8.8. Trees

I've debated with myself over trees for quite some time: build or buy. I practiced some builds, and ultimately decided I wasn't going to live long enough to get what I wanted, so I went with buy. The problem with buy is that virtually every model tree manufacturer—even the very best of them—make the same mistake: they model the trees the way they'd grow at a nursery or in a suburban yard. They don't make forest trees. Forest trees—at least deciduous ones—are quite different. With only a few exceptions, they look nearly all the same regardless of species: tall and relatively scrawny, with narrow, upswept branches mostly at the top of the tree, and quite often bifurcated (or even trifurcated) trunks. Also, model trees are always much too small for their stated scale, although modeling in N Scale offers the advantage of buying HO and O Scale trees.

Recently I discovered a (relatively) new product from JTT Trees—one of the better manufacturers—called "woods edge" trees. These are simple, generic (not species-specific) trees that have a more natural woodland shape. So I ordered one set each in N, HO and O Scales to evaluate.

Pros:

  • much more natural woodland shape compared to other commercial trees
  • economical, a good value compared to species-specific models

Cons:

  • foliage too dark in color for my taste
  • trunks too light in color for my taste
  • trunks too obviously just twisted wire
  • N Scale trees vastly different than the HO and O Scale ones in color, and really tiny

Most of the issues were easily addressed; for instance, colors could be corrected with spray paint. The twisted wire trunks would be less noticeable when the trees were packed together in realistically tight stands. And the very different N Scale trees would be used to flesh out a large stand of paper birch. Here's the first batch after tweaking:

I lightened the dark green foliage with Rust-Oleum Eden Green, sprayed mostly from above, and darkened the trunks with Rust-Oleum Weathered Wood, sprayed mostly from below. I also shortened the very tallest O Scale trees to be more in keeping with the HO ones. Even though the HO trees are a bit small, they're proportioned well for a compact layout, where truly scale trees can look a bit absurd. I planted the first batch on 24 June 2021.

There was one species of tree I wanted to represent on the layout in an unambiguous way: paper birch. I spent over twenty summers in a cabin nestled in an enormous stand of paper birch, so I came to love the trees. To model them, I started with JJT gum trees, which I split apart, re-flocked, and painted, turning nine identical boring trees into 36 paper birch in the process.

Conifers presented their own problems: for starters, very few commercial pine trees are convincing. About the best are JJT's HO Scale blue spruce. But it would be costly to have large stands, so I restricted them to the Bearcamp camping area; it will only take 6-8 of them to populate the campground. Here are the first two:

Reference: Paper Birch

Reference: Maple/Hardwoods

Reference: Pine

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