How To Make Wire Trees For Your Layout/Wargaming Table 

Best wire tree tutorial I’ve seen yet. Perfect balance of straightforward and thorough. Thanks, Luke!

one of the best demintrations of a wire tree ive seen. the glue gun is new to me but inspired. making a WWI dio where this would come in great use to me.

I make my wire trees by running garden wire between two hooks down the garden. Then stick one hook into a drill and rotate until it starts to kink up. Then cut the resulting column into tree lengths and twist a few together. You have to untwist the branch end but it' s pretty quick. Vastly quicker than cutting and twisting individual lengths etc which I've also done. Just sit in front of the tv and shape them. Good call on the hot glue I'll have to give that a try, tissue paper and glue works well but takes longer than making the tree.

Simply brilliant and so simple. Has given me some new ideas 👍👍👍

Luke, you're a legend. Found your channel the other day, watched about a million of your vids and then saw you in a BBC article, you're a pro!

This was absolutely awesome and I'm so gonna do this !!

Your best looking trees to date!

DM Scotty would be proud of your hot glue action.

That's is a nice tree, and that is coming from someone that isn't a huge fan of trees on wargaming table. Keep up the good work Luke!

I appreciate this video a lot! I've been using latex rubber on the wire when making trees for my train layout. Hot glue looks much easier and dries faster than latex rubber. I'm going to try that next time I have to make more trees. Thanks! Great video!

Most excellent method and video. I used 5 km of wire in a Lombardy Poplar once, took about 3 months. Your method is much better.

Thanks so much for taking the time to make these videos, it's really appreciated by this wannabe model maker.

Fantastic work!

For those wondering, it looks like 33 snips of the wire Fantastic vid, Luke

great video, the trees look amazing. I will def be making some of these

That was amazing! Thanks so much!

Very nice and very helpful

Looks awesome

Really awesome tree! I'm gonna attempt to make one

Beautiful. Great vid thanks Luke :-)

Another brilliant vid i will look out for the play list .🖒

Great work! You arę master.

Great video easy to follow that's mate

luke your videos have become very professional.

Cheers Luke

I really appreciate the effort put in the new video format. The lighting is great, the camera keeps better focus. But the music is almost obsolete. And I did prefer you talk while recording.... it just gives it that extra bit of homey-personal-friendly touch. :D but that's just my opinion I guess. Still love the videos!

Newly subbed. Thoughly enjoying your tutorials.

Amazing

Awesome!!

New title proposal: How to Make a Tree with Desperados! :) Anyway: super vid as usual!

one tip I have with wire trees is that if you use the mandelbrot set as a guide it helps with placement of the branches look extremely natural. Fantastic video though

I do something similar using sea moss and WS armatures- mainly because I can't be arsed with the twisting metal thing.

Very nice video tutorial 🚂

Thumbs up for those who "like to pull on their dangly bits"! Beautiful, creative, & smart. You truly helped me improve my work with some basic tips that seem so obvious after you said it. *smacks forehead*

Another excellent video. You should have a still image at the end of each video of the model so they can see the great work you do!

love your chucky dolls in the back ground

For quick and dirty 20mm trees for 'toy soldiers' rather than wargaming I use 4-5 pipe cleaners, sometimes with one or two of the big ones from the craft shop, twist them up and coat with a little PVA or Uhu, add some smaller branches from gardening twisty-tie wire and glue over those. Paint the tree itself. Tease out pan scrubs (tedious) spray one side with dark gree (British Racing Green) and the other with a lighter green (lawn green etc) and apply with the dark side down. The only time consuming part is teasing the scourer, a nail helps with that (you want it bushy not just thin). For 54mm use the big pipe cleaners as you need a tree about a foot high. For some I have applied home-made 'foliage' from ground up car sponges mixed with paint but that can come loose. For quickness use teased out plant liner in place of the twisty ties and scouring pads - Spray with carpet glue and chuck on the 'foliage' foam, not as pretty but quick. For toy soldier use they go on big bases 3 inches or so across, so they can be bent out of the way to position a tank then bent back. These are 'safety trees' for use on the floor, if mum walks in with the tray of tea and sandwiches, trips over the anti tank defences and falls onto the scene they will just cushion her fall and they can stand a lot of rough handling. Loving your work, keep it up ! Cheers

Hi there Luke. As usual do dig yr videos and yr tips. When I create my wire tree to bulk up the trunk and create texture I use latex. About 2+ coats yeah. Ok again cheerz till then. Denise W.A.

damn it luke now i need to go get a desporados!!!!

good!

Aye you have a way with words and to hell with what anyone thinks. Trees come in so many formats but to the uneducated a Tree is a Tree!

Decent

i use hairspray as the adhesive for my flock. you get really cheap hairspray for £1 and it works well for me.

