Making trees

[Renegade]

Goatboy wanted to know how to get hold of cheap shrubbery, so I thought I would share.

Hot Glue and Wire

Make a tree from thick wire, that is able to balance on its own. One of the ways of doing this is to twist several bits of wire of different lengths. This allows for the creation of roots and branches that look more natural.

Get a glue gun and cover in hot glue, the wire will form the structural element needed.

Paint and flock to suit.

This has been done by those with electric train-sets for years. If you know someone who has one, they may even give you a hand.

The Aquarium and/or Reptile shop.

These places are great, lots of plastic bits and pieces that could be any kind of shrubbery, rock and rubble or what ever you are after.

http://external.ak.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQDj5IEPPlVJjWEk&url=http%3A%2F%2Fecx.images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F315mus49DWL.jpg

http://imgs.inkfrog.com/pix/guo13579/BK_A383_3.jpg

http://www.petplanet.co.uk/shop_dev/assets/new_product_images//hagen/58017.jpg

[Necron2.0]

I don't think that's the sort of "cheap shrubbery" he was talking about, if you catch my drift.
http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/227/e/8/marijuana_icon_by_necron2_0-d5b6bpp.gif

;)

In seriousness though, I'd seen something the other day that someone had done using wire, brown paper and leaves punched from two types of green paper using scrapbooking leaf patterned punch stamps. If you were looking to make a tree or two, probably not very economical, but if you wanted a forest ....

[Asymmetrical Xeno]

Been curious about hot glue guns being used for modelling, interesting to see different uses for it - I may end up using it to do weird fleshy amorphous things.

[Chris*ta]

Goatboy wanted to know how to get hold of cheap shrubbery, so I thought I would share.

Hot Glue and Wire

Make a tree from thick wire, that is able to balance on its own. One of the ways of doing this is to twist several bits of wire of different lengths. This allows for the creation of roots and branches that look more natural.

Get a glue gun and cover in hot glue, the wire will form the structural element needed.

Paint and flock to suit.

This has been done by those with electric train-sets for years. If you know someone who has one, they may even give you a hand.

The Aquarium and/or Reptile shop.

These places are great, lots of plastic bits and pieces that could be any kind of shrubbery, rock and rubble or what ever you are after.


The aquarium's also a good place to visit if you want your Space Marines to fight over a guy in an old timey diver's suit and a treasure chest ;)

But, seriously, the twisted wire is a genuinely good suggestion, I've pondered doing this for ages, but as more an art thing ... and there are plenty of other things you can use instead of hot glue ... I'm wondering if you could use that mixing blu tak and superglue thing I've read about.

Now I'm seriously pondering the idea of using one of those divers and treasure chests as an objective marker in a tournament ... Bonus points to anyone who does so, and posts pictures :D

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Been curious about hot glue guns being used for modelling, interesting to see different uses for it - I may end up using it to do weird fleshy amorphous things.They can be pretty awesome for that (been using it for test Umbra). Most of it comes down to playing with how molten the glue is. Giving the drops 30/60sec to harden before the next drop gives defined edges, good for puddle-of-slime kinda things. This doesn't always look quite right, though, I'd imagine sculpting smaller details/webbing over it would make a big difference.

My favorite approach so far is to let a basic mound of glue harden, then using the nozzle of the glue gun to melt channels in it and stretch out thin "growths".

Similarly, a soldering iron can be used for interesting shapes, and a drop of solder which falls a few inches can make a small, bendable "pancake" with a pretty intricate/weird texture.

[Renegade]

The aquarium's also a good place to visit if you want your Space Marines to fight over a guy in an old timey diver's suit and a treasure chest ;)

But, seriously, the twisted wire is a genuinely good suggestion, I've pondered doing this for ages, but as more an art thing ... and there are plenty of other things you can use instead of hot glue ... I'm wondering if you could use that mixing blu tak and superglue thing I've read about.

Now I'm seriously pondering the idea of using one of those divers and treasure chests as an objective marker in a tournament ... Bonus points to anyone who does so, and posts pictures :D

I have known it to be done without wire, but then you can't make adjustments to the branches and roots etc as easily, the wire helps with balance.