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The following pictures show my second attemps in building some hedgegrow for the Normandy. My first attemps can be found here. This time I intended to use different materials for the shrubs and add some trees.

My terrainpieces have to be heavy because I intend to use them on my fur mat and want to sink them to the ground and don't hoover above the gras. So I used again some dark grey plaster, which I mixed up with less water. This time I used some of my selfmade stone walls as a basis.    

I further addes some brass pipe to the bases where I intended to add some trees or trunks later.

I put the wet plaster mostly on one side of the wall pieces on a sheet of polysteren, addes some small stones and some wire here and there and let it dry.

In the next step I drybrushed the stones in an off white color.

Then the stones get some coloring with different shades of inks in the colors umbra, sienna and black.

The next step is to flock the ground of the bases with a ready brought mix called Waldboden (forest ground).

On the shown piece I modelled some roots for the truks with modelling clay and twisted wire.

The trees are selfmade with a kit from HEKI as the basis. I might put up a page with some WIP pictures and informations in a few weeks.

Instead of wild lichen (Irish Moos) I built the bushes and shrubs with steel wool and a very rough blue floss (used as filtermaterial for pond pumps). I spraypainted the materials with a terracotta broun.

The floss:

The steel wool:

Then I used glue from a spraycan and the leaves from NOCH to do the foliage. It is a good idea to give them one or two coats of matt varnish from a spraycan.

Then I trimmed the peaces to the right size and glued them on the base with the hot glue gun.

And here the other pieces with more shrubs

Now it's time to to go on with the trees. In a next step I glued some small pieces of the (mostly) already colored floss to the small plastic branches.

Then I spraypainted the the whole tree in a midgrey   color.

The next step is to give the trunk and visible branches a wash with a green-brown ink and a drybrush in an green-grey.

Now it's time to flock the floss. Once again I used glue from a spraycan and the leaves from NOCH to do the foliage. I only sprayes and flocked small areas of floss at a time. It is a good idea to give the whole tree one or two coats of matt varnish from a spraycan. I placed the tree on the brass rod on a base. So the tree keeps removable for starage. The mimiature is a 28 mm  Grenadier from BlackTreeDesign and gives a better impression of the height.

I also experimented with a natural material called seamoss (Seemoos oder Meerschaum in German). This material looks very realistic, but has very slim trunks and is not durable and has to handled with much care.

On the first little test piece I gave the trunc more volume by using the whiteglue and sawdust method.

Then I spraypainted it grey and flocked it with glue from a spraycan and the leaves from NOCH to do the foliage.

The second test piece is a much larger and well grown piece of seamoss.  I lengthened the trunk with a piece of brassrod, modelled some roots and added some layers of sawdust. 

In a next step I painted the trunk and the bigger branches in an off white and added dark grey and black patches to give the tree the typical color sheme.

Once again the leaves are from NOCH and had been applied by using a glue from a sprycan. In a first step I flocked with middle green and than added in a second step some more leaves in bright geen. I am pleased with the result but the tree is very fragil. This method for building trees allows fast and good looking results but I think it is not the best for wargaming.

With the last tree done it was time to the last finishing toughes:

- painting the details like the gate, the posts and the broken wheel

- do some drybrushing in different shades of bright ochre on the patches of long gras

- paint some stones of the walls and the trunks with dry pigments to give them some richer tones

You can see the effects on the detail shots further down this site.

Then I placed the trees on the brassrods on the bases and the five piece are finaly finished.

The first:

The second:

The third:

The fourth:

The fifth and (temporary) last:

The setup for the detail shots:

click here for a larger version of the picture above

     ... FIN

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