Some pine tree armatures

Five pines in different construction stages

It seemed like a good time to take a picture of the pine tree armatures since they are now in different stages of construction.

The one on the far left consists of 4 lengths of 16 gauge green stem wire (bought at Michaels) wrapped with 22 gauge floral wire. The loops are the branches before they have been cut open and trimmed to size. The spray of branches at the top of the trunk are loops of 26 gauge wire that have been inserted between the four trunk wires. Once the tree has been wrapped, the trunk is painted with 2 coats of white glue to solidify the structure. 'Solidify' is sort of a relative term. When the glue's dry the trunk can still be bent a little to do a bit more shaping. 

Those two on the far right are trunks in the next stage of construction: the wire loops have been cut open with a pair of side-cutters, fanned around the trunk, and then the newly formed branches have been trimmed to make the tree 'look right'. At this stage I sometimes completely cut off some branches. One might think that's wasteful, but I like to wind on too many loops so when it comes to shaping I have lots of options. Real wild pines often have many broken branches, so cutting some off doesn't degrade the look. I should note that trimming and shaping usually doesn't end at this stage, and I often continue it throughout the entire build.

The two trees in the centre have had their trunks coated with a fine sand and white glue mix to give a bark-like look. Usually two coats are needed to make the wire wrapping on the trunk disappear. Once dry, the trunks are painted. On these trees I tried to paint the bark a greyer colour than I did with the cedars by first applying a light grey mixed from some acrylics, and then overcoating with a light brown wash. They're still somewhat too brown. Well, I continue to experiment :-)

Teased Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber lightly sprayed with brown latex paint

Those centre trees are ready for the foliage base. I use Woodland Scenics Poly Fiber that has been teased out to thin it, and then lightly spray on some brown paint to give some colour variation. Ok, well, my coffee needs a warmup, so I better get back to the forest and throw a log on the fire :-)