I completed an entire "Super Value Case" of Super Trees, which should be more that enough to cover the area of the railroad I'm currently working on, and then some, in about 22 hours (over the course of a couple of weeks). This particular case yielded 290 trees.
A couple of points I missed making in the video - for the "forest filler" trees, I skip the painting and just do the staining, then add glue and leaf foliage just at the top inch or so. Also, at the end of the video, you'll see the finished trees stacked in a box - it's OK to gently stack them (don't smush them down) as long as the adhesive has cured beyond its tack time (30 min. to be safe), and the hairspray has not yet been applied. This allows you to store them until you're ready to plant - no need to stand them up in a block of foamboard.
I hope the modelers out there will try my method, and let me know what you think. For the non-modelers, you can just marvel at the lengths I go to to get realistic looking trees!
In the next post, I'll document the planting, and how I'll use what I call in the video the "filler" trees to thicken the forest areas. If you've ever tried or researched planting a model forest, I'm sure you're familiar with the "puff ball tree" method of just modeling the tree tops. I tried this on my previous railroad, and I really wasn't happy with the results. I've actually never seen a puff ball forest that looked good to me. I think SuperTrees are the way to go!
