Howdy folks.

I've been having a bit of trouble deciding what to do for the canopy of my (planned) Mirkwood trees. I've been taking inspiration from these pictures below, and and haven't a clue what to do for the foliage.





It's a sort of drab, grey tone but textured almost like static grass. I'm baffled.

Suggestions on what to use are very welcome, although I might just have to resort to ordinary, dark green leaves or spider webs.

Well, if you're planning on doing the trees surrounding Dol Guldur (as in your pictures), they don't really have foliage on them. I would suggest (as you said) adding spider webs, and also add some vines (poison ivy vine type), and paint the trees a greyish colour to make them look dead and haunted, but also add some hints of green in it (I'd suggest a green wash in various areas of the trees, but not too much) to give a sickly effect.
If you do want to add leaves however, very dark green lichen gives a very good effect for Mirkwood. You could even try and get some dry tea leaves from a teabag and mix that in with the lichen, which also gives a very nice effect.

I hope that helps!

It certainly does!

Tea leaves sound like a great idea, I'll do a few tests with different materials and perhaps post the results.

No foliage or lichen painted either dark or light (same colour as the trees).

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Great! I'm excited to see how it turns out

I have been working on the Mirkwood trees.. One thing that shows promise is adding Woodland Scenic wire armatures to the GW trees to make them taller. I drilled a hole to match the wire on the armature. I will attach them with super glue.







My brother uses tea leaves. One of my friends grinds leaves in the blender.I have a table saw so I use a lot of saw dust.
Please post photos. I am always interested in different techniques.



I was thinking about this for Mirkwood last summer.

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Some trees in Mirkwood had foliage, but as Bilbo said, there was a sickness in the forest, so maybe choose some ghastly palette of leaf colours.
As for the environs of Dol Guldur, I would opt for the more bare branch look, with choking vines and twisted limbs. And the undergrowth should also have a dead/sickly appearance (not sure yet what could be used for that). And more rocky, barren terrain around the Hill of Sorcery itself, plus those huge evil thorny vines in and around the ruined fortress.

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