Modeling Oak Trees with Martin Tärnrot
Martin TärnrotDescription
In this video, Martin Tärnrot demonstrates how to make model trees from scratch, specifically a miniature oak tree. He pulls inspiration from the oak trees on Avery Island, which are excellent eye catchers for a layout. The trunk and branches are made from .07-millimeter steel wire. Martin cuts them into ten-inch pieces, twisting four wires together three times and then twisting them all together at the bottom. This creates a miniature oak tree with one trunk and three branches coming off. He inserts two bent steel wires to each new branch, so he can maintain the thickness of four wires throughout the miniature oak tree. The final step with wire is to cut off excess pieces and bend them slightly down on the end.
The glue Martin is using is a PVA glue from SikaBond, though Elmer’s all-purpose glue works well also. He brushes on this glue over the entire miniature oak tree and covers it with chinchilla sand. This creates a coarse texture and hard surface to the tree that he leaves to dry overnight. Das modeling clay is an air-hardening clay that works well to add thickness to both the trunk and the branches. Martin uses this clay to carve realistic bark patterns on the tree. When the clay is in place, he sprays on some water and smooths everything with his fingers to more easily engrave the details on the miniature oak tree later. Watch the full video to see how he adds these details. For more tree-making techniques or tips on creating black spruce trees, visit the Model Railroad Academy archives.
Hello, and welcome to a "Model Railroad Academy" video. In this video, we will model a oak tree inspired by the Oaks on the Avery Island. Yeah, this is not the type of tree you build hundreds of and populate your layout with. But I think it's a kind of tree that really is a excellent eye-catcher to put in the front somewhere on any layout. The trunk and the branches are made from 0.7 millimeter steel wire. I cut these in pieces of 10 inches or 250 millimeter. I then twist them four and four and then twist three of these, which together makes up the thickness of the trunk. At the same time, I get three thick branches to work with. I insert two bent steel wires for each new branch I want to introduce into the tree. This allows me to maintain the thickness of four wires all the way up to the top. Keep adding in new bent wires until you're happy with the set of branches. Then cut off excess length of the steel wire and bend them slightly at the end. I feel happy with this now. Let's go over to the glue. I'm using a PVA glue from SikaBond, but Elmer's all-purpose glue will work just as fine. I brush on this glue over the entire tree, all the branches and the trunk, then cover the entire tree with chinchilla sand. This is a sand available in zoo shops. The purpose with the sand is to give a coarse texture and a hard surface to the tree. Leave this now to dry overnight. Das Pronto clay is a air-hardening clay, which is very suitable to add thickness both to the trunk and to the branches. The clay will also enable us to engrave realistic bark pattern. Work the clay into the coarse texture and then form the roots. Continue to add clay also on the thicker branches and work the clay all the way up to the top. With the clay in place, I spray some water, and then smoothen the branches and the trunk with my finger. This will allow for easier engraving later. This is what my oak looked like with all the clay in place. Now, leave this to dry overnight. Now, when the clay has hardened, we can engrave the bark pattern using a saw blade. Spare blades for hacksaws or even jeweler's saws will work fine for this engraving. Here's what the engraving looks like when completed. The finer branches will consist from static fibers and seafoam. I brush on Elmer all-purpose on all of the naked steel wire branches. After that, I apply 12 millimeter static grass fibers. I will also add branches from the seafoam to get some variance in the foliage. I use a one millimeter diameter drill to make small holes into the branches, where I fit the seafoam, and fix it using fast-set glue. For this oak, I added 12 of these. Next action is to spray-paint the entire tree in a gray color. Then mist brown spray paint into the still wet gray spray paint, so they mix, kind of. Keep misting brown spray paint until you feel happy about the result. Once the spray paint has dried, we will apply a layer of wash. This wash contains from burnt umber and black, plus a lot of water, and I spray it on using a sprayer. The foliage itself contains from NOCH leaves, item 7154. The leaves are fixed using spray glue, which the leaves are sprinkled into. Repeat the process with more spray glue and more leaves until you feel happy with the density. Static grass glue is added into the areas where I want the moss. The moss itself is Woodland Scenics Burnt Grass. I hope you liked the video. If you did, please level up and gain access to the premium content here on "Model Railroad Academy." See you in there.
Martin: Is there a video on how to make the short wall and steps in the foreground? I know you made a tunnel opening wall on one of them, but anything more specific like retaining walls or concrete walls in general?
Martin, you've done it again! Great tutorial! Well done!