# How to make realistic trees! Tutorial



## 41714049 (Feb 23, 2006)

I didn't think of this... but it looks cool!

CLICK HERE FOR THE TUTORIAL!


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## spydrmn12285 (Oct 24, 2006)

very nice. that would look great in a very large tank as the center piece with frogs hopping about and moss.

I can definitely see it..


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## defaced (May 23, 2005)

It is a nice tutorial. Most of the people who would be interested in doing such a thing have seen it.


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## joeyo90 (Nov 5, 2006)

yes ive seen it but havent had the chance to try it out once i try putting together my 50 gallon i may have to give it a go
that wont be for a while tho
awsome tutorial bbrock by the way


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## Guest (Dec 15, 2006)

What do you think is the amount of time total to put that all together??? That materials list is pretty long.


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## costaricalvr12 (Oct 5, 2006)

I'm not sure but I think i've seen it used in the community dendrobatid viv in the exhibit "frogs a chorus of colors". It truly is beautiful. I wondered how they made it and now I know!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Mrnicolai said:


> What do you think is the amount of time total to put that all together??? That materials list is pretty long.


It took about a week and a half working mostly just in the evenings. But a lot of that time was spent working out the methods and trying things that worked and things that didn't. After almost a year it seems to be holding up very well. Now that I've looked at that pdf, I see some typos to fix.


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## dustin_grey (Mar 8, 2006)

It's a very interesting concept, I'd love to try it out sometime. The only thing is, if I were to do it, I'd want to buy a huge tank so the effort was not wasted. Also, I would be nervous about messing it up and ruining the materials and whatnot. 

But I saved a copy and Im going to consider doing it sometime. Thanks for the link!


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## DaFrogMan (Oct 8, 2004)

The concept of the vines is pretty cool too. I don't have the room (or the money) to make the tree stump, but the vine looks pretty simple.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

DaFrogMan said:


> The concept of the vines is pretty cool too. I don't have the room (or the money) to make the tree stump, but the vine looks pretty simple.


Yes, they are easy. You could make a bunch in an hour or two.


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## stuckonfrogs (Oct 27, 2006)

bbrock said:


> DaFrogMan said:
> 
> 
> > The concept of the vines is pretty cool too. I don't have the room (or the money) to make the tree stump, but the vine looks pretty simple.
> ...


I have a few feet of tubing laying around left over from the fish tank, Im going to make a few vines to add to my vivs! Thanks for this.


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## Nuggular (Apr 8, 2005)

That is a great tutorial. Thx for sharing it. I printed it off and I am going to use it to make a tree background for my new Leucs.


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## Guest (Dec 19, 2006)

Excellent link!! Thanks for sharing it. This is really gonna make our hobby more fun!


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Since this topic came up, I thought I would try showing some recent pictures of the artificial tree now that it has had a year to grow in.










This picture was taken with a flash to show the tree a little better









Same shot with no flash









A close-up









The newest vivarium inhabitant less than one week out of the water. The "large" orchid pseudobulb to the right is less than 1 inch tall.


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## MJ (Jun 16, 2005)

Brent your such a tease :lol: the tree looks AWESOME a year on! 

looks like I will be buying the supplies hehe


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## sbreland (May 4, 2006)

Brent,
That stuff looks absolutely awesome. The tree looks 100% real and came out great. I'm hoping you can detail a little more the ventilation system that you have in there that you described on frognet as it's an ingenious idea and I think I have it all straight in my head but want to be sure before I go to work on it. Congrats on the little guy BTW!


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Wow I'd love to try this. While the tree did look a bit too light colored in the photos after seeing it in the tank it is indeed nearly indistinguishable from the real thing!

Anyone have any idea at what size trees develop buttresses?


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Dendrobait said:


> Wow I'd love to try this. While the tree did look a bit too light colored in the photos after seeing it in the tank it is indeed nearly indistinguishable from the real thing!
> 
> Anyone have any idea at what size trees develop buttresses?


When I was searching photos for the project. I came across some pictures of buttressed trees that looked surprisingly small. Some looked they may have been as small as 12" dbh. Of course, the larger the tree looked, the more impressive the buttresses appeared.

The real trick to notice about the color is that whenever you see pictures of tree trunks in the tropics, they are always covered with lichens and moss. So the color of the actual trunk really just becomes a patina behind a veneer of mottled grays and greens. I'm not very artistic so that was a little hard to wrap my brain around so I just had to trust what I saw in the photos. I will have to say that I'm surprised myself at how complete the illusion is. People looking at the viv don't even realize they are looking at a concrete tree until I tell them. And then they seem surprised.


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## Dendrobait (May 29, 2005)

Interesting...I assumed buttresses only occured on the largest of trees so it might be a bit artificial shrinkalizing them for the viviarium. Hopefully some one who's "been there" can comment. 

I haven't really noticed the color from the moss/lichens but on the contrary noticed how clean and smoothed the buttressed trunks often look. They usually aren't festooned with lots of plants directly on them probably for that reason. Maybe a Peperomia or shingler here and there but thats it. I'll have to look at some photos again to see the lichen and stuff. 

How readily do plants grow on these concrete models? I think it might be good to put some real moss on the trunks..if you keep them wet java/Taiwan would probably work well. 

Did you anywhere calculate the cost of this project? I'd love to try it but I know already it will be a tough one getting the correct materials together

Again, this an is incredible show of skill and ingenuity...thanks so much for sharing it! 

If you do this again, you need to make a half of a trunk dividing the viv like a tree growing out from near the center.


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Dendrobait said:


> Interesting...I assumed buttresses only occured on the largest of trees so it might be a bit artificial shrinkalizing them for the viviarium. Hopefully some one who's "been there" can comment.


Bear in mind that this simulates just a small wedge of a trunk so if you were to assemble all the pieces to make a full 3-D trunk, it would be 2-3 feet in diameter so the scale works rather nice. That vivarium is rather large which may not be evident in the photos.



> I haven't really noticed the color from the moss/lichens but on the contrary noticed how clean and smoothed the buttressed trunks often look. They usually aren't festooned with lots of plants directly on them probably for that reason. Maybe a Peperomia or shingler here and there but thats it. I'll have to look at some photos again to see the lichen and stuff.


You are right about the smooth bark and not many plants being on them. I had to cheat a little to get enough plants onboard to satisfy myself. Many of the plants growing on it now self-seeded.



> How readily do plants grow on these concrete models? I think it might be good to put some real moss on the trunks..if you keep them wet java/Taiwan would probably work well.


Plants grow fine on them. There is live moss growin on the tree. It is just too hard to see in the pictures. Most grew from spores itself. I tend to be fairly sparing with the moss. The kind of moss that tends to grow on smooth trunks will be more crust forming moss which will grow on its own given time. I do have some moss that a friend sent from Hawaii that I put on horizontal epiphyte branches and it spreads like crazy.



> Did you anywhere calculate the cost of this project? I'd love to try it but I know already it will be a tough one getting the correct materials together


I didn't calculate the cost. A lot of the materials I had left over from other projects. And, of course, you end up with a lot of stuff left over that would allow you to make more pieces for about the same money. This also involved some trial and error so some materials were bought that didn't work out which added to the cost. I would guess I bought about $75 of materials and supplies in addition to what I had on hand. But I still have enough material except paint to do a few more of these. Time is really the biggest investment.



> If you do this again, you need to make a half of a trunk dividing the viv like a tree growing out from near the center.


I've got some pretty ambitious plans about where I want to go with this next but that will have to be a surprise.


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