Jabba the Stump

I spent the past few days both foresting and deforesting the land on Little Chain Ring Ridge. The area at the top of the ridge has a forest of deciduous trees. I made these with balsa or pine trunks that I carved to shape. To them I added twigs from the back yard for branches  and sprigs of super trees for finer branch structure, or reticulation. That overall procedure is faster than making trees from wire. The resulting trees are ok looking, especially in mass. However, they are very fragile. So they cannot be placed anywhere that operators may need access.

Adding nebari to the tree trunks

As the hill gets lower, the trees have been cut down, presumably by soldiers looking for firewood and lumber. I used various natural twigs to create the stumps. Stumps are much easier to build than trees. I plan to add a mini scene of Union soldiers with axes working in this area.

For most of the trees, I used Miliput 2-part epoxy to add root detail to their bases. The bonsai artists call those exposed roots, nebari. It makes the trees look much more natural.

Stevenson and Haupt examine Jabba the Stump

Some of the tree stumps came from dead Azalea or Seiju Elm bonsai trees that my brother's friend Saimir gave to me. He brought them up from Florida during a visit a few years ago.

This stump in particular, which came from the base of one of his trees, was quite bulky. I nicknamed it Jabba the Stump. I also used some of the dried roots from the actual bonsai tree to show how roots from Jabba the Stump were exposed by the railroad cut.

This area is nearly finished. Next it's back to detailing Belle Air farm and Camp Pitcher.