Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Diorama 4.0 - Happy Little Tree

I really want a tree on this diorama I think the landscape is a bit too barren. I looked around at Hobby Lobby and on the internet to find something but all the pre-made stuff just looked "wrong" I want a tree that looks like its stood through hell. Off to the forums and the YouTube I went. I found a tutorial on trees made with twisting wires together and I knew that this was the way to go for me.

I grabbed some 1mm brass rod from Hobby Lobby. It comes in packs of 6, 12" rods for $2.39. so under $5 which is much much less then something from Woodland Scenic's.

The technique is incredibly simple.

Here is the supply list.

15 same length rods
Pliers
Nail Clippers (or what ever you use to cut brass rod).
A base of some sort (I used a 30mm round)
Wood Putty/ Green Stuff etc.






Start by cutting your rods to even lengths and make sure you have about 15. In pairs (2) grab one of both with the pliers and start twisting till you have something that looks like this.



Once you have your pairs done, take one pair and twist it together with another. Keep adding a pair till you get the desired girth of your tree. Keep in mind that you are going to add an outer layer that will make it even bigger when all is said and done. Also you will want to create the branches out of the ends of the pairs. I did this by not twisting the entire length of the pairs together starting with the third set. It should give you something like this.



I then made up some green stuff and secured the skeleton on the tree to the base. 


You can see here that I bent the tree in the middle to give it a bit of a gnarled look. 


Once the green stuff is dry I will take wood putty and finish it up.





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