How About These...

Mike Burgett uses Supertrees on his C&O http://www.cliftonforgediv.com/index.html.  MRH author Mike Confalone uses various natural tree armatures on his Allagash; see the April and May issues of MRH.  Another MRH author, Tom Patterson, does as well with the polyfiber as anyone, see his articles in the magazine and photos of his scenery at http://cwerailroad.blogspot.com/.

Modelling trees

I model the west coast of Canada but the dilemma is the same. We want 3 things from our trees:

1 they need to look good

2 they need to be reasonably quick to make

3 they need to be reasonably inexpensive.

One source for deciduous trees is Super trees available from Scenic Express.

http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1008

The choice is to spend more time and money on nicer trees or to cover a hillside quickly.Puff ball trees work better on eastern scenery because the hillsides are usually completely covered with trees.I suggest that the puffballs are not set in stone.You have a nice looking scene already and you can begin to replace the puffballs with more detailed trees.

One reason Joe's scenery looks so good is that the trees allow the modeling of undergrowth.Detailed trees at least in the foreground would allow the modeling of some undergrowth.

I also think there needs to be a way to raise the puffballs higher in relation to buildings and trains

Puff Ball "Trees" are not representing individual trees..

As has been explained to me by those who strongly promoted puff ball type "trees" is they do not represent individual trees, but rather modeling a canopy of trees, and are meant for the background mountain side.    For trees that are closer, and infront of the "backdrop mountainside" should be more individual types like the Super Trees and the ones Joe makes in his video series.  When I travel through the Appalachian Mountains, when I look at the distant mountainside, they sure look like "puff ball trees" to me.  Too often though, people try using these background scenic elements representing trees that are not in the background, and they look out of place. 

Joe models west coast scenery which is quite different, so though the style of trees are the same, their placement and the "canopy effect" is not as prevalent.

Ken L

Size Matters

This is a good point.   Looking at the vegetation in the initial post, it looks like short shrubbery and not like the typical eastern hillside with its mass of taller trees.

Think about the prototype vegetation in this shot of Cameron, PA  http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1352906, or here at Draketown, PA http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1028660.  The trees have structure and height.  They tower over the trains.  Woodland Scenics clump foliage will not give that effect by itself, and poly fiber balls won't do it the way most modelers use them.

Like it

Time and Money

Having seen Mike B's C&O layout in person, it does look really nice. And being a C&O modeler that is a layout that I follow.

However in my case I need a LOT of trees. Just to cover the area I have currently built I would need something like 8000 "trees" and that assumes 16 trees per foot average. And that would be trees that are about 3" dia.  Of course you use more smaller trees at the top of the hill and fewer larger trees down low.

Now if you assume that you can built a tree (start to finish) in 5 min that will take over 650 hours, even at a tree a minute it would take over 130 hours. And that is just the part of the layout I have done.  If I consider the whole layout you can just about double that number.  So you see for some of us, while the Puff Ball may not be perfect it is the only practical option (time wise)  And it also is a LOT less expensive then other options.

Now Ideally I hope to use something a bit nicer (like super trees) down low near the tracks and use puff balls up top.  I also use the smaller parts of the super trees in between the puff balls to add texture and to break up the rounded tops a bit. It seams to help.

Doug M

Modeling the C&O New River Sub in 1943

I actually liked the MR Virginian looks

I'm not that big a fan of puff ball trees either but I actually liked the looks of the MR Virginian project layout better than other puff ball scenery I've seen. I'm reading a book on operation by Tony Koester right now and there are a lot of photos of the Allegheny Midland in it.  Ugggh...... those hillsides look awful to me!  I know the AM had a lot of great attributes but the scenery wasn't one of them IMO. To be fair, scenery is not Tony's main focus and we are talking an older layout so I'm sure methods have improved. I'm still debating right now whether my current HO project is going to be an Appalachian coal hauler or something else because of the tree question. I'm thinking that there is not enough variety in the foreground trees on a lot of "tree canopy" layouts I've seen.  In real life, those tree canopies are comprised of many many different types and species of trees. Evergreen and decidious.

