Terrainfest - MCP in Southeast Asia
The banyan
I wanted the banyan to be a large, playable piece of terrain. After a lot of research I found banyans basically come in all sorts of sizes and shapes. I decided for mine I was going to make its branches more on the wispy side and not have just a mass of impenetrable foliage. After a walk about the property, I had trimmed several of the invasive and bothersome cottonwoods in the area.
With saw and clippers, I broken the branches down and started glueing them together. I decided I wanted to try and keep the natural bark from the branches as it looked almost exactly like the banyan trees I had researched, and that fine detail is something I would have a hard time replicating.
I mounted the tree to a foam base and decided I wanted to wall it in as if it was part of a park adjacent to the market. I continued to add air roots and made sure models would be able to play in and around them. I used spackle to meld the trunk together and build up its large roots.
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