Desert plants

[nachoman]

Great thread and great results! When I get to scenery on my Oahu Railway (or rather, building some dioramas to test scenery!), I'll be doing this same sort of thing as there isn't too much out there for modeling tropical island scenery and I don't want to use natural materials either. Interestingly, portions of the Oahu Railway have a good deal in common with desert modeling...even cactus!

Walking the plastic flower aisle was a little weird, but a lot of fun. A actually found some weird ferny type thing that could work for palm tree fronds (unfortunately I do not need palm trees). They also had a few items for making dinosaur dioramas, and I seriously looked over those products. I've never been to Hawaii, but I anticipate you will face the same challenges. You need techniques that tell your viewers, THIS IS HAWAII, and not just another appalachian woodland. Architectural style can help with that, as you probably won't be able to make much use of the standard DPM or Walthers kits that most of us use.