GHQ Models Forums

Hi, new member here and a newbie to the wargaming world. I wanted to inquire about the Tree Pack GHQ offers on the website:

http://www.ghqmodels.com/store/tma1.html

When you get the materials is it difficult or time consuming to make the trees out of the materials provided? I am doing a first time build with GHQ items and my scene needs some wooded area. Any good advice or DIY articles available?

PTP,

First off -- welcome to "our little corner of the world"!

As for the GHQ Tree kits... I was rather skeptical when I first acquired them. But upon "rolling up the sleeves" and making a few, I found that one can get pretty good results with them. You will get an instruction sheet with each pack. Basically, what you will do is cut off a piece of the "bump chenille"... then if you are making a deciduous tree, "curl" the top part around to make a "tree shape"... for both deciduous and evergreens, you next "melt" the chenille at the base, forming the trunk. For deciduous trees, you next coat the top part with white glue, then sprinkle on ground foam. For evergreens, you coat the top part with white glue, then "clump" some of the individual fibers to become branches.

The only down side I've come across is that the process is a wee bit "labor intensive" -- but the process is rather easy, and remarkably affordable.

Another note... I've not had much luck making the palm trees -- probably need more practice. And speaking of palm trees -- the TMA-2 Light Green is supposed to be a good match for "tropical" palm trees, while TMA-1 Dark Green is supposed to more for "African" palms. Personally, I would not use the TMA-2 for anything else -- in my opinion, it is a rather "garish" green.

I have a few pages on my website on making Terrain Maker hexes... and one page devoted mainly to trees. You can find the Terrain Maker section on my website by clicking

HERE

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Tom Stockton

Thanks for the welcome and nice site you have there!
I can see by skimming those pages it has a great amount of information available to check out when I arrive home this evening thanks for posting that up.

I've not made deciduous trees using GHQ's trees, but I've made hundreds (literally) of evergreen trees. The evergreen trees are easy and quick -- you could easily make 30 or more an hour. Basically, I cut the bump chenille into sections, paint them with a water/white glue mixture to get a clump effect, then stick them in a hunk of Styrofoam to let them dry. They come out great, and install on any foam game board or hex quite easily. One caution: I heartily agree that you only go with the darker version, as the light green version is way too light for pines.

As for deciduous trees, I take clump foliage from Woodland Scenics, break it into appropriately sized chunks, stick a finishing nail (the kind with no head to speak of) through, pile white glue on top of the nail head, and stick a clump of foliage there to hide it. I then put a quick splash of brown on the part of the nail extending from the bottom of the foliage, which then gets stuck into the terrain (in my case, GHQ hexes). This is cheap (nails are virtually free and the foliage is about $7 for enough to make about 120 trees) but a bit more time consuming.

The trees in this image are made using this method:


Pat Callahan
www.microarmormayhem.com[/url]