This is my biggest project to date in terms of size and I felt it 😅. It was a project that I had in mind for a long time. My partner always makes an owl with his 3D printer to test the settings for each type of printing material. Because of this we had a nice and growing collection of owls. I saw a type case that was meant for decorating and thought I could be much more creative than painting or sticking stickers, so I decided to make a forest out of it. I have made trees before, in all kinds of sizes, so I knew what I was getting into. And no, this time I didn't use molds or paint either. I did use a structure mat for the oak bark, and extruder shapes for the base of the oak and birch leaves. It was a long-term project, almost a year, partly because of the thousands of leaves that were needed to fill everything nicely 😏. I am very happy with the result and the owls now have a nice place to live.
I set up the basic shape with regular air-drying clay. In two colours because that was what I had lying around. You can also use aluminum foil to set up basic shapes, Which will keep the weight down. But I wanted to use the basic shape right away to set up the more organic shapes, so that's why I chose clay. It looked like a mess, but I was confident that it would lead to a good end result. I created a few branches to make more places for the owls and to connect the trees.
After the basic structure, I started making the bamboo. I also have made a Bamboo tutorial. I wanted a gradient effect, which I achieved using the ikat technique. Then I wrapped wooden sticks of varying thicknesses in baking paper and applied the Fimo (polymer clay) around them. It's much easier to do it without baking paper, but I wanted to maximize the bamboo pattern, so I rolled it out thinly. If it's wrapped too tightly around the wooden stick, it might break when removing it. Furthermore, the baking paper creates a wrinkle or dent here and there, preventing the bamboo from becoming too tight and giving it a more natural look.
To make the leaves I used the leftover green from the bamboo sticks, so that it stays in the same colour family. I mixed it partly with lighter shades of green and made sure that it was not mixed into a single colour. A colour gradient gives a more realistic effect. When I was satisfied with the colour, I rolled it out to a thickness of about 1 mm. Because I also wanted to shape the leaves, it should not be thinner, because then it will collapse.
I added texture by working it with a feathering tool and needle tool, keeping a vertical direction. Then I made incisions with a tissue blade and gave each leaf a point. Then I applied each leaf in bunches on a twig and baked them over a round baking tin. I kept some of the leaves back, to apply the final details and shapes at the end.
Before placing the bamboo, I covered the inside of the oak with a scratched and carved structure. For the bark on the outside, I used a structure mat. Then all parts were seamlessly connected. For the leaves of the oak, I chose dark green, with little colour gradient. Because I chose more colour gradient and contrast for the bamboo and the silver birch, I wanted to make the oak a bit calmer, also because this is the largest trunk in the scene.
For the leaves I used an extruder with 2 different sizes of a trilobal shape. I didn't knead the polymer clay completely, which made it come out of the extruder a bit rough. This automatically gives the individual leaves a slightly more irregular shape. Then I cut the leaves with a guillotine, so that the thickness is uniform (and because this way I can cut a lot of leaves at once 😂). Each leaf has a vein structure and extra round dents have been made in the edges to be able to make lobed leaves.
And of course the silver birch could not be missing here. After I had made the trunks on a micro scale, I knew that I would use that technique more often. It is relatively easy to get a realistic effect without painting (although time-consuming of course). Moreover, it contrasts nicely with the dark oak and the deep green bamboo. For the attentive visitor, this is indeed the bark of which I previously posted my first tutorial: Silver Birch Bark.
For the birch I needed the smallest leaves. Here too I used the extruder, with a drop shape and a more triangular shape. Here I kneaded the polymer clay a bit further, because the leaves are smaller and therefore more vulnerable to tearing if I were to extrude them roughly. Still, I was able to apply a decent colour gradient, from light green to yellow-green. And here also: thank goodness for the guillotine 😂, even thickness, quickly cut. All leaves have a vein structure and with the needle tool I applied the characteristic serrated edges. Because I could make groups of a hundred leaves at a time, I counted them for fun: almost 1200 birch leaves were needed to complete this project. Here again, baked in bunches on twigs on a round shape. Because birch leaves hang more than bamboo leaves, I used an empty kitchen roll instead of the rounder baking tins.
The base is a wooden type case and the basic shapes of the oak and silver birch are made with air-drying clay. All visible elements of the trees and leaves are made with Fimo (polymer clay). The forest is 30 x 30 x 4.5 cm (H x W x D) in size. The project lasted from April 2024 to February 2025.
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