Great video, one question. what are you using for wire?

Hey Luke, what products from Woodland Scenics are you using? Could you type the product names? Thanks :)

Still good

Nice to see you using that hotglue as a medium.Made quite a killer looking tree there. Kinda like how you make a statue of an elephant. Start with a big block of marble and chisel off anyhting that doesn't look like an elephant. If you want to see how much you can actually use a hotglue gun in crafting check out The DMsCraft be amazed also with toilet paper pencil shavings and white glue/water mix.

Luke any chance to do a tutorial on making a dead tree?

A bunch of YTers have different ways to do this. You can use Mod Podge, Air drying clay, Hot glue, Vallejo texture, resin..................................ETC

“If u like pulling ye dangely bit youll enjoy this mad”

Trees and Beer!

Great video!!! Questions: did your really meant 3mm wire you want to try? Isn't that size too thick to get bent? Is it a zinc wire?

Luke that’s fantastic I’m 65 & having my modelling feelings Just like I was 18 again been watching lots of your shows ( and your competitors) but I’m a little mixed up I’m doing Flock trees, making grits, grasses, & got horby railways, Classic cars on my mind . My heads in a spin, any ideas Were I can start & finish ? a reply would be appreciated.

I just got my game mat gothic ruins and was wondering if you got anywhere on adding to them like you mentioned in the vid. Thanks for the advice my wife and bank Dont watching your vids lol

Off topic but related: Luke, I went to Poundland today to pick up some of the two part clear resin tubes for water effects you’ve mentioned in the past! Can’t wait to try them out as I didn’t think there was a Poundland anywhere near me until I stumbled across it! Any advice on what dyes are suitable to colour it brown? Can you use paint? Food colouring? Or just artists ink? Thanks!

What brand of CA are you using Luke? I built a few trees and had a hell of a time getting the seafoam to stick to the damn branches. I used Loc Tite , Gorilla and Zap A Gap and none wanted to grab without using an accelerator.

Why are trees? Profound man.

How would a person go about building lilac bushes?

Hermoso

To you ever bother making leaf litter? Autumn style piles of leaves. Ever tried it? How would you do it?

What is the name of the organic green stuff?

Em ! Some a water & as a injured !

Well job! I dont understand what do you do at 5:49. Can you explain please ? Thanks

You said you had a tree video list. I didn't see it. What's it called?

What kind of wire do you use?

Where is your tree playlist?

Excellent video as usual! Question for you: Some craft stores sell plastic-coated wire for floral arrangements. Would you recommend using only bare-metal wire or would plastic-coated wire also work?

Hello, I didn't get what is the paste at 5.56? And also, are the branches natural? If not where did you get it? Thanks a lot :)

Great vid, Luke. What is the material you use for the bark? After the hot glue. I know part of the vid got lost there but i cant make out what you said you coated it with next. Great tip to use hot glue!

What type of flock did you apply after the varnish?

We don't get those trees in Australia, any chance you'd do a gum tree or eucalyptus

How much do you charge roughly for a tree of that quality?

“Ok“ 😋

Beer necessary or optional?

...looking at the almost empty bottle of desperados... is that part of the material list, LOL

i believe that is a glue tree tonnes of glue on it!

I know you said in the future you're going to use 3mm wire but what gauge wire did you use for the tree in this tutorial?

9.29 what is it?

Anyone know where to buy seafoam in Canada or USA? Is there another name for it?

At 09:31 he starts flocking the tree... But with what product, anyone knows? I think it is from "Woodland Scenics", but I have searched Amazon for this flocking box, but could not find it. Thanks

What flock did u use? Can i use sponge or sawdust? Pls help thnx

the varnish spray eats the floks (home made from foam). any other adhesive ?

Desperados.... yuk! How could you? Whatever happened to good old Newkie Brown?

Мммм... Desperados... Хорошее пиво. Жаль что у нас больше его не продают.

Been a follower for a while now and am wondering if you can do a super quick tut on how to paint beast men.. reason I ask is I have 2 weeks to paint my bloodbowl chaos chosen team.. And I like your straight forward and easy to follow guides.. so fingers crossed

what kind of wire is it that you use pal? your accent sounds local, im in yorkshire...

7:08 what those little branches are? where can i get them?

ahhh hot glue thats a great idea. I tried it with pva... wasnt that succesfull

Why are trees? Why aren't trees? One of life's great mysteries.

What are sardars flock at 5:52? Please?

Curious if you have any thoughts on how they made these trees -- the ones surrounding the AT-ST here: images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/c2/3d/c23d9d97-2cd3-4a26-82de-b1ce85fd5102/swl08_photo1.jpg

Nice tree. But hot glue is an expensive way to do it. Looked like you used a whole stick for that.

How do you know how hard it is? I proper fancy my wife

You should be ashamed of your ears.