps too much like a decidious tree. I will give it a shot on my furnace pines.
I want to give the bottle brush method a try.. I am concerned that the trunk will not look very realistic. I should probably make a few before assuming too much. I should have a chance this weekend. I will watch that video again tonight since I have baby duty again.
I am definitely going a little overboard for a newbie with my tree-fever, but given my modeling interests, I am going to have to master the techniques now or later, or pick a different region to model! There is a reason the Maine Central used a pine tree for a logo..
Chris
“If you carry your childhood with you, you never become older.” My modest progress Blog
I found that making trees involves some learning and skill developement.My first few fir trees were quite ugly but I kept practicing and they now look quite decent.keep working and refining and you will get trees you are happy with.
Brian Clogg
Cariboo Western Railway
Chris - Looking at Joe's outlines, have you looked at caspia style trees?
A sample side by side
http://www.railroad-line.com/discussion/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=24724
Steve
http://klamathline.blogspot.com/