adventures in terrain making, part 3, from the ashes...

Just when I wanted to give up, I saw a post on facebook that inspired me to continue working on the forestry project.  On the page International Toy Soldier Collectors, a member had posted some pics of his World War Two toy soldier setup, 54mm Germans with a Tiger.  It was the trees and greenery that had caught my attention, the big, solid growths, painted green and shaded in black really caught my attention.  They did not look at all like the Model Railroading trees, not at all!  Yet, for the set up he had posted pictures of they were perfect!

I passed the rally roll and reformed!

So off I went, equipped with green acrylic paint I had bought from the craft store, some inexpensive brushes, and I went right to work, slathering paint all over the plastic I had formed into foliages... and for once, I was really starting to like what I saw! 

here are the trees sprayed on hunter green enamel

here are some of them dampbrushed green over the spray paint

more of them heavily brushed over with an acrylic hunter green

and one covered in green, then damp brushed in a lighter green!  I like!!

another shot of the hunter green brushed on, with the flash on

finally all of them together, they're coming together!

So I'm thinking of painting on another heavy coat of acrylic paint for them all to get rid of the shiny metallic looking spots that really spoil the appearance of the greenery.  I'm not sure whether to go for the dark green as an overall coat, then a damp brush of green green over it then a heavy drybrush of light green to bring out the appearance of individual leaves... or skip the dark green and just paint green green then the light green.

What do you think?

Another benefit to all the heavy paint all over these is that the paint makes the greenery solid, they don't crumple easily in my hands, leaving bits everywhere, they're solid!

So now I'm thinking about another foliage to replace the one that had been eaten out by the spray enamel, the petrochemicals don't play well with plastic foam as I learned the hard way. Besides more trees, bushes, shrubberies, hedges too!  The scraps I had ground up could be recycled as greenery on the banks of a river, a road, around ponds and in marshes, the possibilities are almost endless!

It's turning out well after all, and I'd learned not to be so quick to give up and give in.

Onwards!

For those of you living in the US, I used the "Americana" line that one can find in craft stores, really inexpensive stuff that goes from .50 to $1.00 a 2 oz/50ml bottle.