Not a Moment to Lose... Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes, December 1944

Fan-freakin-fantastic Tim! Thanks for the pointers on trees. Unfortunately where I live there is nary a twig of heather, but I’m sure there is something that grows very similar in Nova Scotia for peats sakes.

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Amazing stuff, i m building Battle of Bulge Diorama too with radio truck…

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Thanks Barney,

To be honest I am no botanist. I say it’s heather because I tend to find it where there’s a lot of heather - but anything suitably sized will do!

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Thanks Matt - be sure to post (or have you already?)

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The Tree Part 2

After all the hard work gluing individual branches to the main body of the tree the rest was surprisingly simple.

I started with a thorough base coat in black to unify all of the different parts and then sprayed it with a succession of greyish earth tones (despite what we tend to think, trees are usually more grey than brown). These were gradually lightened to add highlights.

If you compare the shots below with the ones above you may think that the tree now looks a bit smaller. This was partly deliberate: I was going for a stark winter look and whilst the fuller shape would suit a summer setting with foliage, I just thought it looked too ‘busy’…

The final touch was to add a variety of moss using the same Landscapes in Detail set that I used for the roof. I also added an old nest from clumps of Sea Grass (not to be confused with Sea Foam which I used for the tree).

I have more plans for the tree: a clump of mistletoe and some mushrooms perhaps, but also something rather more ‘dynamic’ which I will be leaving until later in the build.

For the present, however, it is not fixed in place. The downside of building a tree with this method (unlike the wire-twisting alternative) is that it is rather fragile. Until I am satisfied that all the groundwork is finished I dare not attach it in case I knock of some of the branches (despite my deliberate pruning, quite a few more branches have gone already!)

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Just perfection and the work of a genius.Just mindblowing Tim.Your attention to detail on buildings and groundwork is just breathtaking.
Richard

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Lovely job… almost a gothic, kinda foreboding feel for me, if you get my drift from the last photo.

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Kinda reminds me of some of the Ents in The Lord of the Rings, Two Towers! Wayne

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