Modelling Trees Part One – Broadleaf Trees

Publisher: Wild Swan Publications Ltd
Author: Gordon Gravett
Cover: Softback A4 format
ISBN: 987-1-905184-88-0
Price around £19.95 GBP (June 2014)

You can get this excellent book here now

Initial assessment

If like me you like to include trees on your model bases then this is a volume that you will need whether you are a novice or a more advanced builder. This book takes one through the following chapters:

Trees in the landscape

Modelling Broadleaf trees sub divided as follows:

• The wire armature
• Bark Painting
• Foliage
• Leaf pressing
• Placement in the scene

Modelling Examples again sub divided:

• English Elms
• Winter Oak
• Summer Oak
• Ash
• Silver Birch
• Willow
• Beech
• Ivy
• Pollarded Trees
• Hawthorn
• Hedge rows
• Rookeries
• Nests
• Mistletoe

Low relief:
Which is the use of trees as a transition from foreground to the backdrop as used in model railway scenic works.

Further examples for reference

The book is written basically for the model rail way scenic modeller but can be used as a basis for other scales. As with other disciplines Observation is one of the modellers greatest assets and it holds true with making trees and although the book has a high proportion of colour pictures and sketches it’s a good idea to go out and look as well as photograph trees which can then be printed out and used as a template for the model. This is advised by the author who details the building of trees in great detail from making the armature from wire to covering and detailing the bark and dressing the tree in whatever season’s foliage is required for the particular specimen.

For extra detail Gordon also adds items such as nests, rookeries and mistletoe which add detail giving extra realism.

Conclusions

This volume is printed on good quality glossy paper, 92 pages in length with many pictures of both actual tress and of the various stages of builds in a step by step format in the Modelling broadleaf trees section. I have made trees in the past using similar methods but I found this volume easy to follow and a couple of items that I liked were the list of trees by type and height and also the box at the end of each tree build with materials and time taken to build.

You can buy tree kits but I feel that this way you can have an individual item of the height you want with a little more effort but a lot more satisfaction when finished. I actually got out my florist wire and set to twisting wires and made a tree in a little over the time stated but I’m sure the next ones will come in around the stated time. (See article on tree making in your Techniques Bank)

I rate this book and a sister volume on Conifers very highly and know that both will be used many times to produce actual varieties of trees for my dioramas.

Bill C.