Home amongst the gum tree's...

[danpickard]

Hi all,
So its been some time since updating this thread, but have been still playing with these trees.  Will be presenting a clinic on the process at my local NMRA Convention, here in Melbourne in about a month.  Finally got the clinic notes finished, which ended up being 16 pages of notes on how to make one tree!  I will say the notes were fairly extensive, in the attempt to cover all questions and details that are likely to be faced by anyone else trying to make trees this way. Certainly took a whole lot longer to write the clinic than it does to make one, and trying to shoot the SBS pics without getting glue, paint and clay all over the camera was challenging.

There's a couple of extra images here.  If anyone is interested, I can also forward a copy of the clinic notes (PDF, 10.4MB), just send me a private email and I can forward the file.

Cheers,
Dan

[Ray Dunakin]

Nice, the peeling bark looks very authentic.

[nk]

nice work on the bark. It looks just right, although I haven't seen a gum for the last decade. Now you have to capture that charactertic vertical hang of the leaves!

[danpickard]

Ahh the hanging leaves...someone actually pulled me up at an exhibition a while back about my leaves all pointing up, instead of hanging down.  Of course it was one of the other exhibitors that had wandered over from his "plasticville" layout that was there on display (you know, bright green grass, glossy plastic trees etc) to point out the flaws in my efforts

Unfortunately, I will eventually be needing to build enough trees to fill about 30+ feet of scenery (fairly densly too), so I'm not going to be doing some of that super finescale tree modelling and apply individual leaves, all hanging in the right direction.  I'll have to hope that people are distracted by the colour, shape and texture of the trees instead.  Still, I reckon the upright leaves are still a better effect than balls of ground foam.

Cheers,
Dan

[finescalerr]

Perhaps you could build the trees upside down .... -- ssuR

[danpickard]

Technically speaking Russ, they already are...to you. 

Dan

[Chuck Doan]

I think the overall effect is fine. Ultra detailed scenery is problematic especially for a large dio or layout.

[danpickard]

Just trying out this file sharing link, for those that are interested in a copy of the clinic notes for these trees.  I've emailed a number of copies so far, but hopefully this public link will make things a bit easier...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/43315560/GUM%20TREES%20CLINIC.pdf

Cheers,
Dan

[TRAINS1941]

That works just fine Dan.  Thanks.

Jerry

[Krusty]

Thanks for the link Dan. Those are very nice trees. It's kinda sorta interesting that different countries seem to have different types of hanging basket liner. You have the bark material, we only have coconut fibre, the Brits have a version of wool carpet underlay. What do garden centres in the US sell?

[TRAINS1941]

Dan

My wife and grandkids where at a zoo in South Jersey yesterday.  And walking through the forest they have trees and place cards on what they are.  We came across this Black Gum tree now would that be the same as what you have down-under???

Jerry

[danpickard]

Hi Jerry,
Don't think so, following a quick google look.  Aussie gums are of the eucalypt family.  There is hundreds of different names for them (many based upon colour...white/snow/ghost/grey/red/blue gum etc), but I can't say I've heard of a Black Gum, except for following a bush fire

Cheers,
Dan

[eTraxx]

Gum tree is the common name for the Eucalyptus in Australia and the Black Gum or Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica) in North America.

Nyssa sylvatica, commonly known as black tupelo, tupelo, or black gum, is a medium-sized deciduous tree native to eastern North America from New England and southern Ontario south to central Florida and eastern Texas, as well as Mexico.