Simple Grape Stem Trees

How to make trees from grape stems as an alternative to using wire

Materials - Tree Number 1
Dried out grape stem
Sandpaper and sanding block
PVA glue (white wood glue)
Cutters or scissors
Reindeer moss (Most good craft centres – Hobbycraft in UK)
Green florist foam

Materials - Tree Number 2
Dried out grape stem
A sheet of 3mm hardboard (cut base out of this)
Sandpaper and sanding block
PVA glue (white wood glue)
Craft knife
Fine sand
Reindeer moss (Most good craft centres – Hobbycraft in UK)
Green Stuff
Cutters and Scissors
A cork from a wine bottle

Paints - Tree Number 2
Scorched Brown
(I use the rough equivalent of Burnt Umber when painting terrain)
Bleached Bone
Chesnut Ink
Brown Ink
Black Ink
Bestial Brown
Vomit Brown
Snakebite Leather

Introduction

Trees are an essential part of the natural landscape (unless you are in Mordor or Moria), but often the bought ones don't look very realistic. Many techniques exist for making trees using wire etc which give very good results, but this particular technique uses nature to it's advantage to give an easy and quick alternative.

The humble grape stem
To use this technique either you or someone in your family need to like grapes and you need to save the stem. Once they are all consumed put the stem on one side and allow it to dry out. This might take quite a while, it needs to go brown and hard indicating that it is totally dry.

The humble grape stem has a big advantage over other dried material since it is a vine. This makes it suprisingly tough for it's size, it seems to compress when bent and spring back into shape sooner than snap. Another big advantage is the actual stalk of the grape left behind when you remove one acts as a natural anchor point for attaching greenery.

Construction

This article follows the creation of two trees. The first one is a simple tree that was
integrated into a terrain piece and didn't require any roots. The basic construction and concepts
of using the stem and adding the greenery are looked at with this first tree. The second tree
has a well defined trunk and roots and this part of the article will focus on their creation.

TREE NUMBER 1 - Focus on the Tree Canopy

Step 1 - Trimming the stem and adding the moss
With no root structure to make you can get straight on and add some moss, though you might want to first trim off some branches with cutters to get the required shape. Use undiluted PVA glue to coat each end of the stalk where the grapes used to attach to the vine.

When this has been done you can start adding the moss. I found making balls of reindeer moss and then sticking them down helped to get a reasonable shape, but there is no need to worry too much about what it looks like at this stage. The important thing is to get it well attached to the stem. When you are happy it is well attached then let the PVA glue dry.

Step 2 - Trimming the moss
Now the glue is dry you can trim off some of the branches or moss as required to start refining it's shape.

When you are reasonably happy you can go on to enhance the overall appearance with some scatter material.

Step 3 - Preparing the scatter material
If you don't have any shop-bought scatter material you can make something similar from florist foam. This green foam crumbles very easily so it is easy to make some green powder that can be applied to the tree canopy. Simply use some glasspaper to sand off some of the foam into a container.

Step 4 - Adding the scatter material
Prepare some dilute PVA glue and coat the reindeer moss with the glue. While it is still wet you can either dip the tree in the scatter or spinkle some onto the canopy. How much you do this is really down to your taste and the effect you want to achieve. The dilute PVA glue also serves another purpose of stiffening the moss to make it a bit more robust in use.

As you can see below, a simple two tone canopy looks much more interesting and breaks up the uniform colour of the dyed reindeer moss. Obviously, using more sophisticated material should look even better than this simple example. If you want you could add blossom or berries by flicking paint onto the canopy and add autumn tones by using paints or inks.

First Tree - Conclusion
The final effect can be seen below alongside a figure for scale purposes. There is also a picture of the finished terrain piece, with the tree integrated into the design. This was the first go at creating a tree using this technique and it seemed to give quite a good result. This particular tree is part of a bigger terrain piece and doesn't need sophisticated roots etc, although combining it with green stuff to make a nice root system could be easily achieved.

TREE NUMBER 2 - Focus on the Tree Trunk and Roots

This second part of the article will concentrate on creating the trunk and roots of the second tree.
Information about the tree canopy is contained in the first part of this article.

