Tutorials

How to make small scale bushes

Posted by Kekso on 06 Jan 2014, 13:26

Hi there,

As I showed on my Eastern Friendly Indians topic, I tried to make some bushes. Since some of you asked me how it was done I decided to make small tutorial of how I make it. I combined some techniques and ideas I found online and I'm quite happy with the results. Still, there is a lot of room for improvement...

So, what you'll need for making bushes? List of materials is following: white glue, dirt, old paint brush (for painting walls, not artistic), baking paper, hair spray, static grass (2,5mm) and some scatter or leaves (I used NOCH).

Firstly, make mixture of white glue and dirt. I made my own mixture of dry dirt I use for basing. Mixture should be thick, so add just few drops of water and you do that if mixture is really really thick. Why dirt? If you use just white glue it tends to get white after it dries. With dirt you should have more realistic base under bush.
Image

Place drops of mixture on a piece of baking paper. Why baking paper? Because white glue easily peels off when dried.
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Now, cut some hairs from that old brush. Hairs represents big branches of bush and should be thick. More hairs in a bunch is easier to handle, but you need just a few in a bunch - you want a bush that you can see through it (as in real life), so too much hairs will make very thick and not realistic bush.
Image

Stick that hairs into mixture drops on baking paper. This is most difficult part of whole process and there you will see why mixture should be very thick. If mixture is thinner, hairs may fell down easily. Even with thick mixture some hairs may fell down so you'll need to raise them up before glue has dried. Also, longer hairs fall easier than short ones.
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I need to improve that part of making "tufts" with brush hairs, but that will be for another tutorial (maybe some day). Until then, feel free to make more of them than you need because not all will be useful. White glue takes 4-6 hours to dry. Usually I leave it overnight. Then it looks like this:
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Peel one off, trim (if needed), grab it with your tweezers and cover it with coat of hairspray. After that, just sprinkle it with some static grass and leave it to dry for about 10 minutes.
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Finally, put new coat of hairspray and sprinkle it with leaves (scatter) that you have and seal it with another coat of hairspray. Et voila:
Image

Now you can play with colors. Make dry bushes if you have arid or ocher static grass and scatter (you can use real dry leaves and grind them into small particles). I thought of using glue in spray can but hair spray holds nicely so I didn't need to spend my money on 2-3 times more expensive glue spray.

So, this is just how I do it. I'm not saying you can't do it better. But I hope some of you will find it useful. I just develop that yesterday and didn't have enough time to think how to make it better.
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Kekso  Croatia

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Posted by armpcm on 06 Jan 2014, 13:41

Great tutorial :thumbup:

Will certainly make same bush using your technique, where I got to raid the kitchen :-D
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armpcm  Portugal

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Posted by vellek on 06 Jan 2014, 18:53

Very helpful tutorial :cheers:
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Posted by santifernandez on 06 Jan 2014, 19:30

Good tutorial,
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Posted by Bramble15 on 06 Jan 2014, 22:05

Genius!!! Great tutorial. thanks
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Posted by Kekso on 07 Jan 2014, 16:49

Thanks guys. I'm glad someone finds it useful. This is serial production trial:

Image

But there is considerable amount of wasted scatter material. Therefore I think I will do it one by one.
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Posted by santifernandez on 07 Jan 2014, 20:35

:drool: :drool: :thumbup: :love:
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santifernandez  Spain
 
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Posted by Peter on 07 Jan 2014, 20:51

Excellent and usefull tutorial! Thanks for sharing! :thumbup:
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Peter  Belgium

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Posted by KenzoSato on 08 Jan 2014, 22:14

I like
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Posted by SamSagace on 08 Jan 2014, 22:25

Many thanks for this tutorial !!
I will try !
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Posted by Beano Boy on 08 Jan 2014, 23:14

Ingenious work,and very imformitive toturial Dalibor. I think I`ll get the Grandchildren involved with making a few hundred of these and save myself getting the glue on my own fingers.I`ll go get some Hair Spray,but expect funny looks from those in the shop. Well I`ve lost most of my hair!
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Posted by Kekso on 08 Jan 2014, 23:23

Hi Paul... just imagine how I felt when I was selecting and paying hair spray in supermarket :-) :-) :-)
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Posted by Kekso on 09 Jan 2014, 15:11

Here are some dry bushes I just made. I used arid static grass (Gale Force 9; 2,5mm) and real dry leaves, crushed into very small particles.

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Posted by armpcm on 09 Jan 2014, 15:28

Looking great D where can i find the oasis? :-)
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armpcm  Portugal

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Posted by Peter on 10 Jan 2014, 18:44

armpcm wrote:Looking great D where can i find the oasis? :-)

When you go out the door, make a turn left, go straight ahead. Then the third street on the right, first on the left, and then the first person you meat. Then ask! :mrgreen:
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Posted by ComR on 05 May 2014, 23:29

Thank you, that was great idea! My own was to use thin wire and thinned glue, but your way is easier, at least for some kind of bushes. If I may suggest, for some leaves or parts you can use... leaves of green or red tea. They comes in different sizes and colours. If these are too big, you can easily crush these with your fingers... It's possible to change colour with any paint (water colours, thinned acrylics and so on) or use already used dry leaves... Coffie or used and dried coffie gives nice colours too.
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Posted by edhiewibowo on 28 Aug 2016, 19:21

Hi Kekso, could you reupload the images in this posting? All images were deleted I think. Thanks
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Posted by Kekso on 28 Aug 2016, 19:26

I would do it but all my images hosted on Imageshack are lost :( :( :(
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Kekso  Croatia

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Posted by Beano Boy on 28 Aug 2016, 19:43

That is a crying shame Dalibor, all your pictures gone and a good topic ruined.
There are quite a few trees that i wish to make later,but using a different system than before,because i made nail bombs out of all my hairspray! :mrgreen: BB
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Posted by Peter on 28 Aug 2016, 20:47

Kekso wrote:I would do it but all my images hosted on Imageshack are lost :( :( :(

What you need is a blog! Then you have a second place to store your pictures. ;-)
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