You cannot do miniature gaming without having some trees to place on your terrain. I have covered most of what I need for 15 and 28mm in my collection. One of the things I did not have was some 28mm dead trees. These would be useful in my Pulp and Sci Fi terrain. Some years back, I picked up some dead trees online that were on sale. They have been sitting in my back room for a while, so I figured it was time to finally get them painted.
The smaller set is from Monster Terrain. The larger trees are from Hate 3D Plastic. I found both on the Miniature Market web site. Both are plastic casts that are single piece models. Neither has any flash, so they are ready to paint out of the box.
The Hate trees are actually all the same model (there are eight in the set). Well, I did not want all the same tree (especially since I bought multiple sets). However, since they are plastic, they are easy to carve on. So, with some snipers and a Xacto, I went to work. I removed or shorted some branches and roots. I varied the cutting, so each tree was different in some way. I think this did enough to give some variation.
I wanted them to represent a very old dead forest, so I opted for a gray sun dried look. I started with gray primer on all the models. I then hit each with Woodland Scenics Umber paint wash. From there is was just a wet brush of a medium gray hobby paint (something from Michaels). I followed this up with two levels of lighter gray drybrushing.
Just to give a little character, I oped to paint the boarder ground on the bases. I started with some dark brown and drybrushed on some tan. I then added some Scenic Express mixed summer flock to match my other terrain.
I finished up with some Army Painter dull coat spray and the trees are done. I think I now have enough to cover a decent size of terrain. So, another hole in my collection filled. Maybe they will make it into my next Pulp game……
- Manteuffel