MikeC

I picked up another pack of the Heki foliage today at the hobby shop. Foliage Artline Dark Green NR 1570.
It doesn't appear on the Heki website so maybe a discontinued line but it does look like the 1560 series foliage which is on their website.
At nearly AUD$8.00 for 200ml pack from my local hobby shop it's not cheap. I'll maybe get 3 or 4 trees from it.

I agree, the Heki foilage is very good.
How did you find the Heki Flor?
The foliage is on some kind of matting that has to be teased out isn't it?
I've avoided it so far because of that.
cheers

When I was at the St Albans exhibiton earlier in January, they were demonstrating tree making with results that looked very similar to yours Marty. For foliage they had taken a piece of upholsters foam, soaked it in a slightly watered down mix of green emulsion paint (colour to your taste) and then let the foam dry for a while (in this case three weeks). When it was dry they rubbed it across a cheese grater with the result that they had produced mounds of Heki type foliage very inexpensively. Interesting eh :?:  :)  :)

Les

Yes Marty you have to tease it out, and lots of the granular bits will fall off when you do. Worth saving for loose scatter, of course, but once the foliage is glued on it benefits from having some additional loose stuff added on top.
 Thanks for the product number.
 The how-to will be good.
 Les - that sounds like a fun technique.


 Mike

I'll look forward to your "How I did it" thread Marty - it will be interesting to see how it takes shape in each stage.

Must go - I've got to explain to the Police why I spent the afternoon hanging around the "feminine products" section of the supermarket !!  When I explained I was looking for hair spray, he looked at my bald head in disbelief !!    

Petermac

         

Thanks Les,
Sounds like it's worth a go.
The plastic/nylon scourers I've bought and which I used as the base foliage for the first two trees comes in both Dark green and yellow.
I treated the yellow version to the same watered down emulsion paint and let dry before teasing out and applying to the trunk.
The "upholsterers" foam would be the next step applied over the scourer I'd imagine.
Worth a try.

Mike - do you think the above process would produce something pretty close to the Heki Flok that you have used?

Petermac - should we have a whip round for bail money?

Marty I honestly don't know, but you'd have to think it's in with a chance.  The foliage mats are a little bit stretchy, and can easily be teased out into very thin pieces.
Looking at your tree, the method you used is the right way                                                               

thanks Mike  :oops:  :oops:

I'm in the process of making a second one the same way for the "how i did it", just hope I can repeat the process :shock:  :shock:      

Tree 4  Thicker trunk and Mark II foliage repeated.

Thought I'd better have another go to see that I could repeat the process and I do like making trees.


Here is the twisted wire frame




Now with bark mix applied to thicken the trunk and then painted with acrylics and dusted with ground coloured pastel.




The ingredients and tools that I'm using for applying the foliage.





Last time I sprayed with hairspray and then sprinkled the Heki foliage. By chance a couple of clumps attached themselves to the branches. These clumps formed the basis for the next layer to adhere to once the second hairspray/foliage round was commenced. And so on. Gradually building up a series of layers of foliage.

This time I tried to pre-position some key foliage to act as an anchor for the subsequent applications. Using the white glue and a pair of tweezers I started from the bottom branches and worked up upwards.




About half way up the painstakingly fiddly approach with the tweezers had lost its entertainment value and the random hairspray, lots of hairspray, as I think I've mentioned before, was resorted to again.

Letting each layer dry before applying the next you have to let it dry otherwise the pressure of the hairspray blows the still wet foliage off, how do I know this the tree comes together.

A sprinkle of the burnt grass scatter and some more ground pastel dust over the top, another application of hairspray to hold it all together, including the undersides and.




Ok, I reckon I've got this type worked out.

Next. A Conifer of some kind.

Here is the twisted wire frame…




How am I going to do the foliage on this one :shock:  Any suggestions… :?:

Well Marty if i had a choice between your finished tree and a ready made shop one, i go for yours all the time.
Yours looks more realistic, first class job in my book, well done.
Phill

Woodland Sceneics make what they call conifer foliage. I've used some, although at the time I wasn't  trying for a conifer look.  I just liked the colour.
 lYou won't see any needles in it, and I guess it's debateable as to whether we would see any at the scales we model.
 I have tried making conifers with the bottlebrush method: clumps of sisal rope fibres twisted into the wire trunk, and trimmed to shape. Probably I should've added some other scatter material over the top, because they sure didn't impress me as they were  :?

