What have you discovered to be the best method for making these things look more realistic. I envisioned painting them a dark green and after letting them dry, spraying them with spray adhesive and then adding ground foam scenic material. Is this the best method and which texture should I use? (fine, medium, or course) Please post some pictures of your "works of art"! (Or in this case, works of nature) I am sure this has been beaten to death in the past but remember, there is new members joining every day!

Thanks in advance!
Ken

The method you describe sounds about right. good luck bobby

I trim them to make them look less perfectly shaped. I snip off branches in a random fashion to give the trees open areas. Then I paint them green if they have snow on them. Finally I apply some course green ground foam. As they come, the trees all look the same. But by trimming them, every one becomes distinct.

Jim

How about shaping a 'trunk' out of, say, balsa to give them more height? The pines around here don't have any branches for the first 30 or 40 feet.

quote:

Originally posted by Tahoedog:
How about shaping a 'trunk' out of, say, balsa to give them more height? The pines around here don't have any branches for the first 30 or 40 feet.

That's an excellent idea! I'm heading out now to HD for some trees.

Jim

Hi!

I just picked up 4 more pack's from "Big Lot's", 16 x-mass bottle types for $6.00, what I do is get out my paint roller pan, use a brush(3"), paint the whole tree with cheap green paint from the "Lowe's" return table($6.00 a gallon), I do them one at a time, I make sure I cover the tree(cover up all the snow and branches with a heavy coat) and then I sprinkle on fine ground foam, over a seperate tray to collect the excess foam,(I like to use dark green), in this way the foam sticks to the paint with no further steps needed except to shake off any excess after I let them dry for a day. When I am ready to attach them to my layout I twist off the wooden bases, and use hot glue to set them in place. They look great to me and you can save a bundle over those you can buy already done!

Can you please show us? I am going to pick up some today.

In a differant post it was said that Home Depot has bag of 21 for about $6.00! Just an FYI!

I also would love to see some pics!

You can wash the snow off with some hot water and your thumb. Takes about 2 minutea a tree. Then I would trim and remove some branches as mentioned above.

Paint is optional, good luck.