Can you do this? I need some felled trees. Branches from my garden would be great (well, twigs really I guess). Is this a bad idea? When dried will they be ok for a long time or will something vile grow out of them ruining my display?
It’s perfectly fine. If you really want to, stick them in a garbage bag and dose them with bug spray, leave for a week. What is not good is to use “edible” materials like seeds.
Many dioramists I’ve seen or read their methods use backyard “found” materials. Twigs, roots, dirt held in place with a white glue mixture.
Jef Verswyvel of Squadron introduced me to the technique of grinding leaves in a spice grinder (get your own - don’t use the wife’s) to make a leaf litter ground cover
Just make sure they are very dry. I would not dry them in a microwave- an item with very little moisture in it can be hard on the oven. I dry that kind of stuff in a toaster oven set at very low temp- say 200 degrees for a few minutes. I am about to do a base using dyed sawdust as grass. I use a lot of organic stuff.
I second Don. I have roots from some evergreen shrubs I had to dig out of my yard. I saved them for making small bushes and shrubs on bases. But yes, make sure they are dried. I dried them in my regular oven, but that’s all I have. And I would also seal them with a clear lacquer, to reduce the chance that they will absorb moisture.
As far as other organic materials go, I use old tea leaves, too. And I have some of GreenStuff World’s leaf punches, which I use with dried leaves to punch out small leaf shapes. GM mentioned spices and herbs, too, which can work. But in each case, I would seal them as best I can.
Do not use flour or baking powder for snow.
Oops, let me add a little.
Using edible ingredients is dangerous. I had a train I wanted to put together of these crappy old sugar beet gondolas that were run up and down the West Coast by the Southern Pacific. The railroad guys called the trains " da’ roots".
Mile long things going about 5 miles an hour, easy to hop.
In N scale ( 1/160); how to model a two foot long ugly vegetable?
Brainstorm- carraway seeds!
Put false bottoms in a dozen cars (selective compression) and glued in the seeds. Put them on the tracks behind a lash up of some of the older weathered prime movers and dragged them into the yard at “San Luis Obispo”.
The next time I went into the layout room; holy smokes, Hurricane Andrew!
Busted cars, buildings, and a lot of rat crap!
Learned my lesson!
Bill
I had to chuckle at that one, GM!
Thanks everybody. To GM’s story, Rats!