Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Home Made Tufts Step Two: Shrubs and Flowers


With the review concluded in the previous post on how to create the tufts themselves (link below), it is time to get to the really fun part!  I was able to find these leaves and flower material on MP Products website, but I am sure there are probably other manufacturers as well.



I wanted to have the strongest hold possible, so I used wood glue for adding the leaves and flowers.


I brushed over a tiny bit of that wood glue over the tops of the shrubs, and grabbed the "middle" tone green leaves.  Those were sprinkled immediately over the glue before those tiny dots began to dry...


The next row was the lightest "spring leaf" color, applied in the same way.


The final row was supposed to be darker, but I could not see much of a difference.  It's not a big deal, because they still looked exactly like the kinds of shrubs that I needed!


On to the flowers.  I did the same process here, brushing on some wood glue.  I made the "stems" as long as possible in the tuft making stage so that they would stand above the tufts.


I was really looking forward to the blue/purple mix!  Who knows, I might even put a few dots of glue on the shrubs and add some of this.


In the future, I will do entire sheets of just one color, which will make it a LOT easier to clean off the excess bits and get them back into the container.  I wanted you to be able to see the difference in fewer images, so I only did a few rows of each type.


The red and the pink worked just as well, and so did the yellow!


Here you go!  I was very happy with how all these worked out.  Aside from the huge cost savings, being able to make as many shrub and flower tufts at a moment's notice in whatever color or size that I need is crucial.

I can recall waiting almost 2 years for one type of flower color to come back in stock, but now I don't have to worry about that!

I will continue to experiment and find out what is possible with these tufts, of course.  Who knows what I might discover!

As I mentioned in the previous post, I will see if it is possible to make these tufts part of a pledge level on the Patreon Page.  Finding a packaging to keep them from getting smashed is the most important element there :-)

I hope this is useful for everyone!