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Over on FB someone asked for a how to on my jungle scatter.
So I will do a rough how to here.
First off you need something to stick the stuff on.
I made a few shapes from plasticard and then smeared on some white pumice and went to the hassle of moulding them so I can cast ready textured bases.
Though no reason why just plasticard originals will not work!I find that the cheap plastic trees I use have very obvious mould lines, so I rough them up a bit with a needle file.
The lines are still visible but they are less stark and straight.
For me this is enough.
When I made them, I left some untextured areas for the trunks to sit in.
Then I hot glue the trunks in place.
Hot glue is quick, easy and super sticky.
I have tried superglue and wood glue, hot glue is way better imo and a hot glue gun is cheap as chips.
The hot glue can leave a ring of splodge:
So once set, only a few seconds, I cover this up with white pumice (which is a sort of glue/very fine sand mix)
I apply this with a coffee stirrer stick.
It does not need to be neat as there will be all manner of leafage and tuftage covering it.
Once this is dry I will show you what I do next…
Superb!
Although I’m surprised that you glue the trees on. With such large bases it may be a problem for storage? When I use large bases I tend to let the trees loose, with a pin under the trunk.
http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
https://www.anargader.net/Although I’m surprised that you glue the trees on. With such large bases it may be a problem for storage? When I use large bases I tend to let the trees loose, with a pin under the trunk.
1: Nah, they are only 15mm so don’t take up that much space, plus I only play 1 scale 1 genre so don’t have much stuff to store anyway.
2: Eeeeek what about the gaps/cracks between the trunk and ground, eeeek😀
Yikes, the pressure is on!
Quick bit of priming.
Humbrol Dark Brown no29. My go to primer for figures and buildings and pretty much everything.
Humbrol Dark Green no30. My default green primer for leafy crud.
I tend not to worry about the underside of the smaller bushes as that cant be seen once on the tabletop.
The frondy tree bits however I do prime the underside as these could possibly be seen from the tabletop…Thanks, even if they were all the same colour I would paint them.
I find that as my figures are painted, and the buildings painted, and the rocks painted, in order to maintain a visual consistency, the plant must be painted too.so…
The trunks.
I slap on a slightly watered down green ochre.
Then apply a wash all over of a medium brown.
Then once dry, drybrush the original colour over it, this time neat.
Then once dry mix in a bit of white and do a quick drybrush in a few areas.
it is not amazing by any standards and to be fair I possibly could do more, but I find that when it is all done the trunks are fine as the eye is drawn to the more interesting green bits.
Right then.
The plastic greenery.I use 3 main colours for the leaves.
Cheapo craft paint as the undercoat.
As well as being cheap, I find it is quite dry in that it soaks up other paints, so you can water down the other colours.
Slap the cheap craft paint all over.
Now I use an old trunk on which to hold the green, it fits as it is meant to and it is a nice shaft to grab hold of whilst you paint.
Get underneath a bit on the trees
Blob it onto blu tac and let dry
Then apply the duller less exciting Goblin Green all over, though this can be watered down which makes it easier to apply and easier to get the paint on the bendy front leaf ends.
Having to apply thicker paint on things that bend away from you can be annoying, so watering down helps.
Again going underneath a bit, but dont stress it too much
Then once dry we get the jazzier Forest Green and again watered down we apply to the outsides of the leaves, leaving the middle the goblin green.
What I am trying to do is make the outer edges of the greenery lighter than the center.
right now it looks terrible, but is better when dry and better when complete!
So don’t worry.Once that is done we get the jazzy forest green and mix in a bit of yellow and again move to the outer edges, leaving the earlier goblin green and some of the recent forest green showing.
Once dry, again, but with even moar yellow mixed in.
It is about now that I carry on but go and splodge some colour over the inner parts of the leaves that we left craft/goblin green.
I find that leaving them seems a bit flat.
Try and aim for the raised bobbly bits on the leaves.
I normally stop here but decided to use some almost neat yellow right on the edges.
Up this close and without the rest of the flock/scatter/tufts added this looks quite mad.
