Evolution of a lake, part 2

Last night I added the heavy vegetation around the lake, namely the Kudzu.

To do this I started out with Woodland Scenics green poly fiber, Scenic Express Super Leaves and Matte Medium to hold it all in place.

I tore off a small batch of fiber, then I stretched it laterally very thin in both ways directions [almost so thin that it came apart] and kept it as flat as possible.  I wasn't trying to make a tall bush like plant, Kudzu is more of a vine that lays pretty flat like carpet unless it's covering up a tree, house, telephone poles or anything else where it can go vertical, so I didn't want it very thick.

Once I had the fiber stretched out, I glued it into place with some Matte Medium by placing several blobs of it here and there.  Then I started laying the fiber down on one end and pressed it into place making sure it came into contact with the glue. Any type of glue can work for this, but be sure it has some body to it.  I've read where others have used Alene's Tacky glue, Woodland Scenics tacky glue, as well as caulking.

Once it's been pressed into place, it has a tendency to stay put as the ground foam acted almost like Velcro.  I finished applying the rest of the needed fiber and then let it dry overnight. I apologize for not getting a shot of this as I got a little ahead of myself the next night when I started to apply the leaves.  Before I began to apply the leaves, I trimmed up the fiber so there wasn't any stray strands sticking up.

To apply the leaves I suppose there are several methods, but I chose to use hairspray this time.  I started off by masking some of the tracks with masking tape and made some paper masks from newspaper to cover the lake and most of the rocks so the leaves wouldn't stick where I didn't want them [no sense giving the Kudzu anymore of a chance to take things over!].

After getting the poly fiber soaked with the hairspray I began carefully sprinkling the Super Leaves onto the poly fiber and padding them into place.  Along the base of the rocks I broke up some twigs to simulate deadfall and lightly glued them down as the "Water" will lock them into place later.  

As you can see I also stretched it down over the rocks in a few places so it looks like it's trying to spread out. 

This is something I've been wanting to do since I decided to model this section of The Rock!  Besides, how does one go about modeling the south without Kudzu?

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