# How to make 3D trees



## brookedavis (Jan 21, 2010)

I the student set designer for my high school's production of Fiddler on the Roof. I need to find a way to make a bunch of trees, but the directer wants them to be 3D. Here are some pictures of the trees she wants them modled after. Also, any ideas about how to make the leaves so they can attach and detach would be greatly appreciated.


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## Reynolds (Jan 22, 2010)

At my school's production of Into the Woods last year, we had to make birch trees much like those.

We didn't actually make the trees 3D, but if the trees only need to look 3D, you can coordinate with the lighting designer to create an effect.

What your LD and Set Designer would need to coordinate is:

A: a few lighting points that the LD is willing to make a soft red/green/whatever color fits the theme of the show, off to the side of the trees.

B: A very thin mixture of paint in the color of the gels. You can get this mixture by watering down the paint, say 1 part paint to 10 parts water. Experiment a little bit to find a good medium.

So, lets say the stage left side of the trees are covered with a red mixture. The lighting points stage left would need to be gelled red. Then stage right would be painted green, SR instruments gelled green.

You would want to apply the paint no wider than half an inch, and it should run wherever you want to add a 3D effect.

Hope this helps.


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## Footer (Jan 22, 2010)

What is your budget and how much time do you have? You can make great looking trees for nothing but it takes forever or you can spend a lot of cash and get something a bit quicker.


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## MNBallet (Jan 22, 2010)

brookedavis said:


> I the student set designer for my high school's production of Fiddler on the Roof. I need to find a way to make a bunch of trees, but the directer wants them to be 3D. Here are some pictures of the trees she wants them modled after. Also, any ideas about how to make the leaves so they can attach and detach would be greatly appreciated.



Am I right that ou want these trees to change to show different seasons? I would think that the easiest way to do this is to make your tree trunks out of hard flats, either hung or on wagons or jacks, then do your leaves as little painted drops, with lots of netting (oh joy!) then have the leaves drops fly into place just inches from the tree branches, fly them out for winter. 

Trust me, there is no way you will have time during intermission or a scene change to deal with "real" plastic or fabric leaves to be put on or taken off.

You can increase your 3-D look by placing your trees in differnt depths of the stage, or by doing two sets of drops - a front set and a back set.

Kenneth Pogin
Production / Tour Manager
Minnesota Ballet


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## Van (Jan 22, 2010)

Reynolds said:


> At my school's production of Into the Woods last year, we had to make birch trees much like those.
> 
> We didn't actually make the trees 3D, but if the trees only need to look 3D, you can coordinate with the lighting designer to create an effect.
> 
> ...


 WHAT ?!?!
You would wind up with Highlighted complimentary colors in 1/2"


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## n1ghtmar3 (Jan 22, 2010)

I have had to do several trees. for a version of sleep hollow I just designed and was TD for we went out and got permission from a few different people to cut down smaller trees that were dead but still strong and secured them to the floor and rand safety picks up to the grid. Looked great and was free except for labor of cutting and moving the trees. Definitely would not be fun to apply leaves to. Make sure the trees are not dead to the point they have rotting or are so dry that you can snap them apart.

I have also done the method of cutting out the profile of the tree on sheets of plywood and attaching ribs to create the depth and then covering in chicken wire. After you have it structured out take strips of muslin dipped in a paint/glue mix and cover the chicken wire. You do not want the strips perfectly so you get a nice bark like texture. Also offset your seems so you don't get lines cause they will read. Then its Just a little paint work of highlight and shadows. The university that shares my shop space just did two trees like this with the main trunks being about 2' wide and spreading at the top to about 14' and about 20' tall. took 2 people about 2 days. For leaves they are just doing textured maso cutouts since its so high and the are supposed to be fully covered. This might work nice for a birch tree cause when laying the muslin strips you could lay the muslin so you get that look of the top bark layer peeling back.

Third version i have done is a more expensive and time consuming but if you need a fully 3d (visiable on all sides) tree we did a steel frame and trussed out the branches in pencil rod then wrapped everything with window screen cut in 3 inch wide sections. once it was wrapped we got the 2 part spray foam tank setup and sprayed it. Gave a nice texture carving was minimal but was a large enough focal point for the show it was well worth the work. If ever using the spray foam even if you ave a chicken wire structure i recommend wrapping with the window screen it will save emensily on the amount of material used since the foam will not completely fill the void under the chicken wire but it will go threw the screen enough to create a good bond.

