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Snaking through the woods No. 7 is comin’ through A shanty near the tracks This culvert shows Frank’s attention to detail The builder/owner Frank Gedde • O Scale Trains - Jul;y/Aug ’08
The Art of Finescale Michael Cougill Trees When I was young, I didn’t do a lot of tree climbing. But there was this one tree that was always a temptation to climb. As I recall, it was a big oak, custom-made for climbing. The first branch was easy to reach from the ground, and once up there, it seemed there was always another limb just where you needed to have one. I gave into the temptation one day and climbed that tree higher than I ever climbed any others. Once up to my limits in height and courage, I sat for maybe fifteen minutes or more, just enjoying the gentle sway of the branches in the breeze. Going back down was about as easy as going up. That was well over thirty years ago, yet the memory lingers. Trees can have that sort of impact on us. They’re often the stuff of legend and myth. Whose imagination isn’t fueled by the words Sherwood Forest? As the largest living plants, trees define a geographic region and they’re often what we see first on a model railroad and yet, they’re likely to be the least considered aspect of scenery modeling. Could the time have finally come when tree modeling will come into its own? I know, its model railroading, not model forestry. I know there are limits to everyone’s time and patience. But, look closely at this photo taken near Mill St. on the I&W. Would the scene be as effective if the foreground trees didn’t have a nice bark texture to them? Would it be as realistic if the trees didn’t tower over the train? Would the tree covered hillside in the back look realistic if it wasn’t so densely covered? With or without the trees, the train cars are nothing more than models sitting on a stretch of track, which is itself a model. The sense of looking through the trees conveys a powerful image of being in the scene rather than separate from it. This gives a sense of scale. We know from real world experience that trees often tower over other objects. Your mind wants to see this relationship in a modeled scene, and when it’s there, your mind can easily fill in whatever else is missing. This is the power that thoughtfully done scenery can have, even in a very small space, as I tried to explain in Part III of my “Pieces of The Puzzle” series elsewhere in this issue. Convincing looking model trees require observation of the real thing just like any other aspect of modeling. Nice thing about trees is you don’t have to go too far to find prototype source material (unless you live in the southwestern desert areas or a dense urban setting). Most of what you see here are natural materials. I lucked out and found a source of dried branches at my local Hobby Lobby store that featured a fine branch structure at the end of a slender trunk. Called wild huck, they’re perfect for background filler material. The other materials are baby’s breath, caspia and whatever else looked good in the dried flowers section of the store. Real autumn colored leaves were ground up for the forest floor cover along with all the other ground cover techniques outlined in my article from OST #26, May/June 2006. While the wild huck branches look good, they’re too skinny. A convincing scene needs trees with trunks of varying diameters. Some trees will be the dominant ones in a grove, being the biggest because they were faster growing and got the most sunshine. I’ve added a couple of trees with larger trunks since taking this photo. Speaking of the photo, there were no camera tricks or digital magic involved. This is how the scene looks. There’s much more to say on this subject. Check out the OST Blog for additional coverage. Best regards, Mike u July/Aug ’08 - O Scale Trains •
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