If a tree falls in the forest...

I'm sure that a few of you recall the step by step posts that I made of the original tree stands that I created for our games of Wild West Exodus.  A little while back, as I was working on some other similar projects, I decided to see if I could do some winter effects on larger scale terrain pieces (as opposed to simple bases)

 

That meant spreading out all of the supplies again... various tree branches, gravel, glue oxide paste, knives and so on.

 

The DVD protectors are left over from the thousands of disks that I purchased for the kickstarter videos.

 

Just as I do when placing bark on a regular base, I use a combination of super glue and paste.  The paste acts as mortar, filling in the inevitable gaps.

 

The branch is positioned inside a notch cut in the bark, which offers some additional stability and strength.

 

A few smaller pieces of bark are added, as well as one more fallen log.  This offers a more interesting visual, and more cover!

 

The Oxide Paste is still used as 'mortar' filling in the largest gaps.

 

More texture is spread out onto the rest of the disk with the paste.  This is more efficient than gluing a ton of extra rocks and gravel, and it gives me one more texture as well.

 

Speaking of gravel, I have quite a collection that has been acquired over the years.

 

While the Oxide Paste is still wet, I mixed in some Elmer's glue.  This is what will hold down the gravel which I am going to add.

 

I always place the biggest rocks first, and work progressively lighter.  Otherwise, the fine ballast would cover all of the glue, and I would have to keep adding new glue for each layer.

 

Instead, I have fresh glue available for my second application, typically a medium ballast.  A little more is applied in this second round than the heavy ballast.

 

Finally the sand and ultra fine ballast is added.  This tends to fill in everything very nicely, and looks a little more natural.  Now your rocks will have natural 'clusters' around the tree stand.

 

I work my way around the stand quickly, but I don't try to cover too large of an area at once.  I learned the hard way that as you apply the glue into nooks and crannies, you have a tendency to tip the thing over, and all the glue starts running off.  It becomes a major mess at that point!!

 

Here's what we have so far.  I have some more episodes coming that demonstrate standing stones, cork, pieces of actual slate, and so on.

 

Once all of them reach this stage, I will move on to the painting and applications of snow and flock!!

 

Stay tuned..