1/72 Jungle Flora

Modeling Subjects Dioramas
1

Boy, I’ve researched this long and strong now and sure could use some help from you modelers. I’m building a 1/72 Higgins boat (LCVP) Pacific island landing diorama showing the bow ramped dropped, Marines running off and Jap bunker back in the jungle firing at them. I have everything I need in the way of knowledge and materials (including the ocean) but what I can’t find is jungle flora to make the jungle with. The closest I’ve come is modifying some small aquarium artificial plants. The palm trees are readily available, but the flora has me stumped. Any help would be appreciated.

2

Depending on the type you’re looking for buying palm trees in small scale and removing the trunks wouldn’t be too hard. Alternatively as mentioned aquarium plants would do nicely depending on what you bought,

3

Thanks for the reply. In my search for aquarium plants that would be suitable for 1/72 scale, all that I’ve found have been too big. I found a video on how make make your own plants, any size but would still prefer to purchase some if I could find them.

4

I don’t really know of any companies that make Jungle Flora, despite its usefulness plants are not a widely produced product.

5

Finally a WWII Pacific War model builder AND in 1/72 scale!!! I am an exclusive builder of diorama’s of those early days of the pacific war, and yes indeed alot of imagination has to be done with these type diorama’s I have submitted to FSM a few pics of one of my diorama’s called “Guadacanal Oct. 12th, 1942 - Keep’em Flying” and NO I do not build musuem master pieces that are everywhere in their magazines but I do build what I call “Moments in Time”…

Here’s a couple of sugguestions you might consider:

  1. Those lovely flowers you buy for your wife …when the flowers are dead, spray them with hair spray to hold them in shape, snip them from the stem or in some cases leave the stem and clip each in a certain height to look like Boyan or Palm trees. As to the types of flowers once again use your imagination as to what you what to depict…

  2. Go by “Joann’s” or “Michelles” or “Old Time Pottery” most any store will carry silk plants there is a large varity to choose from and once again your imagination will get you what your looking for, a bit pricey but I have use several from these type stores…

Let me know how that works for you …

TR-DIORAMA

6

Thanks for the response and your tips. They’re appreciated.

7

Hello!

My advice would be to try to avoid fresh and natural material, like the mentioned “flowers”, because they are not time-stable, that is to say funny things happen to them over, say, a year or two. My tip would be to concentrate on the lowest “floor” of the forrest, which has to be lined with small plants and partially dead material like fallen leaves and so on. For that I use wooden shavings from the automatic pencil sharpener, sawdust, tea and stuff likie that. If you paint that accordingly, you can get very good results. You can add small chunks of green sponge to simulate little plants, that looks good. You could also take small patches of artificial fur to simulate grass or small bushes. Brush bristles make nice reed-like plants. Recently I also found thick fabric that used to line an old chair - it has nice, green coloured strands that make nice foliage, and thicker, brown strands that look a lot like roots - that could be good also. Of course there are also Railroad modelling supplies - Woodland Scenics used to make a stuff that’s called “Foliage” - that’s hot stuff, there’s also static grass, you can make a good use of it, even if you don’t use static electricity to apply it, just add it in the mix.

Hope it helps, good luck with your projects

Paweł

8

Thank you. Those are great tips and I appreciate your response.

9

Thanks anyway.

10

Another option besides RR scenery is Wargame scenery.

Here are a few links that might help.

http://www.librarium-online.com/forums/scenery/88129-my-friend-needs-your-help-creating-jungle-scenery.html

http://jonswargamesminis.blogspot.com/2011/03/cheap-jungle-terrain-2.html

http://www.matakishi.com/jungle.htm

http://15mmvsf.bagofmice.com/Models/terrain/terrain_how_to.htm

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/content/article.jsp?categoryId=cat440312a&pIndex=1&aId=3800025a&multiPageMode=true&start=2&_requestid=1146007

As you see, a lot of these use aquarium products like you have already done but make sure you check out dollar stores, etc for deals.

Games Workshop makes plastic plants but they do get expensive and would most any bought scenery set.

There are also other products out there for different scales that could work. 35th scale ferns for example would probably still look ok especially if in the thicker part of the jungle, and anything labeled small in 35th should be big in 72nd.

Hope that helps, looking forward to seeing what you come up with (and, by the way, what Marines did you use in your beach landing diorama?

11

OK Philp, I’ll check out all of these. My reaserch so far has indicated I’ll probably end up making a lot of the jungle flora because of the 1/72 scaling.

Thanks so much,

Chuck

12

I make all of my own plants for dioramas, that way I can recreate any scale I want. I wrote a three part post titled Making realistic trees and bushes, /forums/t/140831.aspx, it goes through the process I use to create things like the jungle in my diorama.

13

I went to your website and read all through it. Great stuff and tremendous skills. However, it seems when trying to create foliage for a 1/72 jungle, things get a lot tougher. I will use your lessons and idea on making tree armatures and want to thank you for your input.

Best regards,

Chuck

14

Hello everybody!

Recently I came across a company called Joe Fix from Belgium - they make nice plastic plants - jungle vegetation and other plants too. Michigan Toy Soldier Company has some of their stuff for sale. Hope it helps, have a nice day

Paweł

15

www.tasca-modellismo.com/…/item4.html

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