Michael

Scenery is in the eye of the beholder I guess..

Yes the trees on the hillside are made up of different types but the hillside along the backdrop is more "backdrop" than foreground.  The canopy should be of one shade of green with very little distinction between foliage, here's why.  The object of the canopy of trees is to fool the eye into thinking there is more distance between the viewer and the mountainside.  When the eye sees the trees in the background, it's more like the distant hill, being viewed through atmosphere. When you travel through Appalachia can you really tell the difference between decidous adn evergreen trees?

I think the problem with layouts that almost exclusively use puff ball trees is, as I said before when they get brought into the foreground. 

Ken L.

I don't completely agree

One shade of green? Don't know that I agree with that. I would think their should be at least some subtle variation in the colors, even from a distance.  Looking at photos of my last trip through the Great Smoky Mountains makes me think their should be at least a bit of variation. I think  actually what makes the Virginian project layout look better to me is that there are some "highlights". My point about the trees canopies being composed of many different trees was meant more to point out that foreground trees should be a mixed variety. Granted you can't tell from a distance there are all different types of trees in the tree canopy but you should represent that there are by mixing a variety of trees in the foreground. That's what I was trying to say. Too many people just use one type of tree when modeling the foreground. At least the pics I've seen seem to bear that out. I don't claim to be an expert and I'm still trying to work out in my head what it is I don't like about puffball canopies but there's just something "not right" about the look in my mind.

Michael

Allegheny Midland Trees

I can agree with that.  The round, uniform, phony blobs that passed for trees on the AM were awful.  They didn't look at all like trees to me and really detracted from the overall look of the layout.  I think Tony's learned better techniques since, as the trees on his NKP layout look better.

Off to a good start

I like the way you layered the terrain with large to small puff balls. That gave a nice illusion of distance and when you add the distant hills on the backdrop, it will look great.

There are several ways to make good and inexpensive trees. I'm also a big fan of super trees. I also came across the use of furnace filters for all kinds of trees and shrubs. I made a "clinic" at: http://royhoffman.com/pwrr/fftrees.html

Of course, the approach to trees depends a lot on what scale you use. I think you have HO, so the puff ball approach would work pretty good for HO and smaller, but would not be so effective for S and larger.

What happened to the structure under the puff ball trees?

I remember reading articles on puff ball trees used only for canopy effects.  You select a hill side to cover.  You establish a raised surface to hold the puff balls towering over the scenery.  Such as screen wire or chicken wire suspended on dowels at one to four inches high over the hill side.  It was best to paint the wire dark green or black.  Then you place a number of tree trunk effects at the lower and nearest viewing side of this to represent a mass of trees.  So, when you looked at it from the viewing angle you see what are tree trunks.  Then you glue your puff balls on top of the screen.  You vary shades of green puff balls as you place it.  When that is done you place more detailed trees in front of your new forest as the focal point.  Anyone looking at it will focus on the detailed trees and anything behind those will actually look like a forest growing up the mountain side.  This will create shadows under the forest at the front of the canopy making you see an illusion.

The detailed trees in the front can be a different species too.  You could have clumps of Aspens in the foreground mixed with some pines and your canopy behind those.

I hope this makes some sense.

Den

Puff Balls

  I use puffballs for the trees on the ridges(over 1700 so far).  I agree that one needs to have 'up front' detailed trees with branches/trucks. 

http://i862.photobucket.com/albums/ab188/jrbernier/IslandSiding004.jpg

Jim

a matter of detail/texture and scale

the problem with the puff ball approach is that the scale  of the detail or texture is too big for the apparent distance.
Cose in not as big an issue (close-in or at the margins of the forest, highly detail structure is  a good thing).

