"Tall Pines How To"" Topic

For you Skip, a quick "How To"

First, go gather up some sticks between 8-14 inches long. I cut them off a dead bush in my backyard. I cut about 30 to start. Microwave the sticks to kill bugs. A bunch of small bugs came crawling out of the sticks I cut, so make sure to do that. Throw them in a tub of Matte Medium solution to seal them. Let them soak overnight.

Next buy something like this. A coconut fibre basket liner
Coco Basket Liner
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Now cut the basket liner up into various sized circles, like this.
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Once that's done, peal the circles apart and tease them out. Like this

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Now, after the sticks have dried, whittle the top to a point. Electric pencil sharpener works well here. Otherwise, do it by hand. Not too sharp, just enough taper.

Start from the top and slide a large coco circle about 1/4 of the way down the stick. Using smaller and smaller circles, fill the tree up until you're near the top. 
Take the circles off and slather the tree with PVA or whatever glue you choose.
Really slap the glue on, so that the coconut fibres will stick
Slide the circles back onto the stick and allow for space in between layers. 
Leave it to dry overnight.
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Next tease the fibres out and pull any excess off by hand. Form the shape of a Pine tree with some sharp scissors. Don't be afraid to leave some blank spaces between branches, an airy look adds to the realism.
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Whatever color flocking you plan to use, now is the time to get it ready.
For theses particular trees I used Woodlands Scenics Evergreen Fine Turf.
However, you can use many and varied colors of flock depending on the look you're after. Coarse turf will result in a "fuller" tree. The Season should determine the color.

Next use a dark green or dark brown spray paint and spray the fibers. Try to avoid spraying the trunk below the fiber line. Spray all over, including underneath. While the paint is still wet, begin applying the flock by allowing it to sprinkle down all over the tree. Get some underneath by turning the tree upside down and applying flock there. Give it a good coat. 
Put these aside to dry.

OPTIONAL… You can spray a lighter or different color from the top of the tree down to represent new growth. 

Big Finish…
Once the paint has dried, I spray the tree with spray adhesive and apply a second coat of flock. I vary these colors and textures to make each tree different. The batch that I am making now is a bit greener and more open than the first bunch. They will intermingle perfectly. Remember to keep some "dead" and "downed" trees to the mix.

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Once you're finished with that then hit the finished product with some Dulcote to lock it all in. That's it, Skip.

Aha! I knew I had seen similar results on a recent YouTube video:

YouTube link

They really look very nice, plus durable too.

Dan
TMP link

Brilliant! Thanks

I intend to do this! Thanks for the tip on the bugs!!!!

You now hold the record in my "favorites" list as most saved articles with 5 entries!

TreeGirl recommends hitting it with hairspray extra hold instead of Dulcote. We had originally tried Dulcote but found that hairspray works much better.

You can even use pine-scented if you want.

Hi

WOn't furnace filter material also work?

I find hairspray inconsistent, so I finish everything off with Dulcote. Your choice. Doesn't matter to me.

Wack, No, it won't work as well. You can use it, if that's your choice, but I find that the coconut stuff is way better. They tease out nicer and they hold the shape much better.

This was a quick "how I did it". Whatever works for you is great.

Never thought about bugs in them.

Well I just make fun of it's mother and it forms any shape I want.

I made a pine tree forest with pretty much the same technique except I used wooden dowels instead of actual sticks. I then glued some actual tiny twigs around the outside of the dowels to make them look more like actual scale tree trunks.

Mine is based on the tutorial by Sorastro's Painting channel on Youtube:

More pics:

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Dowels are too straight for my taste. Backyard sticks have a natural curve to them, which looks more realistic. Plus they don't need painting.

I'll post more when I'm finished with these.

Yes but, in nature many varieties of tall pine trees are perfectly straight like that, that's why I modeled them that way. You're saying that bendy sticks look more "realistic". Well, I don't mean to be a contrarian, but the photos below show the shape of natural pine trunk that is more "realistic" do they not? Wouldn't bendy sticks be more suited for deciduous trees in a lot of cases?

I'm not saying pine tree trunks have zero bend to them, but quite a few in nature are pretty darn close to being almost artificially straight. Yet that is exactly how they grow naturally.

I get it if you like the look of yours better. But the claim that they're more realistic than straighter trunks is…well –

I mean these trunks are growing naturally, and they LITERALLY have almost no bend to them. Hence why I chose straight dowels. And it's why Sorastro chose to use dowels. He looked at photos of pine tree forests in nature. :)

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Sasquatch prefers the straight ones for its "teepees" (or territorial markers?). :)

Dan

The Pines that grow in Camden, SC are not straight. Even in the pix you provided, not all of the trees are straight.
Look a CC's photos. Are those trees all straight?

Use dowels if it makes you happy.

And put up your own "how to" and stop hijacking my thread.

Guys

Some are straight, and I guess some ain't. Wait, we are still talking about real trees, right? :)

Dan
YouTube link

Well of course, some are straight and some not.

Jeez, how is showing my own pine trees hijacking your thread? Dang. All I did was say I made some and here's a picture of them. All ya had to say was, "oh cool to see that someone else made some."

By the way, your pine trees look really great with natural sticks, I never thought they didn't. You didn't need to counter my post with "Well I wouldn't do them that way." That opened the door for my response. And if we know that some are straight and some have a bend, why do you need to even describe one or the other as more realistic than the other just because mine aren't like yours? Both are realistic yes?

Wow…

Just saying. :)

While there are numerous ways to make miniature pine trees… I really like the idea of using real, unprocessed tree twigs for the trunks. A brilliant idea! And no painting necessary!

The one in the photo with the broken off limb looks outstanding!!! Cannot see duplicating that with dowels.

@skipper John,

Oh indeed, no question that actual sticks look great. One of the technical reasons for the dowels is that the coco fiber stuff is glued to barbecue skewers and flocked first, then you make a little hole in the top of the dowel so you can insert the skewer into the top of the trunk. It gives you kind of an easier piece to handle when flocking and gluing than if it was already attached to whole trunk.

Not a huge issue either way though.

I used actual sticks like nevinsrip did when I made terrain bases of dead, fallen trees. GW did similar stuff for their Lord of the Rings terrain, I saw it in White Dwarf a number of years back. Looks really great and in that regard it's true, you can't really duplicate a natural curve or look with a dowel. Tall pine trees are about the only thing I'd ever use dowels for with the exception of doing like cut amd shaped timbers for like a fort or breastworks. Dowels work great for that kind of thing.

Fine treed jobs on all accounts!