Wednesday 5 December 2018

Terrain 5 Christmas trees!

It's been a while, I' ve been busy doing hobby stuff,I just haven't finished anything! Last Christmas in the new kitchen we thought we'd have a little Christmas tree in there in addition to the one in the living room,so we picked up one second hand from a charity shop for about a fiver.
This year it was deemed surplus to requirements ,however I retrieved it before it made it to the bin,out with the aviation snips and the hole cutter and I then have 21 trees,they're by no means the best model trees but en mass they do a job and I still have another 50 left!

Here they are with some of my Soviets,I'll probably do a load more for winter as there isn't much to them,once I have the base(with a hole in the middle from the hole cutter) I stick some masking tape on the underside and then uhu the tree in with the base vertical,then when that's gone off I trim the tree at the bottom (so it doesn't look like the branches go all the way to the ground) and a bit of a haircut at the top to give it shape,PVA sand/gravel emulsion paint and a bit of cheap flock I had lying around and then snow to taste,I might base some with my Italian wars finish and call them cypress. For the price and effort I'm well happy,I also plan on doing some more on CDs a la Stew, I'll stuff the trees into some offcuts of foam board and then glue that to the CDs. I'm also working on some more conventional model trees and prepping for the Analogue Hobbies challenge which starts on the 21st.
All the best Iain

36 comments:

  1. Typical wargamer Iain, nothing goes to waste if it can be used for something hobby related! They work well I think, I have also seen christmas trees used to make effective ACW cornfields when trimmed right down.

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    1. Thanks Lee, we're all really good at recycling, that or we're tight and want to spend our hard earned cash on little men! Cornfields sounds interesting.
      Best Iain

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  2. Nice terrain work - interestingly the theme for our next big annual convention is "Winter War."

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    1. Thanks Dean,I look forward to your contribution to the convention,I'm sure it will be wonderful and done in no time!
      Best Iain

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  3. Always good to see cheap, effective additions to any gamers collection.

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    1. I thought you might like these Joe,cost effective!
      Best Iain

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  4. Beautiful, atmospheric, and simple...what's not to like?

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    1. Beautiful is stretching it a little but I'm glad you like them!
      Best Iain

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  5. Looking good and good re-purposing, if you have a hot glue gun, that sets quickly, so keeping the tree upright is easy, you will swear a lot when it gets on your fingers!

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    1. Thanks Norm, I used a hot glue gun a lot at college (over 30 years ago now!) and I got burnt a lot,there also seemed to be a lot of string( probably just me!) I have got one and it does sound like the right tool for the job, the other good thing about these is that they're wire so you can bend them straight and just have a kink at the base.
      Best Iain

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  6. Great use of the spare Xmas tree! The snow bases look the business.

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    1. Thanks Cyrus! I think the bases have worked out well.
      Best Iain

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  7. A man after my own heart Iain, a great use of resources and they look just the ticket.

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    1. Thanks Pat,waste not want not! I'm doing some"proper" winter trees based on your book and they look great already,l looking forward to the next book!
      Best Iain

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  8. Those came out looking pretty good I think, the snowy ones especially. In mass they do present a forest. The extra work on the bases is worthwhile 😀

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    1. Oh, Forgot to mention that my CD bases seem to be holding up alright but are more useful to mark the fringes of a forest where they won’t need to be moved for troops (I’ve found).

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    2. Thanks Stew! Everything counts in large amounts! I've already used CDS for other trees, as long as there is a mix of singles and CDs I think it's okay.
      Best Iain

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  9. Not bad for the price. They actually look decent enough, especially en masse. Should make for good cypress trees, too.

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    1. You can't beat it for the money! Glad you agree about the cypress trees too. Thanks Fitz.
      Best Iain

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  10. Lovely work Iain. One of our gaming group did exactly the same for our Napoleonic games. He mounted them on plywood and spent a fair bit of time on dressing the bases, and they look great. One of the nice things is that there is enough space between the trees to easily place figures.

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    1. Thanks Lawrence,it does make sense as you've got something in the branches that isn't far off being finished and you can knock quite a lot up in a relatively short time.
      Best Iain

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  11. Really like the touches of snow. And I would probably still a few of them as Xmas decorations (placed here and there)--it's all good!

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    1. Thanks Ed! The snow (which is display snow that I ended up with a bag of and kept for years because,you know,its going to be useful?)works surprisingly well!
      Best Iain

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  12. Nice looking trees and a good save, not sure why as I thought I was following your blog but it seemed to have been deleted at some point ? Anyway back here 😀

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  13. Looks grand from here mate. Nice use of stuff that otherwise is garbage. My trees, whilst cheapies from China, cost me far more than 5 quid!

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    1. Thanks Dai, see, really green and/or tight!
      Best Iain

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  14. Those work nice! I had never thought of that! Hmmm, interesting, interesting...

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    1. Thanks Suber! Worth keeping an eye out for,if I'm entirely honest when I bought the tree I was thinking that if it was retired I could make use of it!
      Best Iain

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  15. They look petty convincing to me and with the other 50 done you won't be able to see the trees for the wood - after all quantity has a quality all of its own according to Uncle Joe.

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    1. Thanks Rob, yes we can agree with uncle Joe about that!
      Best Iain

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  16. Thanks for your kind comments Iain, and my apologies for not replying sooner. Ral Partha doesn’t own the molds to their old Renaissance line any more. But they were able to help me get 16 figs from the Swiss Command set cast up again! Four of each of the four musicians. No guarantees, but if you’re looking for more from that line I might have a connection for you . . .

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    1. No problem Tom,to be honest I probably have enough unpainted RAL Partha landsknechts, although I hope to paint some during the challenge!
      Best Iain

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