This kit was a Christmas gift from Santa or my wife, not sure which. The soft metal castings needed a small amount of flashing removed and then the limbs needed to be bent to shape -- so they were not all in roughly the same plane (as cast). Not too tough, and the identical castings could be shaped to look like two different trees. The directions recommended dark grey trunks with highlights of browns. I tried dark grey with bark brown highlight for one and bark brown with dark grey highlights for the other -- acrylic paints brushed on. I also tried something I had seen, probably from Cody on Model Railroader website, that was called dry brushing. I used "cafe latte'" brown for that. I'm not sure it added much although I could see a bit of the details in the casting in a place or two.
The kit came with lots more "leaves" than apparently is needed, and the directions commented on that -- the lacier the better. . . . I cut (about 1"X2") and pulled the leaf mats in several directions. Then I applied white glue to the ends of the limbs and pressed the fluffy mats on -- I had done a dry-run with the mats prior to gluing. After that, I sprayed the whole mess with heavy-duty, cheap hairspray in a pump bottle. After a second or third spraying, I dropped a few pinches of a different colored (maybe "dead grass") ground foam on the trees; the hair spray was still damp. You can even see some of the highlights in the photo, especially the left tree (it's NOT the flash). By then, I was feeling like a hairdresser (highlights, hair spray, and a peculiar aroma for a train layout. . . ), so I quit. I might go back with a little more of the different colored foam; or I might not.
The cheap hairspray produced a good bit of "shine" on the tree trunks. I was fairly well pleased with the trunks before the spray. Not sure how I'll remedy that. Maybe I'll just keep bright lights off the trunks!
I think these trees will look best near the mill village. Maybe we can add a tire swing to a low-hanging branch.
Most of the layout will probably have pine trees instead of these hardwoods (where there are trees), but I like the emphasis these two trees can provide by their "difference". I'm looking at the bottle brush method for the pines.
Looks like I'll need to determine the location of all structures, roads, track (well, that's pretty well settled), trees, cotton field, etc., before I do much of the general scenery. With the exception of a few pine trees and maybe some small cedars as a hedge row around the (to be applied) cotton field, we have all the structures that are needed.
Although I have not advertised this blog very much (the main purpose was just to put up some photos of the Clever Models cardstock structures that I had made), I would still like any comments from those who happen to bump into this site.
Thanks!
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