Palm Trees for a Pittance

"The Nile was always there"...and so begins the movie epic Khartoum. With this film as inspiration I set about recreating it's spectacle in miniature. I had been commissioned by my good friend David Waxtel to build the necessary architecture in 25mm for his convention game.

Once all the adobe arab style buildings were finished and laid out with the assaulting dervish hordes and stalwart defenders manning the walls, it became obvious the table top needed a final touch, palm trees. I had seen 15mm palms at conventions but didn't know of any 25mm. I found a variety of plastic ones at a cake decorating store but they looked too plastic and cheap. You can get fantastic ones from Plastruct Corp but tall ones cost twelve bucks a piece! Clearly I was going to have to come up with an inexpensive and (relatively) easy way to make them myself.

One of my favorite rewards of model making is finding something totally unrelated to the subject at hand that fit the need to a tee (ie. light bulb containers for roofing or flower bulb mesh packaging for window leading). In this case a trip to Woolworths turned into a virtual one stop shopping trip. While snooping around in the fake flower and craft department, I came across an incredibly tacky polyester fake fern plant. The "leaves" of the four dollar item made the perfect suggestion of palm fronds! As I carried this "plant" to the register I spotted pipe cleaners, and at 50 for one dollar I knew these would make perfect trunks for my model horticultural endeavors.

The construction method that follows does take time but the result was better than I could have hoped for.

First I stripped the polyester leaves off its wire supports. The glue used on the fern was none too strong and they came off with ease. The wireless leaves were then cut into two- to four-inch sections. These provide 6 to 12 palm fronds per tree. I then took these sections and folded them lengthwise so that all the fronds were pointing the same way. I then took about a six inch long piece of 1/4 inch masking tape and stuck it to the bottom edge of the folded leaves leaving the bulk of the tape clear, so I could then gently wrap the leaves around the end of the pipe cleaner (see figs. 2 & 3).

As you roll the tape and fern material around the pipe cleaner gently tug and pull the leaves to point in different directions to get a natural look. The fern plant yielded about srxty trees worth of foliage. Smaller pieces of the fern material can be used to make bushes of palm saplings to put on the tree bases.

To coat the pipe cleaners and hide the transition from the masking tape to pipe cleaner, use acrylic modelling paste available at any decent art supply store. It has the consistency of very thick paint and it does not crack or chip. I use it on all my models rather than plaster or spackle. Its also great for texturing figure bases. I applied it with my fingers to the trunks and found that using a small amount was best to create the texture of bark on the cotton pipe cleaner. If you can't find modelling paste you could just use thick paint. Once dry ( 20 minutes:) the paste can be painted with whatever shade of brown or grey you like.

After trimming the trunks to different lengths (4 to 8 inches) with wire cutters, I made bases from thick card stock with small holes drilled to accept the trunks. These bases were then coated with the modelling paste and painted on both sides to prevent warping. Using watered down Elmers glue I then coated the bases with railroad ballast by Woodland Scenics.

With 3 or 4 trees and a sapling or two glued on each base I ended up with unbreakable, easy to arrange clusters of palm trees to line the banks of the Nile or surround the oasis so the relief column can rest in the shade while Gordon loses his head.

Materials Needed: fake fern plant; pipe cleaners; acrylic modelling paste; masking tape; paint; glue; card stock or wood for bases; sand or ballast for bases.

Copyright 1995 by The Courier Publishing Company.