I like the idea of some flowers, might well do that.
So keeping with the general background work for some reason I suddenly felt like making up a few "
bog brush" woods. I've never quite decided which woods I really like. We had a mix of railway trees when young including some K&M ones (but they seemed so expensive then in the railway model shop). When I got back into the hobby I picked up some more realistic model railway trees for a board and I was going to then make some further trees myself using the Woodland Scenic armatures, having firmly decided the K&M ones were just a bit silly. However nostalgia firmly has it's hooks sunk in and I picked up a lot of odd trees (mostly K&M and a few GW ones) in a few auctions and given K&M are a local business I invested in a few others. They've sat in a box in the loft for a while now.
Anyhow I decided to make up a few - so grabbing some 5mm foamed PVC sheet I cut out some bases (that in theory will tessellate to fit in a box - if I can remember which way round they go - still I am learning slowly!) I started by rounded out the edges and laying out my trees. Some had bases I'd bought and the rest I just make some stumps from a bit of plastic tube and putty. Then added a few odds and sods - bit of filler and the like for some small bumps and the odd skull and gave them a good prime with some rattle cans.
Out with the flocks and much layering of static grass and foams. I've mentioned in the past that I've slightly gone off "standard flock" since it fades so quickly. My new technique (and I will probably go back over some old pieces) is 2mm static grass as the "generic base". Hopefully this won't yellow out so quickly. How easy it will be to redo old pieces I don't know. Time will tell. Anyhow much diluted PVC later and the trees were super glued into their stumps. I'd pondered about making removable sections, but for these I just felt like "going for it" so they are solid one piece woods. A bit of putty to tidy up the trunks and a dab of paint, a few additional tufts (and flowers) and I'm calling them done.
Still probably about the same again in deciduous woods to do and a lot of conifers to get used at some point. So on with some photos! Bit hard to photograph background wise, but we'll start with a few group shots:
So managed to just about put a proper background in these shots, to keep it a bit GW there is a pile of bones in the middle of the woods!
We've a scenic little path through the woods here
I added some statues to these woods for a bit of interest.
Not quite sure if the forest bug is still with me to do some more, or if I'll leave it for a bit. A couple more large woods and a few single and two tree ones I think should finish it out nicely.