Building bocage (1)

I’ve been making extra bocage sections for my WW2 Normandy collection so thought I’d put up some step by step photos. This blog post covers the stages of building and painting. The next will deal with flocking and finishing. 

Firstly, armatures for the trees that are integral to bocage hedges. These are made by twisting 6 strands of wire. First they are bent in half to give 12 “branches” which are then twisted and bent in various ways. The loops left at the bottom are splayed out to make roots/base. 

Next the armatures are wrapped in masking tape. 

The trees are then hot glued to bases of thick card and banks built up with three layers of 5mm foamcore then covered in air drying DAS clay. The bases were painted with gloss spray paint before starting any assembly to limit warping. The use of DAS means some shrinkage in inevitable but it is still a useful material. 

When the clay has dried the banks are textured with PVA and chinchilla sand. 

Everything dries and is then sprayed dark brown

Foliage is then added using rubberised coco fibre to make the hedges and treetops. Another dark brown spray follows. 

Then a light spray of pale brown (“nutmeg”)

Then a final spray of sage green on the banks. 


About 10’ of bocage made. So far these have taken a couple of hours for wire twisting, about three hours of glue/clay work and four hours of gluing and spraying.