As to the rocks, around here in western CT, it's not unusual to have a major rock outcrop in the middle of the hill side.

Airbrushing in gray or blue is to me a backdrop technique, you don't have the apparent depth on actual terrain.

Avoiding Uniformity

I would echo much of some of the previous posts. I have seen a number of layouts where the puff ball tree technique has seemed to work fairly well. I have also seen layouts where the technique reminded me of floor full of rubber balls. I agree and think this technique is best used to represent the dense forest farther from the eye, with more detailed trees with actual armatures in the foreground to draw the attention away from the background. It seems it would be equally important to give the puff ball forest some subtle differences in color, height and texture to avoid a uniform look. Some of the prototype photos submitted above in this thread are good examples. You will notice a lot of shadow in some of those. Shadows are hard to get in a model. Using lighter colors on the tops of the canopy can go a long way toward helping to develop the shadows to the eye and adding texture. I would do away with the "ball" part of the description of this technique. Very few trees in a forest in nature are round. In a garden, park or in  situation where certain types of trees dot a landscape they may be closer to round. But even deciduous trees in a dense forest are all competing for light and grow tall rather than round.

conrail079, the original posters photo is very effective in the hills in the background and where he is using forced perspective. His trees vary in shape and color which I think is what you would want. In the foreground I think some larger, more detailed trees would better represent the edge of the expansive forest I believe he is trying to convey. The foreground foliage presently looks more like ground cover and bushes than trees. Overall though, I think it's a very good start at an eastern forest. I like the color and the elusion of distance.

Puff Ball Trees in Reality

I think I amused the other people in the car I was in when, during the LD-SIG tours at Hartford I looked out ahead of us to the Connecticut hills and exclaimed, "Who would have known that puff-ball trees were actually prototypical?"

It was weird seeing how the deciduous canopy really did look like that.

Not something I really see out here in Oregon.

Keys to good scenery

In my video series I talk about two keys to realistic scenery: color and texture. To this you can also add form.

First and foremost, model from photos, not from your "minds eye". Minds eye modeling that is realistic takes lots of practice and unless you have a track record already that you're good at minds eye modeling, stick to modeling from photos. You'll be a lot happier with the results.

With today's internet, there's really no excuse for not modeling from photos. A few Google searches should turn up lots of useful photos to use for scenery modeling.

If you study the photos you elect to model from, you'll be able to tell what some of the keys are to making a canopy of trees more effective. Most often it's variation in texture and color. You can also improve realism if you throw in a dead tree or scrag once in a while.

The back part of a canopy can be most anything as long as you blend it well with the front edge of the canopy. I've often thought if I was modeling an eastern line with lots of hardwood trees that I'd use clumps of supertree scraps for the body of the canopy and then blend it into a couple rows of full supertrees with trunks in the front.

Whenever I make supertrees, I always end up with a third of the box as just clumps that don't have any decent trunk structure - those would be perfect for building a canopy body. For variety you could include some puffballs - but don't just roll up a ball of fiber in some ground foam. Tear the fiber balls into pieces, and use the black "midnight" quilt stuffing that you can get in fabric stores and online. Pull some clumps out to make it thinner before or after you roll it in the ground foam. 

Also, from my video series you can see tricks I use with spray paint to add natural variation in the constant green color of the foam.

Thanks Joe

After pouring over the scenery videos you have released i have always wondered "how would Joe do it if he modelled appalachia, Now I know. I am following this thread with interest as my layout is set deep in the heart of West Virginia. One of the ways i have tried in a very earlier attempt on a previous layout is the use of Woodland Scenics Deciduous trunks  but using the small ones up to 2 inches high along the edge of the right of way and using clump foliage elevated off the hillside for the canopy. I am still to decide if i pulled it off enough to use this technique again. I have recently thought of using Woodland scenics forest canopy product but the idea of using that to cover a layout the size of mine makes my wallet run off screaming into the distance!

