Many years ago I started on a 1/285th scale (6mm) American Civil War collection. Originally I had bought out a fellow gamer's smaller collection, and then I expanded it over the years. I now have enough miniatures to do some of the smaller battles, such as Shiloh and Bull Run on a regiment-to-regiment level (these are fairly small battles when compared to Gettysburg or Antietam). Along with the original collection of figures, the original collection came with a few plastic trees. By the standards of the day (the late 1970's), these trees were state of the art, and even by today's standards, they are not that bad. However, they are coniferous (needle-bearing) trees, and for the American Civil War, I always thought deciduous (leaf-bearing--and dropping) trees would be more appropriate. I have looked for deciduous trees now for over 20 years at hobby and craft shops, and in gaming catalogs, but without any luck. It appears that no one makes good-looking, inexpensive trees in this scale.

In recent years, I tried asking around the club to see if anyone had any suggestions on how to make trees for this scale and was given many helpful hints. Someone suggested using green pipe cleaners, but I still fail to see how a pipe cleaner will end up looking like a tree. I have seen them used in microarmor games and have never been that impressed. Another person suggested using the wavy type of pipe cleaners as these come in dark green. You are supposed to cut the pipe cleaner between the wavy parts so as to make trees, but they end up being too large and look like coniferous Christmas trees, which is just what I'm trying to avoid. One innovative person used blue Styrofoam cut into circular chunks, painted green and then flocked. Not surprising, these "trees" end up looking like blue Styrofoam cut up into circular chunks, painted green and then flocked.

After listening to a multitude of suggestions and looking around at what everyone else has done, I came to the conclusion that no one really has any ideas on how to make convincing deciduous trees. My only recourse, therefore, was to experiment with different materials to see what I could devise.

The problem was to come up with a system by which a person could mass produce, inexpensively and quickly, enough trees to make a small forest with easily obtained components. The first part of my experiment was easy, the tree trunks. For this I simply used rattan (bamboo), which is easily found in bamboo skewering sticks. These are sold everywhere; a package of fifty costs about $1.50 (Canadian). And each package contains enough wood to make an old growth forest.

I cut the skewering sticks into pieces approximately 15mm and 25mm in length, and then cut these pieces lengthwise to produce four or five long pieces. Next, I glued these pieces, using white glue, in an upright position, onto cardboard stands measuring around 18mm square (see diagram 1 & 2). After the glue had dried, I painted the cardboard bases green, and the wooden trunks brown. I used a lot of glue to ensure a good bond to the card stand, and also because once the dried glue is painted, it will resemble the tree's roots. Step one was complete.

Making the branches and leafy parts of the trees required some extra thought. The solution had to be easy and quick. I didn't want to put individual leaves onto carefully constructed branches (as a friend of mine had suggested). I really wanted to be able to complete this task within my lifetime. After pondering over this problem for three years (I became distracted by other more pressing problems), the solution came to me one night when I couldn't get to sleep: use lichen moss!

Very simple, and it's an abundant and inexpensive substance. There is a catch, though. I've seen people make lichen trees in the past, and although not bad the trees end up looking like lichen moss trying very hard, but unsuccessfully, to be trees. The secret? It's what you do to the lichen moss after mounting it to the tree trunk.

First of all, shape the lichen. Using white glue (the scratch modeler's equivalent of duct tape), place the glue over the top two-thirds of the tree trunk (see diagram 3), and wrap the lichen around the trunk, pressing fairly firmly to ensure that it sticks in place, but not so firmly that it ends up laying flat (see diagram 4). The lichen should have its branches protruding outward somewhat, because these protrusions will become the tree's branches. Keep a pair of scissors handy for trimming off the odd-looking protrusion, or to better shape the final product (see diagram 5). Once you've completed this step, put the tree aside and start the next one. I found that I could attach lichen to between 25 and 50 trees in an hour. After all the trees are mossed up, and the glue has dried, you are ready for the next step.

I went to my favorite hobby store, specifically looking for a dark green paint, and with surprising luck found that they were having a sale on their paints! I was looking for a flat dark green enamel and found that they had two large jars of World War II Japanese Infantry Green at half price. I bought both on the spot and they proved to be the perfect color (your results may vary). Paint the lichen liberally. The paint needs to go on fairly thick because you are going to add flocking (see diagram 6). You must work quickly, to ensure the paint does not dry before the flocking is applied; this is very important. The faster you work, the more flocking will stick to the paint and the longer it will stay in place (see diagram 7). Enamel paint, in my opinion, is far superior to water-based paints for this kind of work. It holds the flocking firmer and won't allow as much of it to fall off later. The flocking I used was a combination of old sawdust flocking I had made years ago (plain sawdust mixed with food coloring which was then spread on a cookie tray to dry out. After drying, I broke up the clumps) combined with a commercially produced dark green woodlands flocking. Over two nights, taking eight hours total, I made 100 trees, and, no, I won't make you a set.

The final trees, after flocking, look extremely good, and have the added bonus of being easy to produce. The color of the lichen is immaterial, since it ends up getting painted (liberally painted, remember). I ended up using assorted colors of lichen, because that's what I had lying around in my games room.

Once painted and flocked, the forest will look uniform, and, oddly enough, not like its made from lichen. It will look like a real forest. But try it for yourself just to see how simple it really is. The best part is that the materials are inexpensive and easy to obtain, and will probably work for other scales too, such as 10mm and 15mm. If anyone is interested, I will also share my secrets on how to make dirt cheap, easy to produce, coniferous trees... unless, of course, you prefer the Christmas tree pipe cleaner look.

Reprinted with the kind permission of "The Trumpeter Newsletter" (www. trumpeterclub.com)

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