Dead Trees



This is basicly a mirror of my article that appeared on Jon Hayward's Worldmakers site. People have been asking me about this a lot lately and since Jon's server has gone wonky, I thought I'd put it here. What follows is how it appeared originally:

Rogviler sent me these trees and I was instantly impressed with them. They look great and seem simple enough to make. Also contained within the tutorial are some EXCELLENT techniques like the pan scourer undergrowth and the crushed leaf flocking - absolutely fantastic ! Take it away Rog....
Materials:

Sunflower stalks of various sizes [fig 1]
Scrap of 1/8" MDF (masonite) for the base
Wall filler, joint compound or Milliput (I used Durham's water putty)
Green pan scrubber thingy
Crunched up dead leaves
Tools, paint, glue, etc.

First, take a large diameter stalk and cut it to a nice length (about 2-4"), this will be the main trunk of the tree. Next, decide on how many branches you want and the sizes of those. I decided on a small branch and one large branch with another coming off of that. Glue it all together with PVA glue and super glue. (Use PVA first, then put a line of super glue around the joint to hold it while it dries) [fig 2]

Next you'll want to sand the stalks slightly if you haven't already. This removes the prickly protrusions which don't add to the "tree" look. They also hurt I might add if you on stuck in you finger. Then take your X-acto and carve the ends of the branches to give that broken, rotting look.

Now glue it to your base and get your filler (if you're using a powdered mix, mix it fairly thick). Spread it on around the joints and the base. You'll use it to sculpt the roots of the tree. Be sure to carve lines into it so it looks like the rest of the "bark" [fig3]

Now cover it all in slightly waterey PVA glue, especially the inside of the stalk, where the styrofoam-like pulp is. For the base, use triangles of the pan scrubber between the roots for moss, and crunched up dead leaves around the base for, well...crunched up dead leaves. (thanks to Sean Patten for that one) Also, paint your tree first grey, then drybrush in dark brown, then lighter browns.

For the leaves you'll want to paint them a butterscotch color, then wash with brown and drybrush with off-white. The pan scrubber moss needs to be washed in dark grey first, then drybrushed in greens and yellows. [fig 5]

I've also included some pics of another tree I made, to give you an idea of what kind of variations you can do. The vine is just some weird weed from the garden, seed pod included. I'm going to add more vines later, but that should give you some ideas. Good luck. =o)