Trenches for the Quar, Part IX, A shattered woods in No Quar's Land

        Zhodani Commando had asked for some shell-shattered woods as scatter terrain for No Quar's Land, and as I was finally finished with the sandbagging operation I got to work on this. At first I considered using Woodland Scenics tree armatures but they aren't terribly sturdy (train accessories, not wargaming toys) I decided to go with making my own. This also keeps the entire project scratchbuilt. 

 

the first thing I did was cut some bases out of left over Eco-Rug 

this is a tough flexible outdoor rug made from recycled pop bottles

 

 

then I drybrushed the edges with the same brown paint that I used on the terrain panels

 

then I got out my tree-making supplies; fabric-wrapped florist's wire, 

bare florist's wire, some sisal twine and the dreaded hot-glue gun

 

as I was making some smaller trees I cut each bit of florist's wire in half

 

then I bent them roughly in half over the shaft of a screwdriver

 

then started twisting the wires together, after a few twists I separated 

the wires into two or three groups and bent them about to make branches

 

the next step was to cut a bit of twine about 10" long,

 feed it through the loop at the base of the tree

 

leaving a tail about an inch long tie the twine to the loop

 

hold the tail along the side of the trunk and wrap 

the twine tightly around the wires to give the tree-trunk a bit more heft

 

 

loosen the wire and wrap the twine under it, 

re-wrap the wire over the twine and snip off the remaining twine

then cut the loop at the bottom and spread out the end to look like roots

 

fire up the hot glue gun and ooze some glue onto the wires, 

this will thicken them up and make better looking roots 

as well as attaching the tree to the Eco Rug very securely

 

once they have cooled off they are ready for a coat of spray paint and then some detail work 

at this point you can add clump-foliage or steel wool if you like

 

 

after dinner I shot a coat of black primer on the models, once that was dry I painted the trees a dark gray and gave the center a drybrushing with the same, after that had dried I hit the edges of the bases with my primary terrain brown so that the edge would blend with the terrain boards

 

 

clearly the edges need more drybrushing and a fair amount of highlighting

 

I finally had to finish mowing the lawn so I only had a short while to work today

I installed the duckboards (the wooden plank sidewalks in the trenches) 

then gave the tree bases another round of highlighting

 

I just need to add the muddy footprints on the duckboards

 

the tree bases blend much better now, not perfect, just better