Winter trees

I wanted to add some trees to my Death of Gustavus Adolphus in 6mm set-up. The battle was fought in November but there's no indication of snowy conditions but I thought bare trees would indicate the time of year.

Several people suggested Woodland Scenics smaller tree armatures but whilst looking for something else I stumbled across a pack of 0.7mm florist's wire. I'd bought it on the grounds that it would "come in useful one day". This was that day.

I started by cutting the wire down into shorter lengths. I started about 10cm or so but subsequently went shorter. I took a bundle of between five and nine lengths of wire and twisted them together with two pairs of pliers. The idea was to get a tree trunk of tightly wound wires that would hold together without needing glue. 

I left both ends unwound but one (the roots) shorter than the other (the branches).

The next phase was to take two or three of the branch-end wires and twist them together to make a main branch. Again, don't wind all the way to the end. 

If your branch started off with three wires you can go down to two half way along leaving a single wire as a side branch. Finally your two-wire branch can diverge into two single wires.

Using a hot glue gun, I then fixed the splayed out roots to a small piece of artist's mounting board to act as a base. Then I could start adding texture.

I tried a few techniques; caking the tree trunks in clear adhesive (UHU type) or applying a coat of hot-glue gun glue but the best technique was the super glue and bicarb approach.

Basically apply superglue (cyanoacrylate) to the trunk and twisted branches and then sprinkle on bicarbonate of soda. The catalyses the settling of the superglue but also gives it a pleasing texture.  Make sure you let the glue throughly dry before you go on to painting as otherwise it will trash your brush.

I make plenty of time for drying by next adding my usual gloop of paint-stained household filler (Tetrion or Polyfiller) on the bases.

Finally I painted the trees in Vallejo German Grey followed by progressive dry-brushes of German Fieldgrey WWII and then Green Grey. The bases got my usual Miniature Paints Earth Brown dry brushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand before I added a little flock to finish off.

Since making the six trees in the pictures above, I've made three more. With practice I find I can make small copse of these in a couple of hours, albeit with an overnight drying phase for the basing filler and to be absolutely sure the superglue's gone off. Might have a go at doing some larger scale ones for winter games of Chain of Command.