scratchbuilt scenery pieces....anyone know how?

Hmm, that's a good idea monrad. Last time I used small branches, I worked with them while they were 'fresh', but alas, it did not take very long for them to dry out and become VERY brittle. half of the dio is missing now

I've tried making trees myself. Here is what I found out. If you use brances fram nature and want them to stay flexible and not to britle, you should emerge them in glycerin, for atleast a month, them dry them this may take a couple of months, now you can paint them. They will stay flexible and can withstand handling. This I have only tried on smal "branches" 2"-4". It works great.

I was out in a park this weekend, and found many things that I could use. Now it's just a matter of finding a drill to insert smaller 'branches' into the trunk.

do they have sagebrush in toronto or something similar ? You just need a knarled woody plant to make the basis for a hardwood tree clip some branches off hang em upside down and dry em' . Then flock em with some pieces of lichen and some crushed herbs

Thanks Alex. I saw this a while ago on armorama. It's a really good idea. I'm afraid I don't have the patience to twist those wires, but DAMN the result looks good.
I think I'll search for some roots or something, glue smaller branches into it, and then use spray adhesive to add leaves. I think that if I maybe dry out some real leaves and crumple them, it should give a nice result

Check out this link http://www.armorama.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=135&page=3. Hope this helps.

Thanks all
I have one how-to dio book. The one from Kalmbach, but there's nothing in there for creating custom scenery, at least not from what I remember. I'll keep a lookout for the WWII one.

THanks for the link Chris!

Heres a link I picked up from somewhere, probally here at one point or the other on making pine trees. The pics in the tutorial look great though.


http://www.digitaldioramas.com/2002/issue5/dd_pinetrees.htm

Another good book (if you ever get books ) is how to make WWII Dioramas. They have two dios in there, one is a street scene, not important, and the other is for a bacage scene. There is a step by step in there about how to shape the points of twigs and put it into other twigs like branches on a tree. I was really cool. Try to find the book at your LHS.

Believe it or not, model railroad "how to" scenery books offer many methods of making trees, bushes, etc. Just make 'em bigger !