Pine Trees

I managed to get into Hull yesterday and visit the new Hobby Craft store near the ice rink. Two floors of bits and pieces if you have never been - lots more than on the web including a good selection of Woodland Scenics / Hornby modelling bits, Games Workshop figures (WH and 40K), Flames of War, wood / plasti-card (top price though) and even a wide selection of 1/72 plastic soldiers - two full aisles of gaming paradise in fact.  This excludes the tools and the rest of the shop by the way!

As for my purchases:

• A set of pines from the WS Realistic Tree set
• A small pack of clear crystals from the bead making section - ice for the HOTT bases
• A couple of foam eggs - these may get used for igloos as the HOTT stronghold but I am leaning to a sod long hut and use these elsewhere
• A small pot of GaleForce 9 winter / dead static grass – just what I have been hunting for for the less snowy HOTT bases.

Opening the tree box today, I was a little disappointed in the tree selection as they state a random mix of 2 1/2 inch to 6 inc on lid but mine are mainly 4 to 6 inch – the smallest is 3 1/2 inch and as I had hoped to use these for 15mm (as well as SBH in 28mm) it looks like I’ll have to try cutting one down at some point.

The kit itself comes in a blister style box with instructions on the bottom that I think is a nice touch – you can see how simple it is before buying the pack or book:

And inside you have a pile of tree sprues and the dense foam used as foliage:

 

Assembly is straight forward:

1) Trim off the base and mould marks

2) Cover in Hob-e-Tac glue and leave to get tacky

3) Rip the big lumps of foam into smaller bits matching the tree size – not in the instructions but I have big lumps (1.5 – 2 inch) in this pack

4) Dunk the tree in the foam and press into shape

5) Sprinkle a little ground colour to tie the trees into the base

6) Let dry for an hour or so and spray with Scenic cement

Points to watch out for:

• The foliage is very dense and lumpy.  I spent more time pulling it apart than sticking it on to the tree.
• The resulting trees are top heavy.  You need to stick the bases on to a surface sheet for added stability or run a pin into the bottom for use on foam.
• The bark is well defined and would be brought out with a grey dry brush.  Issue is the small plugs from the injection moulding process that will show up.  These could be covered with a grass to represent moss.

If you wish for more trees – have a look at the 2mm scale wood I created here.

So my total output for the first model day this year has been a trial of two scenery methods – not bad given it is –2C outside and I’m too cheap to turn the heating on here!