Nice trees, especially  if it is your 1st time.  Looking forward to seeing them in place

Steve

As first try trees - these are quite nice.

However, if you'd like to take things up a notch, have you looked at real trees very closely?

Real trees with the foliage starting as far up as you show are in the middle of a grove of conifers and not on the edge. When roads or railroads come through an area, the trees in the middle of a grove get exposed and you get trees that look like this.

Also, have you watched the Canyon Creek Scenics video that Model Trains Video included in Siskiyou Line DVD volume 5? Or that's a bonus video on the $25 for 25 videos special?

at all, Tetters. Well done for a first try.

Roy

I think the trees look fantastic. How about a tutorial showing your process.

Thanks for the pics.

Glenn

A good example of what Joe is talking about can be seen at the beginning of this video.

Note the trees in the background...

George

I put a tutorial on the South Mt. Division of the NMRA, MER website at:

http://royhoffman.com/pwrr/fftrees.html

I'll be doing a clinic on making them at our next mini-convention during MR month.

http://www.smdnmra.org/minicon.html

Hope to see some of you folks there.

I appreciate the comments and suggestions.  Especially the advice regarding placement in the "forest".  Something I will take note of.  The trees are just there against the back drop for photographing.

@ Joe.  I have all your videos on DVD.  As mentioned in an earlier topic, I cannot wait to try the scenery techniques you demonstrate.  :-D 

The tutorial from Canyon Creek was what got me motivated to try this method of tree making.  I also found this great video on Youtube which offers some good tips to help speed up the process, especially when shaping the dowels into trunks.  It sure beats hand carving them into a point.

Again comments or suggestions are appreciated.  I was going for the look of a Black Spruce after seeing one in a book I downloaded called Tree Book - Recognizing the Trees of British Columbia and decided to go for the basic shape.  It could probably use some improvement, but I still like this one and the way it looks.  I'm rather enjoying the process of building these trees too. 

Once again, thanks for looking. 

You are certainly on the right track, IMO.

It seems to me that this last tree needs some dead/broken limbs along the trunk where the open/bare spots are.  I thought the video you posted had a good idea for that, using cut off corn broom to simulate dead limbs.

Still looking good.  Thanks for sharing what you are doing.

Shane:

For your first time out making your tree's they look fantastic,they look better then the one's you buy already made.....

Mike