Please Note this was a very early attempt.

Dan

What Kevin said

Kevin hit the nail on the head with the avoiding uniformity.  Nature if anything is not uniform.  Puff balls can be used realistically if they aren't all ball shaped.  Using different shapes, sizes, colors, textures (of ground foam) and mixing up the puff balls with other types of trees can look very realistic.

Rick

Canopy looks good, edges not so good

The canopy itself looks pretty good, but the edges give it away. From photos you will see the trees at the edge of the right-of-way tower over the trains.

As you have modeled, it looks like a bunch of bushes, and reminds me of the Aussie's phrase of being "out in the bush" ... which came from the fact much of Australia's forests are more big bushes than trees.

You need a couple rows of 25 to 30 foot (at least) trees along the right of way, transitioning into the canopy. If the trees along the right of way look reasonably tall and the foilage looks similar to the canopy foliage, then the rest of it will work.

When doing scenery like shown here in this sketch, you need to plan for the canopy in your scenery contours. In effect, you bring the scenery up much higher under the canopy so it fools the eye and makes you think the canopy is a bunch of full-sized trees.

On my video, I show how you can take flower pot moss, dye it dark green, and stuff it in between the rear line of trees to make the entire forest look more dense. I'd do something similar here - stuff the dyed moss in behnd the second line of full sized trees to hide the fact there's no more trunks back there. You can also paint the canopy part of the scenery a dark blackish green to make the forest look more dense.

Another option is to put some foam sheet back there - either pink or blue foam, or florist foam like Mike Confalone does to get the canopy height up to where it needs to be.

Hopefully, you get the idea.

Preaching pictures

You will notice that Mr. Fugate is always "preaching pictures"; that is, use pictures of the prototype as guides to working on your model railroad.  There is a good reason for this:  he is right!  I've tried it both ways: work from a picture in my "mind's eye" and work from a real picture and I can say without a doubt that the results are much better when using a real picture.

Rick

Texture and shadow....

I need to do some experimenting but I'm thinking what's missing from the puff ball scenes I've looked at is "shadow" and maybe the texture is too thick and uniform.  When I was modeling in N scale, I started making furnace filter conifers way back when. I used to have a Kalmback book that had an article on them. Mine were OK but they didn't look great and I never could put my finger on what it was until I chanced upon a web video that I think was made by a war gamer.  The texture of my trees was too thick, they weren't "airy enough" but even more important than that, they were too green!  The guy that made this video was spraying his trees with flat black and then reddish brown primer before adding foam. I started doing my trees this way and the difference in realism was startling. The hints of brown and the "black shadows" made all the difference in the world.  Now granted a tree canopy is going to be different from an individual conifer but I still think that maybe the canopy should not be quite as dense and thick as people tend to make them and that there should be some more brown and even black showing. Even the MR guys noted that the black poly fiber they got from Micro mark gave a better effect than the green stuff on the Virginian project layout.

Michael

P.S. I have never seen Joe's video on trees, I guess I should check it hunh?

Joe's sketch

Joe's sketch is something I've been working on - at one point and time, I was even threatening to write up an article, but as that's not going to happen, I may be able to add to this thread a little.

Back before I moved, I was thinking the same as Joe - but with an added step of using a photograph along the front of the puffball base to add to the illusion.

This is a prototype I built back in 2010 (for said article) to demonstrate the idea.

well that's as far as I got with that section, as I moved, but on my current layout, I've managed to go a bit further with the idea. This corner of the layout (module 3) is where I've been working on it.

first run of a picture posted up; while the base colors matched, I didn't like the overall effect.

so now I'm working on a different picture.

still not working for me, but I'm not done trying...

Seedum makes nice trees and

Seedum makes nice trees and is easy to do . Seedum is a flowering plant ask you're wife about it. I just spray mine with 3M adheasive spray and sprinkle and or dunk them into WS ground foam......Mike