When you need a bunch of background trees, how do you make them?

[Specter3]

When you need a bunch of background fill trees, how do you make them? I am familiar with the puff ball method and have used it with varying degrees of success from "acceptable as long as your attention is not drawn to them" to "what was I thinking while I made those? ". I cant stand spending time on them to have them turn out like crud. There has to be a better way for background foliage that represents trees. Foreground is a whole different story. I need filler.

Thanks

Ryan

[M.C. Fujiwara]

Here's how I make background pine trees.
http://model-railroad-hobbyist.com/node/5622
Takes about an hour for 20 trees, but they look better than scrub-pad & bamboo skewer, IMHO.
Mix in some WS foiliage (foam on sedum?) or supertrees and you get a nice variety of background textures.
Here they are in the background:



You can also shove some dark funace filter material under/between the trees to make a thicker undergrowth / denser forest.

[Dave V]

That depends entirely upon what part of the country you're modeling.  An East Coast hardwood forest background will look very different than a Southern pine forest or a Pacific Northwest rainforest.

I do the East Coast thing and have had tolerable results with Supertrees in the foreground and Woodland Scenics foliage clusters in the background:





I've seen better results with all Supertrees, just scaled for size.

[rogergperkins]

W/S foam clumps were an option.  I do not know if W/S still makes that product.
I painted tooth picks roof brown and created irregular blobs of foam in different shades of green
to "forest" a hill on my former layout.  Added a few of the trees with armature trunks on the edge.

[randgust]

I used Woodland Scenics foliage material, done into loose balls, and glued up on real twigs.  I'm partial to elm twigs.  Pretty much the entire forest on the HVRR is done that way, except for the foreground trees.

[DKS]

I used Woodland Scenics foliage material, done into loose balls, and glued up on real twigs.  I'm partial to elm twigs.  Pretty much the entire forest on the HVRR is done that way, except for the foreground trees.

+1. Just what I did on my WR&N IV.

[Flatrat]

I've seen a foliage cluster product by JTT, 6.99 for 150 sq. in. on amazon. 3.95 on their website. Has anyone used this product? How does it compare?

Also, they have fine, medium, coarse. I wonder what might look best for background foliage on canopy along the back of my layout.

[Wlal13again]

+1. Just what I did on my WR&N IV.

ditto...