 Your bare conifer looks the goods, as does your finished tree. I hope you don't mind, but I can see a problem that I hate to bring to your attention, but I feel I should: if you keep making trees THAT good, you're going to be invaded by caterpillars.


 Mike :D

Wow Marty - that looks fantastic.  I'm sure this thread will be "well used" by us all.  Brilliant trees and very well described/photographed.

Thanks  :wink:  :wink:

Petermac

Fantastic Marty. Having seen yours and MikeC's trees, I'm plucking up the courage to have a go, but don't hold your breath.    

Les

Don't forget that you said you would do us a How To in the Scenery section Marty. We can't have your tree method lost in the pages of your layout thread for future members.

Marty, Nice accomplishment and I do like the trunk! OK, I like everything!
Is there a different glue that could be used to speed up the process? (and help the entertainment value) :shock:

Wayne

Marty said

Jeff - Orders   :oops:  :oops: :shock:   :!:  :?:  Hmmm, I wonder, I'm looking for a new occupation.
Lets see… parts cost me about AUD$10 and a hourly rate of say AUD$60/hour at about 4 hours for that one makes it worth…. AUD$250…. about 120 pounds sterling…. there could be some economies of scale with mass production  :shock:  

At £120 a tree, I don't think you'll be unable to cope with the workload, Marty.
If you are inundated with orders, remember it was my idea, but I only charge 5% agent's fees :!:  :!:

Gwent Rail said

At 3120 a tree, I don't think you'll be unable to cope with the workload, Marty.
If you are inundated with orders, remember it was my idea, but I only charge 5% agent's fees :!:  :!:

As a Moderator Jeff, you swore (on Bob's buffer stop) to carry out your duties as a labour of love - i.e. for no reward save that of knowing you you do the work of the Fat controller !!!  At least that's what he made me promise !!

Petermac

Well done with that tree Marty,first class :D  Im interested in how you'll do your conifer cos i need make some and not got a clue myself :oops:    

Thanks for the comments all.

Phil - a "first class" from the LM, gotta treasure that :wink:

Mike - I'll go and have a look at the Woodland scenic "conifer" again although I agree from a previous look that it's just the darker colour and not anything special in the "needle" department.
I too looked at the twisted wire and sisal option but wanted more control over the individual branches, the sisal just didn't do it for me.
Darn catapillers I hate the blighters, they get into everything by the thousands. More surface spray required.      

Petermac and Bob - I've not forgotten the "how I did it" in the scenery section. Coming shortly.

Les - Time consuming, very theraputic but not difficult. Puff ball and commercially bought trees just don't cut the mustard for me so I reckon it's worth it.

Wayne - a different glue, brilliant, I do like this forum, I might give superglue a go, that should make the whole process a lot quicker when placing the "key" foilage.

Jeff - just 5%  :shock:  maybe as my UK agent       

Sue - what type of conifer do you need? This first one I'm doing I'm trying to make a Larch.

Tree 5 - a Larch (hopefully)

Why the Larch…

Well, in an effort to make the layout "feel" right I felt that trying to model the vegetation for the Teifi valley as closely as I could was the way to go.
I did a little research into the tree types in West Wales and the Larch was mentioned as a common type and I've seen a couple of them in some of the photos I've collected.

Last night I found some really good Larch photos on the web and made a subtle but important change to the shape of the branches, hopefully you can see the change when comparing the picture below with the original wire frame above.

My old "bark mix" had "gone off" and wouldn't stick to the branches so I ditched it and made up a new batch, gradually testing and adding the PVA until it started to stick to the single strands of wire that make up the individual limbs.

I'm not to worried about the little "blobs" of "bark mix" on the limbs, I reckon the foilage will hide them.





It needs a couple more coats yet just to hide the twisted wire on the trunk and make the branches strong enough to support the foilage.

Now, according to the photo's the foliage/needles droop from the branch :shock: A bit like the shaggy coat of Highland cattle. Getting that looking "right" is going to be a challenge :!:

I'm off to the hobby shop to have a look at what they've got.