Possibly dumb jungle idea

So, looking at the Charlies Point board, I hated how sparse the jungle looked. Spaced out individual trees, yuk! Just doesn't look the biz in 3/6mm. I wan it to look packed and JUNZGLE COVERED but without the pain of setting out little individual trees.
I saw this: https://www.6mmacw.com/forests.html
Brilliant. Many have done this before, obviously works.
My problem is, however, that I like to put books and stuff under my mat to make some pretty extreme hills, like you'd find in Vietnam. Not little 3" tall round knobs, but hills with ridgelines and saddles. This makes putting single trees, or anything with a base on it a bit difficult. So I have been pondering ideas on how to make flexible jungle. I currently have 2 ideas:

1. Trunks are roofing nails (different heights for single, double, triple canopy) pushed up through some flexible mesh. Canopy is clump foliage (darker colors for single canopy jungle, lightest for triple canopy)glued to flexible net. Pros: flexible can take off top to battle beneath. Cons:The trunks visible at the edges would not be vertical on sloped surfaces and might look very weird.

2. Canopy is as above. Trunks are skewers pushed into mat. Mat would need foam beneath it. Pros: maximum customization of trunk placement. All trunks could be vertical. Cons: Would have to have a ton of insulation board, maybe even have the board be nothing but insulation board and no mat. Probably either less customizatable terrain or maybe not being able to place trucks exactly where I want them due to not having enough of a foam backer. Aircraft would have to be on wire which could be shoved down into the foam, would require redoing all of my aircraft and helos (and drilling them for the wire is a pain), and a couple different lengths of wire might be needed.

What do you lads think? Ideas? Opinions?

Ooooh, I like this idea. The link makes it look very effective! Do a test piece.

-Todd

Years ago i did a small piece a bit like that you suggested, i used carpet underlay and had it as two pieces. I made two pieces exactly the same shape and used one as a base the other i used as the canopy . I added roofing nails to the top on but upside down so that the points were sitting on the bottom piece. Added clump foilage and then when you removed top level you still had the foot print on the table with the bottom piece.

Sounds like you didn't pursue it after that test. Did it not work as intended?

Darby i start a lot of things and get back to them years later. Worked well, it was when i first started out and was doing rapid fire. It worked ok i just moved on. Have all the gear at home to have another go at it so i may just do it again to see what results i can get.

Try doing both - it sounds like a combination of the two would cover differing requirements in terms of slopes etc.

So finally did some experimenting. Made big puddles of both elmers glue and super tacky glue and pushed in some clump foliage. When dried I flipped them over, poured on some more glue and pushed in some window mesh. Works great! Flexible and seems relatively durable. Going to try some more colors this weekend for other types of jungle/forest and then see about representing trucks.

I would make it upside down.

Make a "lid" out of, say, 1" insulation board, topped with something like window screen, covered in clump foliage. Make a matching ground piece to lay n your table. Make tree trunks out of, say, bamboo skewers.

Now you push the skewers UP in to the canopy. The screen stops them poking through (don't make them pointy, make them blunt). Now the trunks "slide" to conform to all but the steepest of slopes.

Very good idea mark, only prob is it not being flexible as the polyiso would be rigid. Might be too thick for 3mm/6mm.

Darby, it's funny that the link you provided is the only example of doing a sparse canopy in the wee scales. I did an image search, and that removeable canopy picture was all I could find that looked even similar to what you were talking about.

My micoscale madness (not an official medical term, or diagnosis) has got me thinking about how to do this myself. Short of lots of terrain pieces containing piled up clump foliage.

I think I have something that will work for me, though not in the colors I want. The woodland Scenics clump foliage is very drab, so I am looking at other products. Might end up having to make my own, but I'm going to try commercial stuff first. I want brighter greens for taller stuff, and more emerald greens for medium height areas. I have a good darker green for single canopy. Looking at a slightly yellow-green for bamboo n(a super leaf rather than a clump type of foliage). Still slightly undecided on trunks though...