Venus Palm Trees

Heres my take on Venusian style palm trees made from some plastic flowers with long pointy flat leaves. The leaves are hot glued onto the top of thin piece of oak branch , harvested from a tree on my property. I simply put the trunk in a small vice and rotate the assembly slowly as I hot glue one frond after the other. I pointed the first fronds down some, then out right and then up a bit so they would hang a little. Some tiny leaves of the same design were put poking out the top to give the feel of new growth. Probably shorten the height of the trunks some, but it is easier to shorten than make taller! To the right you can see the foliage coverage better. Leaves were untouched for the shine of healthy green, though I am thinking of maybe a wash of purple, to alien-ize it a bit more.

Overhead shot of the trees to show the way they are glued down. Some nice coverage over all.

And there you have it.

Venus Pond Scum

Plant life on the jungle planet of Venus grows FAST! Rains can be torrential and then everything turn steamy and the ponds dry up in days. So I made this piece to the right as a Venusian Pond. During play it is encountered and if someone or something actually tries to move across it, its density is diced for, something like 1-4 its Water, 5 its rough ground for all the tangled plant matter, 6 it has a native hungry life form in it that sees you as part of its food chain! The base is a large single piece of light weight plastic, though several scrap pieces could be glued together to make the base, after all they are going to be covered completely. The base was painted in a light green color.

Next, these plastic plant bits were pulled off their sprues and then clipped to single leaves. Each leaf was attached to the base with hot glue and over lapped. A few round balls will be scattered about to give it a bit more character and perhaps a reed type plant stick up here and there, or are those really reeds and not some sort of antenni?? Stores flat, very light weight, takes abuse well, no paint on the plastic leaves, water plants are shinny by nature. And there you have it.

Rocky Hill Sides

There comes a time when you realize that not all hillsides are smooth with grass. There are several approaches to model this, the picture is my chosen approach. I have, in the past, done the more often seen; Styrofoam shaped with a hot wire or Sharp knife, painted and dry brushed, alla Warhammer 40K scenics you see pictured very often. I strive for more detail than a piece Styrofoam though. Yet, Styrofoam is the core of this hill. I reverse engineered my process to take a couple of How To pics on the steps I take to do this style.

A base is essential since the rock side is crumbling with weathering. Block is roughly shaped and glued with pva to the base and left to dry, your going to handle it a lot when your on the next step.

Have a rough idea if the entire hill is rocky or just a slope side or even just exposed areas of the hill, as in a ravine that has eroded open. When the core is secure and solidly in place, time to break out some rock molds. I use woodland scenic molds, they are durable and you can cast any type of material into them, at least I have used plaster, 2 part resin and pressed oven bake clay in and gotten good results. If your pouring a material into the molds you don't have to fill each part, leave some poured only part way to get thin rock facings to go along with the major looking versions. This gives a greater variety for the price of one molding sheet.

So here I have a scattered collection of rock pieces I cast, notice that some of them are very thin. I lightly sand the backs and since these are in resin, I wash them in soapy water to get any residue that did not fully dry, old resin.., ready for gluing.

So here we are with the basic piece of core Styrofoam covered with glued on pieces of rock. Do not worry about gaps, after the rock pieces are completely dry you will use a caulking gun to shoot paintable caulk into the gaps. Use a fat stylus rod or your finger to make sure gaps are filled. Once it is fully dry, maybe a day sitting on a shelf .. the caulk needs a lot of time if its very thick to cure enough that water base paint will not melt it, its time for painting. Standard painting tips that you can find on many sites apply. Base coat dark and then dry brush lighter and lighter shades on up till your satisfied with the look. This includes the fallen rocks that you glue to the base of the rock face (cliff) with some sand or kitty litter added with pva glue for the crushed rock that occurs when the pieces fell and smashed to the ground.

This final shot is from the piece in the original picture, from the very front, but gives a good finished view of how the final painting goes over the entire piece. If the back of the hill is grassed and slopes away, simply paint or glue plus flock and its done.So, there you have it.

Pine Tree Update

My Rule of three indicates 3 or more colors to make my scenic pieces stand out. So looking at my tree trunks for my Pine Trees, I noticed that they were mainly Redwoods, time to hit the colors. So consulting my pictures from a camping trip up in the high sierra's I decided to darken the remaining trunks to a more Cedar and Douglas Pine trees colors. I may take a few and do them in very light grey of dead trees and bare branch them. Hmmm *puts on the to do list*

Probably a bit to much light on the second photo but they are about 2 shades darker. Since they had no bases attached I used the tipped cookie sheet pan to put the thinned water base paint into the edge groove created when you prop the cookie sheet at an angle. Then I placed the trunks into the thinned paint, rolled them, place them up on the edge of the sheet to drip dry. After half an hour or so I move the trunks slightly to get the tips of the trunks out of the puddles that form while they were dripping.

So here is a better picture of the color change, the trunks on the left are original color; redwood, the trunks on the right are Cedar Pin color , also sub subs in for Douglas Fir. When they are fully dry its back to the hot glue branches on pile to be done, which is currently still at the top of the *to do list*.

Venus Jungle Trees

Inspired by Tom Terrific's jungle post I dug out my Venus Jungle Trees for a how to on the way I made them. I wanted Huge trunks, Really big, to be different from all the other twist wire type trees and typical Tree From Plastic Plants that I usually build. The heart of the tree is a Dixie cup, I didn't have a large one on hand for the assembly pics but did have a medium one to use as an example. I liked the cone shape of the cub but of course it has a waxy surface that not much will stick to for more than a bit, let alone paint will just run off its water base. To beat the problem and get something going I covered a cup in masking tape and noticed immediately that it would not go around smoothly. Hah! Shaping the tape as it went on I could form the start of ground rootings. These gave the trees a more "real" semblance that they were rooted to the the ground, and the tape sticks really well to the wax surface, in turn providing a surface that you can glue and paint on with ease. Using short pieces of tape, which work much better than a long continuous piece, you build up the effect as shown in the picture below.

