Where to find city backdrops?

[doanster]

Building my very first layout and looking for ideas for backdrops, any advice will be useful and appreciated :)

I'm modelling an urban industrial area and need some suitable photos for a background.
Ultimately, the back will be the downtown Los Angeles skyline. I plan to use smaller industrial reliefs in front as a transition from buildings to main backdrop. Where can I find good images of industrial areas and city backdrops? (recommendations for websites, photos, commercially available prints, etc)

Just in case anyone was wondering, the area I'll be building is loosely based on Alameda Street, where the old SP lines use to run down. I visited LA for the first time last year (I'm from Canada) and was just fascinated with this area and city railroading! 

[ndbprr]

The problem with photos is paralax.  That is the distortion based on the angle of the picture.  In order to get a usable picture an industrial building needs to be taken from quite a distance to minimize it. That means a high megapixel camera and an optical telephoto lens.  I am always scouring yahoo and google images for factories, industries and other common words for usable pictures.  It is far easier to put one between a couple of backdrop buildings that cover it edges than to rely totaly on the backdrop.

[loathar]

You might find something here under the buildings section.
http://www.cgtextures.com/

Google images is also a great tool for finding building pics.

[Don Z]

Try this site:

http://www.backdropwarehouse.com/ Their website is not the easiest to navigate, but their products are very good. The city in the background in this photo of my layout is one of their products.

Don Z.

[steinjr]

Try this site:

http://www.backdropwarehouse.com/ Their website is not the easiest to navigate, but their products are very good. The city in the background in this photo of my layout is one of their products.

 I agree with Don - both about the backdropwarehouse.com website being pretty hard to navigate and about the quality of their backdrops being great. 

 Other places that deserves to be mentioned:

  Scenic express (http://www.sceneryexpress.com/products.asp?dept=1100) has a couple of pretty inexpensive (on the order of $10 per sheet) city backdrop scenes (38" wide by 13" high).

 Walthers has some fairly inexpensive (on the order of $12-13 per sheet) of 36" wide by 24" high "Instant Horizon"  scenes ("Freight Yards", "Hotel/Business", maybe "the docks", that would work as a backdrop city).

 A photo of a scene mockup from an earlier layout using Walthers Instant Horizon & Instant Buildings:

 

 From back to front - 36" wide "Instant horizon" - mounted a little higher than foreground buildings, a couple of "Instant Buildings" mounted about 1/2" out from the wall, then a street, then a couple of buildings that are about 4" deep.

 Several options already - and I am sure others will mention even more options

 Grin,
 Stein

 

[tangerine-jack]

You could also make  your own backdrop.   Order some tourist information about the cities you are modeling, enlarge the photos in the literature at the local photo shop and make a collage yourself.  You can get exactly what you want that way. 

But truly if you look at a big city you can't see past one or two buidings anyway.  I would make my foreground city flats high enough to serve as a backdrop and just use a monochromatic haze blue masonite or blue foam backdrop and leave it at that.  Less is more when it comes to a backdrop

[doanster]

Thanks for the help guys, that should be enough to get me started!

[doanster]

You might find something here under the buildings section.
http://www.cgtextures.com/

Google images is also a great tool for finding building pics.

Wow, that site is a gold mine, thanks for the link!!

[loathar]

I use it a bunch for back grounds inside my store front windows. (Google images too)

[rfbranch]

Don Z

Try this site:

http://www.backdropwarehouse.com/ Their website is not the easiest to navigate, but their products are very good. The city in the background in this photo of my layout is one of their products.

Don Z.

 

 

I'm happy I wasn't the only one who can't get around their website.  I've been looking at buying their backdrops, so I assume if they can survive/thrive in spite of that site their products must be good.  Thanks for the pictures!

[MudHen_462]

 

Try this link.... you can also use them as cutouts.

Bob/IronGoat

http://www.realisticbackgrounds.com/

[Don Z]

IronGoat

Try this link.... you can also use them as cutouts.

Bob/IronGoat

http://www.realisticbackgrounds.com/

What an obnoxious website! Pop-up on every page and that blasted whistle that won't stop blowing and now way to turn it off....I bailed after 10 seconds and won't be back, no matter how good the products are. My

Don Z.