Step 1 - Creating the trunk and attaching the stem
The following four pictures illustrate the process of basic tree construction including a trunk.
Take a cork and make a hole in one end to mount the grape stem. Glue it in place using PVA glue and let it dry.

Use a craft knife to fashion a tree trunk from the cork.

SAFETY NOTICE: Please take care not to injure yourself whilst using a knife to shape the cork.
It sounds obvious but please cut away from yourself so if you slip you don't get hurt.

When you have got a shape that is acceptable to you then attach it to your base using PVA glue and let it dry. It is probably best to make the base fairly big relative to the trunk so it doesn't easily topple over. I tend to use 3mm hardboard for my bases to make then nice and sturdy.

Once the PVA glue is dry you are ready for the next stage.

Step 2 - Creating the roots and detailing the trunk and roots
Some of the tools I used for this next stage are shown below. The small piece of sponge was used to try and add some texture to the Green Stuff after application and before it dried, by pushing it into it's surface. I'm not convinced it worked all that well, but I needed to try something to merge the smooth surface of the Green Stuff with the exposed rough surface of the cork.

The picture below shows how Green Stuff was used to fashion roots and tidy up the joint between the cork and the grape stem.

Here is a close up of the root system. Just roll out the Green Stuff as little sausages of putty and arrange then in any way you feel looks right. I went for a tangle of roots both large and small.

As mentioned above, I used the small piece of sponge to try and add irregular indentations into the Green Stuff whilst it was still workable. Whilst it was drying, I added a combination of fine sand and dried mixed herb leaves to the base after coating it with PVA glue, but of course any other materials could be used to decorate your base depending on your needs.

When it was all fully dry, I added a sealing coat of dilute PVA to the trunk and base to give a good key for painting. This was left to dry for several hours.

NOTE:- You can add your leaf canopy at this point or later if you prefer, after the base and trunk painting is completed. Please see the first part of this article for information about one way of adding the canopy. With the second tree I elected for a simple approach for the canopy and didn't add the scatter material.

Step 3 - Painting the roots and trunk
Trees come in very many different colours from greys to browns to white for Silver Birches etc. It is very difficult to give precise instructions on how to get the colour you want. Unfortunately it is very much a case of trial and error. The more you make, the more you can experiment with various techniques. If you are making a tree that isn't brown it makes sense to add your base colour to the tree branches before you cover them up. e.g. You don't really want a grey trunk and brown branches showing through the canopy.

Here are some general guidelines for how this second tree was painted.

Since I wanted a brown tree I started by undercoating eveything in Burnt Umber, a paint I use as an equivalent of Scorched Brown when painting terrain. This was left to dry completely.
The next stage was to apply a fairly heavy coat of bleached bone to create some light areas that would show up well after a glaze of ink was applied.

After the Bleached Bone was dry, a combination of Chestnut, Brown and Black Inks were used to create a shiney, bark like appearance. Various Browns were applied to the tree base such as Bestial Brown, Vomit Brown and Snakebite Leather using a drybrushing technique.

The whole process of painting the base and roots is a very 'Organic' process so just have a go to see what you come up with. When you think you've got it right, then stop.

Here is the complete base after some Static Grass has been added to the base.

Second Tree - Conclusion
The completed tree can be seen in the following picture, with a further picture with models to give some idea of scale. As mentioned earlier, it is worth noting that for the second tree, I decided to just use Reindeer Moss on its own without adding any other material.

Final Conclusion
It seemed fairly easy to create good looking trees using cheap materials and quite simple techniques. I don't think this method replaces the traditional wire one, more compliments it.
You are tied somewhat to the shape of the grape stem, whilst using wire you can have whatever shape you need. You might, for example, make a few choice specimen trees with wire, and the rest of a forest or wood using this technique for speed. I am very pleased with how tough the grape stems seem to be, so they should stand up fairly well in a gaming environment.

Having used these two tree as "proof of concept", I expect myself and others can improve on these first efforts, so with this in mind..... enjoy your grapes !