The first thing I had to acquire was new trees. With this I decided to build my own using Woodland Scenics trees and foliage. The Woodland Scenic trees have removable trunks so I went with them. So after much trial and error, I came across a system that worked for me at least. I purchased some glue called 9001 clear. This stuff dried in a couple of hours. Once that dried I then took some aquanet and sprayed the foliage to harden it up. Once that was dry I worked on the bases.
For the bases, I borrowed an idea from another blog (who's name escapes me at the moment) and went to Home Depot and bought some self-adhesive flexible tiles. They were about $1.50 a tile. I bought 6 of them. I also bought a roll of draw liner to stick to the back of the tile and to prevent them from slipping. I then took some good scissors and cut out patterns of what the forests would look like. I then glued down the tree bases to the forest base.
These photos show the trees on the forest base before I glued down the tree bases.
Once the tree bases had dried I applied some Liquitex Matte Gel and mixed it with Burnt Umber Acrylic Paint. Using a painting knife I smeared the gel onto the forest base. Ensuring I covered the tree bases. Using some Woodland Scenics Fine Turf and Static Grass Flock in Harvest Gold and Light Green, I sprinkled it all over the bases. I let that sit for 24 hours to dry. I then sprayed the top of the bases with Woodland Scenics Scenic Cement. That sat for another 24 hours to dry. The finished base looked like this:
I then put the trees back into their bases for the finished product. I added some 15mm pikemen to give a sense of scale for the pictures.
I'm rather happy with how they turned out. I will be using them this weekend for the first time. Hopefully they will stand up to the rigors of gaming.
