Crepe Myrtle Foreground tree: 1

I've spent some time over the last few evenings getting some foreground trees built up. These will be for the alcove scene, as well as helping to frame a special new structure that I haven't shared on the blog yet over in Enosburg.

I'm building these up using the Crepe Myrtle tips I harvested last winter - some of them had a considerable "bow" to them, but by gluing a few of them together and selectively pruning some of the large or more oddly placed branches, it makes a nice basic tree armature. In some cases, it's pretty close to the basic shape of an elm tree. 

I then fill out the basic armature with Super tree tips. 

The next step will be to add some bulk and blending to the trunks. 

Down By the Old Mill Stream: 4 (aka "I'm baaaccckkk baby!")

Rather than a long detailed explanation as to why I haven't done much posting for the last month and a half, I'll simply say the entirely necessary but seemingly never-ending work project is at last finished. 
I feel a little like one of the late 20th century's most brilliant philosophers....

My oldest son Jeff came up to visit for about a week. We (Jeff, myself, my youngest son Matthew, and Bernie Kempinski) took in all the sights (sounds...and smells...) of the Great Scale Model Train Show in Timonium on Saturday. We also headed over to M B Klein's where I added a new Broadway Limited 2-8-0 to the roster - a planned phased replacement of the fleet of Bachmann Spectrum Connies that are starting to show their age. I drove, and we couldn't simply drop Bernie off without peering in his basement to monitor his progress. So we spent a pleasant couple of hours seeing what he was up to - as fascinating as always. Jeff even managed to leave with a steering wheel...long story. 

I rewarded myself with a day off yesterday - so Jeff and I occupied ourselves in the basement for most of the afternoon - we got the background hills behind the mill stream finished and replanted. I also got a first coat of riverbed material in place - the whole scene needs a few minor details tweaked here and there but it was great fun to spend time working on the layout - having Jeff around only made it more fun!

Tree color mixes

From my "Modeling the October Scene" clinic that I presented at the Cocoa Beach RPM meet and again at the NMRA National in Portland, Ore.
Some of the color combinations I use to flock the fall trees. They are arranged by basic color group (green, red, etc…)
Left side shows the basic material I use. Then the color that's added as a "highlight" color. To the right you can see the result when combined. 
Note I do NOT "dunk" the tree armatures in the flocking material. I apply adhesive (usually thinned matte medium, though I've used hairspray in a pinch) and hold the tree upright and sprinkle the material from the top down. I don't try for 100% coverage - I try to let some of the fine branch tips remain bare to create the appearance of a tree that has changed color and shed some, but not all, of its leaves. 

Modeling Fall Forests - Coming in the November 2015 Model Railroader Magazine

Model Railroader editor Neil Besougloff asked me to put together an article on how I create the fall scenery on the layout. 
I did and sent the article to Neil a few months ago. It will be appearing in the November 2015 issue of MR - available shortly. You can see a snippet of above (screen capture from this "coming soon" preview.)

Grassing things up

Added about eight linear feet of static grass to the area north of Williams Creek Bridge. I decided the "almost straw" grass colors looked pretty good, but it needed a little something to give it a bunch in a couple of spots - the answer was some bright red Sumac by the embankment. Next step - fence line and telegraph poles. I might add an old stone fence in the woods, almost overgrown by brush, but that will have to wait until after the Cocoa Beach meet. 

I also added some more trees to the ridge behind the Waterbury freight house and feed mill. We arrived in town to catch the sugar maples at their peak - truly "electric maples" - they are the brightest on the layout. (And yes, I know the freight house needs a roof before the winter…!)

Trees, trees, and more trees….

I made some trees over the holiday weekend last week. 

Today I planted some of them. 
The lead photo shows the trees in the transition area between the "peak" colors and the "past peak" colors. 
Next step is some static grass in the foreground. 

A time for every purpose....

There is a time for every purpose under heaven, and on the model railroad.
In this case late fall in Virginia means it's time to harvest tree armatures from the Crepe Myrtle plants.
Making foreground trees is great fun while watching football on a late autumn/early winter Sunday afternoon!

Foreground Trees - Update

I've gotten some questions on my Crepe Myrtle trees lately, including questions on what a Crepe Myrtle plant looks like "in the wild." Rather than create another post I added a photo of a Crepe Myrtle tree in bloom to the original August 2011 post on making trees using Crepe Myrtle tips and Supertree foliage material. See it here:

http://centralvermontrailway.blogspot.com/2011/08/foreground-trees.html

Since that post appeared I've done some experimenting adding leaves to the Crepe Myrtle foreground trees - a post on that will follow shortly.

Wordless Wednesday #10

Trees, Trees everywhere

Background trees added to the long neck of the peninsula. 

This helps break up the joint between the modeled railroad 

and painted backdrop. 

One thing you need when you model a New England railroad is trees - lots of 'em. In my case they come in two distinct categories - foreground trees, ones that are "stand alone" items - and "filler" trees. I decided to spend some time over the last few evenings adding some of those "filler" trees to the area between the mainline and the backdrop. I've started "grassing up" the area between the mainline and fascia edge as well. 

Next step is to add the texture (static grass and the like) between
the track and fascia. 

This is an example of "large scale" modeling - not in the proportion but in the amount of material needed. I didn't count how many individual Supertrees are now planted on the layout, but it took most of Sunday afternoon to prep the trees, paint them, and install them. I think the time was well spent since this portion of the layout is at last starting to look a little more complete. 

Foreground Trees

August 8, 2013 Update:
I've been getting some questions on the Crepe Myrtle trees, so I added a couple of pictures of the trees in bloom to this post.
One of the trees in bloom:

Here's a closeup of the bloom. When these die off they have to cut from the tree. It's one fall gardening chore I actually like doing!

I want to work on some scenery - for a change of pace from track and wiring and also to have a place to pose some "finished" photos, especially around my bridge scene. The problem was I didn't have any foreground trees. So I decided my "weeknight" project - for those times when I had a few minutes in the evening - would be to build up some leafless deciduous trees. 

Last spring we had a bunch of landscaping done - and we ended up with several Crape Myrtle plants. These flower in the summer, one flower on the end of each branch, and the seed pods and flowers turn brown in the fall. To get the plant to flower again you really need to remove the seed heads from the plant. Here's one of the plants in the side yard - this was taken in late spring.

You can see the seed pods on the dried out bloom below - I kept these cuttings thinking they may make decent tree armatures. They do, but it takes a little bit of trimming. Of course, the seed pods have to be removed and the "droopy" ends of the branches need to be trimmed off as well.

Here's the "stripped" armature - ready to have the finer branches added:

I used the pieces of the fine Super Trees sold by Scenic Express applied one at a time and secured in place with hot glue - much easier than the CA I used to use to build up trees. I always ended up with little bits of SuperTrees on my fingers!!

Here's a tree just about ready for the paint shop (I'll paint them primer gray with a dusting of "Camo Brown" on the ends) - On this one I also plan to remove that oddball branch on the bottom.

I don't plan to make forests of trees this way. This is strictly for foreground "specimen" trees. But I'm pleased with the way the Crepe Myrtle branches make the trunk and main branches look more robust and the Super Tree foliage adds the finer branch structure. I've made about a dozen of these in the last week of evenings - which should be more than enough to scenic the bridge scene. That's tomorrow's project.