As for leaves haven't had to do a lot with them most of the shows we've taken the trees high enough they disappear into the grid. For sleepy hollow we wanted to see leaves falling during the storm and made the snow bags with larger holes and got about 20000 fall colored leaves. When i was in college we used this netting material that kind of looked like a bunch of randomly sprayed fiber glass (but wasn't fiberglass) had a real nice random texture and was attached to a mess netting and it was basically shape the bottom paint and tie it to a baton and fly it to height.


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## Van (Jan 22, 2010)

For Realistic looking trees I've used the " go out at chop down something" Method which if you strip off the leaves then replace them with Silk leaves, availible at almost any florist supply whrehouse, look really good. For trees that go from foiliaged to bare the only real good solution I can see is two sets of trees. 
Now if you don't hae a ready supply of scrap trees around < I do live in Oregon> you can manufacture your own. the method n1ghtmar3 described is a very good one. You can also carve them from Foam. either methid can be anhanced by spreading a liberal amount of VSSSD around the surface and painting well. Do a seach for trees on here also, as I have posted a couple of projects as have Footer and Others.


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## ajb (Jan 22, 2010)

To add another method to the list, I've used 1/2" EMT bent with a standard conduit bender and by hand to create an armature. The various pieces were bolted together and fixed into a trunk made from a couple of plywood profiles spanned with pine strips. The whole thing was wrapped in chicken wire (be sure to get the hexagonal stuff, it is much easier to squish and mold into shape), some muslin strips were woven into the chicken wire at ~12" intervals, and then the whole thing was wrapped in ~8" muslin strips with flex glue. A layer of cheesecloth and glue will smooth everything out, or you can work any kind of bark texture you want into the fabric you apply. The 1/2" EMT is nice because it's light & stiff enough to support long spindly branches but is still very easy to bend, even by hand.


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## jcfalc01 (Jan 22, 2010)

When we did our version of Into the Woods we made our tree/s very easily. We purchased 1/2 electrical conduit (you can also use the smallest pvc plumbing pipe but it does not bend as much). We then cut out three circles from 3/4 in ply. One large for the base. One about 1/2 the diameter of the base for the center. One about 2/3 the diameter of the base for the top. We then placed a 2x4 down roughly the center of each piece, attaching the base at the bottom, center, etc. To the outside perimeter of these 3/4 circles we screwed in the conduit around the perimeter and developed a skeleton of the tree. We then wrapped it in burlap and using a garden sprayer we dyed it various shades of brown.

To add leaves, we bought ficus branches at our local Garden Ridge store and then like putting together an older artificial Christmas tree, we drilled holes into the various conduit pieces (primarily those playing downstage) and the ply and then plugged in the ficus branches. It turned out really well!

Best of Luck!


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## Reynolds (Jan 22, 2010)

Van said:


> WHAT ?!?!
> You would wind up with Highlighted complimentary colors in 1/2"


 
Strange as it sounds, it actually worked for what the designers wanted, and they ended up looking better than we expected. There was a bit of a problem with the complimentary colors, but not as much as you'd expect. The strips actually did give us a bit of a 3D pop


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## brookedavis (Jan 22, 2010)

Footer said:


> What is your budget and how much time do you have? You can make great looking trees for nothing but it takes forever or you can spend a lot of cash and get something a bit quicker.



We have a fairly low budget, but we have until mid March.


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## Footer (Jan 22, 2010)

brookedavis said:


> We have a fairly low budget, but we have until mid March.



The plywood/mache route is going to be your best bet beyond getting an real tree. Foam will kill you budget wise.


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## last125eagle (Jan 23, 2010)

I used the real tree method. I had a bunch of branches. I turned the ends into a dole shape and then put a hole in the truck. Little wood screw and glue and poof trees made to order. My trees were bare. On the ground I made muslin leaves. I dipped the muslin in the paint, squished out the excess and let them dry crinkled. 

It is not the best way, but when you have no budget and spare branches and muslin, it is the cheapest.

pictures of the results, I did the lighting as well. Those who saw the show seemed to like it a lot and wondered how I did it.


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