Olustee Project: Pine Solved: Making Southern Pines.

 

Roughly what I am trying to model.

    Let the challenge begin! The rather larger American Civil War game for the Battle of Olustee, FL is on a healthy start. I have been doing some research and watching quite a few youtube videos for terrain knowledge. No matter how good you think you are a executing a task like terrain, someone always finds a newer improved way. And so, too the Internet, I search!
     In this case, I have been researching trees. I have quite a few ways I make trees. However, I have entered the dangerous territory of modelling accurate trees. Five years ago, I probably would not have cared. It has now become about enhancing the game! That is why I was in search of the southern pine. I can simple look out my window for this, but I wanted to see if any good models were out there for them. The first place to go on the internet for this was my trusty, evil company of Scenic Express. The only type they had were 6" tall. Other places on the internet seem to direct me to either JTT Trees or make them yourself. I guess I will be making them myself.

These are the 6" trees that Scenic Express has for sale. 

        So, after a couple of videos about making southern pine trees, I felt that they still just did not cut it. They seem to lack some elements. At least, they were not all videos geared toward bottle brush trees. I had to do a test tree. I found that I had leftover green tuffs for basing. I decided to try out how they look as tree needles. Here is how that came out in comparison to the real deal

The tree I made.

Tree with 28 mm Union Figures.

The real deal

     Obviously, I did not have enough tuffs to fill the tree, but it is mainly a rough draft. What I have learned is that I am going to have to do it this way, which would be expensive as hell if we bought tuffs. This takes me into a new direction in terrain making. I am going to have to learn to make tuffs myself to cut the cost of my project down. This is a good thing, because I have discovered several useful videos on how to do this. Also, I found videos how to make my own static grass applicator for around $15. That is way better than $150+. The other thing is that this will save me for all of the basing I plan to do for 800 figures. I will just have to post how the real trees will look when I get there.