Forest/Trees scenery

[BeakeR]

This post is to help anyone out who is looking to make some woodland scenery for an affordable price. I took a trip down to my local "Michaels" craft store and picked up some supplies that I thought I would need to make a nice looking woodland piece for my gaming table. I was pleasantly surprised on how well it came out and I wanted to share this with anyone out there looking for some creative new ways to make terrain for their tabletops. I basically picked up a package of some wire that is coated with a paper material and twisted 3-5 pieces of it together to make a nice, thick coil that I used for my tree trunks and main branches. I then used a much thinner wire and coiled 2 pieces together to form some smaller branches that protruded from the tree trunk. I used a hot glue gun which I also picked up from the craft store to glue the branches on. I then covered the tree trunks with a product called "creative paperclay" which gave the trunks a more realistic look and also helped fill them out a little bit. I carved some lines into the tree trunks to give them a more realistic look, like bark. I also used the paperclay to make some large rocks. Michaels, like many other craft stores, has a ton of plastic foilage that people use to make flower arrangements and fake plants. I searched and found a leave arrangement that I liked, with leaves small enough to look fairly natural on the trees. All I did with these was simply cut the stems from the bundle of leaves and glue them onto the stems that I made using the hot glue gun. After flocking my styrofoam base, I let everything sit overnight, and the following day I simply arranged everything the way I liked and glued it all down. I got a package of smaller rocks to mix in with the larger rocks I made from the clay, and I also picked up a package of fake moss that I used to add some detail to the model. I just sporadically glued it onto the tree trunks and surrounding ground which I felt gave a lot more character to the display. All-in-all the supplies wound up costing around $40 for everything, and I still have enough stuff left over to probably make 2 more of these terrain pieces. It took me a total of probably 4 hours to complete everything, not counting the down-time of letting the pieces dry and whatnot. I hope this helps anyone else who is interested in making their own terrain and encourages others to be creative in their scenery creation.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...eRx/Trees1.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...eRx/Trees7.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...eRx/Trees5.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...eRx/Trees3.jpg

EDIT: I added the links to the images if anyone wanted to see how the terrain piece came out.