But for me it all comes together later.Though obviously muck about with blends and what not, but once done it is ok for my table.
Here it is so far with the others.
As you can see, I did these in various batches and the colours vary.
Which seems fine, pretty sure all trees are not 100% colour matches, and even if they are, I prefer this look!Next, painting then flocking the base.
Next up the base.
Now I did do one with green paint but it looked too green, it was quite intense and seemed a very solid green when flocked.
So with that in mind I wanted a less solid looking grassy area.
Also, as I will be using my desert based miniatures I wanted some areas of the jungle boards where I could plop the desert based figures and they would not stick out like a sore thumb.
So I use the same sand coloured paint as a base and in some cases, leave it bare as it worn and trodden.So the base colour all over.
Then an ink wash as this will have a small area of bare ground.
Then a quick drybrush and that will suffice.
Next the application of the flock as the base grass.
Next I prepare the area for the 1st coat of flocking.
Varnish, flock in a cup, paper with a fold down the centre and the 1mm short strand flock.
So avoiding the green I get some varnish mixed with water and PVA and quickly slap that on the area.
Then hold the base over the paper and just chuck the flock all over and shake it a little bit.
Then hold upside down and tap the base so the excess falls off.
Then we have the first coat of flock.
I find that this has sat ontop of the varnish/glue mix and can and will rub off through use.
So next I mix up water/PVA and some hand wash or hand soap or dish soap.
This helps break down the surface tension of the water/PVA mix and when applied with a dropper it does not pool and bubble, but rather it spreads out and is much easier to use as it soaks evenly across all the flock.
I apply this with a dropper which I purchased a pack of from Amazon.
Then when it is all over the first layer of flock I again tip the flock cup all over the base and this second layer gets nicely stuck to our mix and helps thicken up the ground coverage.
Then we wait for this to dry….
Very nice! Where do you get the plastic trees from?
Ebay, plenty of China based sellers with loads of trees and plastic plants.
Are you thinking of selling the bases you cast?
I guess I could, I will think up a price.
So.
The best bit, the lushification.
Here are my main go to bits.
5 types of tufts.
Some reed type things.
Leaves.
2 types of clump foliage.I get the bigger tufts and apply those in various areas, mostly toward the centre.
With all tufts, don’t be afraid to trim them.
The big ones tend to spread out in all directions and sometimes you don’t want that, so I trim some sides at the bottom so that I can push them up against things without the tufts offering resistance.
Some of the smaller tufts I cut in half and push the cut edge against tree trunks.
Then I apply the smaller ones in various spots and then the smallest.
I like to try and clump them together to create a feel of undergrowth, rather than have the tufts apart which seems more contrived somehow?
Then once happy with these I apply the fancy tufts that have colour.
I have some green plants with yellow flowers and some desert ones.
I tend for whatever reasons to put the desert ones on the border of the flock and the painted bare earth, in my head it aids the transition from bare hard ground to soft foliage.
I find these tufts are the most interesting as they are not just simple strands of plastic or whatever these things are, but they have differing textures and shapes and colours.
I also splodge a bit of the trusty water/pva/soap liquid next to the tufts and push some of the loose clump foliage into the glue.
Then once happy with the layout of the tufts, the reeds and leaves.
The reed things I have had for over 10 years and no idea where I got them from, probably a model train show?
Anyway, these are fiddly but great.
I pull a few out the bag and chop them into random lengths.
Then hold them tightly with tweezers and blob them in neat pva, then push them into tufts and the dry clump foliage.
This gives them a nice base to sink into.
On my river tile I did prick tiny holes in the clear water and insert a few into the river as reeds, but that is another story.
Don’t worry about the height, if they are too tall, you can easily trim them down a bit later.
Better too tall so you can crop them than too short.Lastly the leaves.
These are ready bought painted and stripped birch seed pods.
Again neat pva and tweezers.
I find there is a mixture of green and brown leaves in the packs so I like to put green leaves on the brown earth and brown leaves on the green grass.
Then trim any tall reeds, rogue tuft strands and we are done.
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