Making a tree, part 1

I have started to make the tree that will be growing to the right of the telephone booth. I am making it as a wire armature tree, i.e. making the branches using twisted wires. I am using a wood skewer for the core of the stem, creating a straight and fairly well pruned tree. This since it sits in an urban setting, and not grows freely in the wilderness.

Here is a picture of the progress so far.

Painting and more building

Painting and weathering of the sidewalk and the street is more or less complete. I have used various colors, mostly Vallejo, to obtain the desired effect. The sidewalk stones are actually more blue than grey. I used Vallejo Intermediate blue (70.903) and Vallejo French Mirage blue (70.900), a tip I got from this video.

I have also started to build the wall that will be positioned along the back of the sidewalk. It is made of a piece of extruded foam, clad with sanding paper to simulate a plastered wall. The wall will be painted is some other color, not yet decided. Along the top there are square pieces of cork that will be painted to simulate stones.

The 3D tree grate has arrived

The tree grate has arrived from the 3D printing service (see this post). The print looks like this.

The grate is printed in a plastic material called Frosted Extreme Detail (FXD). I really do not need the fine detailing possible with that material. I could have used the Frosted Ultra Detail (FUD) instead, but the FXD also gives a smoother surface which I wanted.

As you can see my printing includes the concrete parts of the grate only. To make the 3D model simpler I decided to not include the metal framing but to add that later using styrene dimensional strips. The next photo shows just that.

And the completed assembly painted with a grey spray primer.

Stone laying completed

A few days ago the stone/cork laying had progressed this far.

Half of it done, I would say.

And now, finally - the last stone has been laid!

A concrete tree grate

In urban settings there is almost always some kind of grating around trees (Swedish: trädgaller/markgaller). This helps air and water getting down through the soil. In the place and time I'm modeling the tree grates were made of concrete. I have a fairly good mental picture of what they looked like, but has not managed to find any left in real life. The only thing I found at first was this picture of a grate in bad shape. Poor tree!

(Photo: Örjan Stål)

I found the above photo in a publication from the Stockholm traffic and park administration (Trafikontoret). That in turn led me to a helpful person who told me that the above were the standard grates in the city of Stockholm up to the 1990:s. He also was kind enough to supply me with a plan of such a grate.

Since I did not want to manually cut all those tiny holes, and get them all straight and tidy at the same time, I decided to instead do a 3D print of a grate. Such a print is now awaiting processing at Shapeways. Here is what the model look like. It consists of four different parts, that will be cut apart and fitted into a frame I will build from styrene.

Paving and starting stone laying for real

At last, the actual diorama is under way. I have laid out the various elements on the base. In the picture below you can also see the foundation for the telephone booth, the fitting for the lamp post and a paper print representing the grating around the tree. I have also laid the cork that will become the street paving and the curb.

Stone cutting and laying has also commenced. My NorthWest Short Line cutter is indispensable when cutting stones from cork.

Nearly half of the stones are in place.

Building a frame

I have cut the diorama base from foam, and built a wooden frame around it.

The frame is just stained white, and I may actually keep it that way.