Treemendus Scenics

This is my first attempt at creating my own trees. I used one of the kits available from the Treemendus website http://www.treemendus-scenics.co.uk/ which along with the strands of wire, horse hair, bark dust, scatter, glue and other bits also came with a handy 'how to..' guide. I was really surprised just how quick and easy it was to make the finished item, the whole thing must have taken me an hour in total (not including drying time for the filler on the base). The wire in the pack can easily be divided to make four medium sized trees suitable for 20mm-28mm gaming. After twisting the wires together to make the trunk, roots and branches I glued it to a thick card base and covered it with the filler. I left some of the tops of the roots protruding from the soil to give it a realistic effect. Afterwards I mixed the bark dust with PVA then coated the whole thing. Next I gave it an ink wash to bring out the detail a bit on the branches etc. Next I painted the earth base with a Vallejo Dark Chocolate Brown with a slight highlight. Whilst all this was drying I pulled apart the horse hair and sprayed it with a GW dark green spray, then covered it in hairspray whilst coating it with scatter. More PVA was applied to the base and some bark scatter added, then finally I gave the whole tree a blast with matt varnish spray to make sure everything stuck.
All in all, not a bad first effort I think. I'll probably save even more money by sourcing my own scatter, wire and individual items from now on, but if you've never attempted this before and fancy having everything in your hands ready to go then the Treemendus kits are ideal. (P.S. Extra special thanks to my girlfriend for having the patience to take the above photos whilst I made tea!)