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David Popp and Drew Halverson work to add a signature forest fire scene to the Thompson River Canyon on our Canadian Canyons N scale layout. Even without incorporating animated fire or smoke effects, the guys show how use of subtle color and scenery texture changes goes a long way towards creating a scorched earth appearance!
Great as usual, however, burned is correct grammar?
Nice job. Very realistic. A fresh burnt forest changes quickly. One side of a burnt evergreen can still be smoking while the other-side is still green. Two weeks after the smoke has cleared, maybe with a bit of rainfall you will start to see sprouts of new grow on the burnt soil. Yes lots of fallen trees. Forest fires create their own wind. Time adds “fallen” to this picture. Modeling using photos is a must just going off one’s own imagination can become unrealistic.
Very nice approach not only for burned areas but also to place dead or dying trees in normal forest areas to show older dead trees or trees destroyed by insect infestation or even smaller ones eaten by deer. Great show, hope to apply the technique on forest areas I have already completed. Thanks.
I tried a slightly different approach to putting foliage on the bottle brush type trees recently.
Rather than dip the amature in the glue, I cut a plastic bottle in half length wise and put glue in the bottle then rolled just the foliage since foliage don’t grow on the trunk normally. Would work for burnt trees too.
May have to put a burned area in my forest too!
Thanks for the ideas.
Neat – I had never considered modelling the aftermath of a forest fire. That will be an attention getter and will stand out from most other layouts!
Just got back from British Columbia and the Yukon. If you’re doing this burned area again sometime, you might want to add some red (a deeper red) ground cover to represent fireweed, a common plant that is among the first to recover an area where there’s been a forest fire.
Great video! These burn areas are very common out in our western states! Thanks for the ideas!!
That is looking great, I looking forward to seeing the next episode with the burnt trees all done.
Think your method of replicating burnt trees is neat, and far better than making a complete tree then burning it. One should note that fire and water do not scale down.
Been driving through burned forest area the past three weeks. The fire occurred last fall and some trees have already blown over during wind and snow loading events. Leads to a jumbled appearance. In addition, the grass has already recovered in some areas leading to patch of green on the chard ground.
Think your scene will look great when done.
Nice fire effect of ground surface material, rocks and trees guys, now you just need a statue or billboard of Smokey the Bear somewhere on the layout emphasizing the importance of preventing future forest fires. Thanks
Excellent idea modeling a ‘scorched earth’ scene as that was definitely witnessed by Drew and crew having recently re-visited those videos last month and how the Can-Can layout became a reality. David and Drew are on the mark by using Drew’s photos to replicate this scene as realistic as possible. Thanks for the helpful modeling tips!