Spending time with fronds

Decent looking palm trees in 28mm scale are difficult to come by. The stuff they sell in model railway stores is generally over-priced, too small, and not especially accurate. And is not really robust enough to withstand heavy gaming use anyway, so I decided to try to make my own.

I took several strands of copper wire and twisted it together into an 8″ length, and then coated it with polyfilla, smoothing it down with sandpaper once it had set solid. To make the leaves I used a sheet of ultra-thin bond paper (50gsm) painted with a watery mix of green on both sides, and then cut out a leaf shape about half the length of the palm tree’s trunk. Down the centre of this I superglued a length of copper wire to stiffen it and also give me something to bend the paper around. Using a super-sharp knife I cut the leaf diagonally along both sides.

Gluing it (and several others) to the top of the tree, I ended up with this:

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