On the picture to the left is the final layer of taping to the top. Next I got out the Hot Glue gun and built up some extra roots on the tape. I used a Large Hot Glue gun for the extra rooting that I applied over the tape seam edges of the Ground roots. Next I applied some caulking from the Kel Seal tub. The tear seams of the tape add texture as I use the Kel Seal, or any latex paintable caulking to smear over the surface. Tapping the gooey surface with your finger puts lots of texture / paint catching surface coverage to the side of the tree trunk. Still no base at this point, so I was tempted to carve out a hollow and then glue some Floral foam up inside so as to give a 3 dimensional hollow area, but skipped it for now, but is well worth a follow up sculpt. The tapping, hot glue and caulk application area a matter of minutes to do, you can of course do singles or mass produce them. A smear of Kel Seal on the top and touch of paint to it all makes the growth on top fill out better and gives a better surface to glue it all down with more .. Hot Glue!

To the left is a fast coat of Flat Brown that is not dry yet, from Rustoleum spray can. But I wanted the texture of the bark to be really visible so the wet shot. You could of course use any color you wanted to give it more of an other world feel, but then having some of the items "look" familiar while the rest is strange, I think, hooks the players into the terrain a bit more. Next would be to dry brush some highlight colors and attach to a base of your choice. I used a stiff plastic with beveled edges but hit a snag when I realized that I didn't want to just flock it with the usual green, as I too was seeking more of an alien setting. So, wandering about in the garden supply section of a Orchard Supply store I came across a bag of GREEN MOSS for hanging basket potting. As it was only a couple of dollars I figured to give it a go and see if it would look good as dead leafy matter under the trees. I brushed some contact cement onto the base, plunked a large amount of the moss onto the base and pressed firmly all over the base, let it dry for an hour and then pulled off the excess and hit with some diluted pva glue to hold it down. Over all I feel it gives a nice effect. I have to go back and add a few fallen blueish fruits to the ground as litter, maybe paint them a bit blackened as they rot , some split or chewed might also fit the scene.

The toppings of my trees were what you see, the green plastic leafy stuff with the purplish beads representing I have No clue but came apart easily. I then took a bit of purplish paint and gave a dry brushing to all leaf edges, this to give them more in common with the "fruit" of the trees. I envisioned them as the Date Trees of Venus. I glued the fruit masses to the top of the Dixie up to cover most of it, then hot glued the branching's in as seemed to fit and fill out in most all directions. A few tiny leaves were hot glued directly onto the trunks lower down for character. You can see how the moss filled out the base here in this picture, Dusty must be detained by something as he didn't make it into this picture for some reason, hmmm perhaps friendly natives??
Ah, there he is coming out from behind that tree, mystery solved, but also showing a full sized tree. My Rule of 3 is that any scenic piece needs three colors to set it off from being just a plain piece. The Green Purple and Brown is a good start for meeting my minimum of 3. the Sprig of yellow and orange at the very top like a flower stamen gives it a bit more character with out taking away or overpowering the piece. A rather involved piece with more time spent figuring where to place the clusters and leaf branches than assembling the trunk and bases. More of the fruit clusters were added After the branches were all complete so that there were not Gaps in the foliage over all coverage.
And There you have it.

Brick Wall, the Hard way

So, I found a Rectangle hole punch, 1/4 " by 1/8 " at the local craft store. I have wanted to do my own brick walls for later period buildings but didn't want to bake clay brick and the assorted plastic kit bricks were not very appealing. Next, using Card Stock, and lots of persistent grip strength, while watching a dvd you Snick Snick Snick............ until you think you would welcome madness!

I had used the back of the card stock for spraying scenic bases and such for some time, hence the greens and browns on some of the bricks. The bricks scale for 28mm really well. Next using a marked piece of card stock and a long pin I spread a bit of contact cement and then stick a brick with a pin to lift it and press it into the glue, another stylus would push it down and allow me to pull the pin out. I left tiny gaps on all sides as my final plan is to make a casting mold off this for one story buildings. The first mold will destroy the original card stock wall but I am making it larger than I need. I have a large belt sander available to shape it as I need, so I am taking my time when I work on it to try and get it just right. I have maybe another 2 or 3 rows to go. The piece is 8 inches long. I think I will hit it with a shellac spray to help seal it from the molding material. Oh yes, there is Dusty doing what he does best, no not shooting, lending scale reference :)

And there you have it.

Where It All Happens Update

My hobby room, typically refereed to as the Cargo Bay has been updated. A friend bought a house and removed the base cabinets from two rooms which he as glad to donate and get rid of. After cleaning and a flat black spray coat, the 3 cabinets look more uniform, to to mention, 1 had been White, Med Brown and Dark Brown. So the assembly to the left took on new dimensions as the table bench it had been with Tote's for storage underneath became Bench top work area and cabinet bulk item storage area. All the finished terrain was reorganized by period into the totes and stored in the garage game area. I was really pleased with the increased separation and storage options this gave me.





Followed by a couple of hours sorting mix materials that had crept into the wrong plastic storage containers. Invariably I did toss a lot of older scenic proof of concept pieces. And there is no proof that anyone died in the completion of this rework!

About time to go through the zillion old figures stored in the multi drawers pictured to the right. Wooooh, Petal Throne Muglavians to paint! Enough for a Fantasy Rules army too! *scribbles note on the to do list*




And there you have it.