How complex your backdrop is and what format it uses depends on the region you're modelling, the viewing angle at that location and your skills at creating one. Hand painting, pre-printed and even photos have their place and all work well in the right hands. It's no different than scenery.
Bill
"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig"
I agree
Frisco-kid I can't put them off any longer - must install the backdrops along the wall. Which brings me to the real issue - painting or ?? The conventional wisdom - at least from many of the sources I've hunted down - seems to be sky blue only, no clouds, hills or buildings, perhaps a low hazy horizon. Mostly due to losing any illusion of 3D when viewed at an angle (This pic from http://www.lancemindheim.com/modeling_tips.htm) I had first thought to purchase a slew of printed photo-like backdrops (rolling hills, forest, harbor etc) but making a transition from one scene to another seems to be limiting. Plus - I've never seen a city/industrial backdrop that looks realistic to me. Any suggestions?
I went with preprinted and am not happy --Brand name and there is no real line up scheme for an longer than an 8 ft run
I am going to take it down and go paint
51% share holder in the ME&O ( Wife owns the other 49% )
ME&O
Take a look at some older photos of Jon Grant's"Sweethome Chicago" layout. He does a great job of blending foreground scenery to background flats to wall background.
A lot depends on what you're modelling. There are a lot of nice backgrounds out there, and some are designed to blend into the next roll of the set. Personally, I've got the twin curses of a slanting roof and a wife who would die if I painted backgrounds on the walls, but I've seen some very nice use of background wall murals.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Thanks, that statement, put it into perspective for me. It let me know that I am not limited to just a hand painted mountain with trees on it. Its time to bring model railroading into the 21st century!
Hi!
Paint your own! Get a Kalmbach book on backdrops, some inexpensive tubes of acrylics (greens, greys, yellows), some inexpensive white, light blue, and dark blue paint, and go to it!
IMHO, you do not want a detailed backdrop (unless you are an artist). The backdrop is not the star of the show, the railroad is!
Pencil out your horizon (rolling hills works great), and paint the very top couple of inches a medium dark blue. Then blend in lighter shades as you go down (towards the horizon). Blend it all in together, and then give some "clouds" a try. With a separate brush, do some horizontal random "blotches" of white and blend a little grey into them. The key is to blend, for there are no sharp lines in the sky. Do NOT attempt to put in the sun - for it will never look right!
Paint the back hills in a dull light shade of grey green. Paint closer hills with less grey and more green. Then for the foreground you can stipple in darker shades of greens/browns/yellows whatever to resemble foliage.
When you are satisfied with the backdrop, get a can of good flat white spray paint. Ventilate the room (trust me on this), and spray the white on the backdrop lightly from about 2 feet away. The end effect is amazing, giving a look of a real atmosphere.
Ok, the above is pretty basic, and you can attempt the trees and flowers, lakes, etc., but the above will work fine!
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
If you haven't laid non-hidden track right against the wall you can go with a layered backdrop. The layers could be building flats, 'vertical scenery' or a grey-muted photo of a distant feature like a large industrial facility. This works best if you can somewhat control the viewing angles.
In most places, the, "Purple mountain majesties," can be modeled as purplish grey shapes on the backdrop's lower 1/3 or 1/4 - too far away to see any kind of detail. Of course, if your model engineer can reach out of the cab and touch a vertical rock face, more detailed modeling might be necessary.
The, "Just plain hazy white tapering to sky blue,' backdrop works fine if you're modeling the flattest portions of Nebraska or West Texas. It's not very convincing if your woodland trails have staircases.
Just my , in an area where I'm far from expert.
Chuck (Modeling Mountainous Central Japan in September, 1964)
I was one of the lucky ones, who was able to build a 24'x24' garage loft with a hip roof and an inside stairway, The entire loft gives me an unobstructed view of all four walls. My first job was insulate all four walls and the entire ceiling, and to install a drop ceiling of 18"x32" insulation panels and ten double tube shop lights. My next job was to line all four walls with Luan sheets from floor to ceiling. (It paints very well) .After installing the layout benchwork, I made a sketch of what I wanted for background on the four walls. Distant hill behind fields, a harbor and river, several farms and towns, and an urban scene. Then I purchased SceniKing sequential 11"widex7''high panorama of the desired scenes, that are placed sequentially around most of the entire layout. For the city scene I layered plastic HO kit Background flats of hotels,banks, and office buildings. I start with the back buildings and progressively lower the foreground building rows,(using 1/4"-1/2" wooden separators glued between each row. The blue sky of the sequential series of paper SceniKing panels (total cost, about $60),are uniform in color, so I took one of the 11"x7" panels to the paint store to match the blue, for the upper part of the sky. I used a roller to apply blue on all four walls (above the 7" top of the paper panels that I glued on with a giant glue stick, later. I like to use a glue stick because you can peel off any picture photo, (to straighten it out or replace it.) The following photo shows how one can achieve "forced perspective" by this method. The front train is HO. The rear N scale train is on a rough gray 2"x2". At first, I had painted a mountainous background in this area, but found that the photo of low hill behind the fields, gave a much better feeling of forced perspective. The entire depth is only about 4"-5". I stipple on clouds with a round headed "pommel" brush. The dry brush technique is quite simple. I stipple on white with blue sky showing in places, then stipple on light gray to form the flat bottom of the clouds. If you keep the sky blue paint handy, you can erase and repair any changes that you desire. The clouds in this photo are part of the 11'x7" sequential panorama. Bob Hahn
.Click on the photo to enlarge it, and then, doubler click on the sequence of scenes,(in the upper right,) of my layout. Sorry for the duplications (not too well focused set of pictures.) Note that the scene behid the harbor flats is made of the paper sequential SceniKing phtos. This gives you the fainter videw of distant buildings with a slight bluesh tinge.
Looks great
Lance Mindheim's backdrop sky on your message is a digital photo that has been edited into his model railroad photo. As you probably know, Lance has done this also with his "Voodoo & Palmettos" East Rail section. He is a master of digital photography and editing and this is seen in several of his structures where the finer details are actual photographs that have been scaled down and placed into the structure.
Larry
My backdrop is light blue craft paper:
I'm just starting to experiment with painted hills and such:
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
To me, the most important aspect of a realistic model railroad backdrop is the lighter sky color along the horizon. This is important regardless of whether you are using just a plain blue sky or elaborate backdrop features such as hills, mountains and clouds. Of course if you are using photographic backdrops, you will get this included automatially in the photo. If you look at photos of Joe Fugate's Siskiyou layout, all of his backdrops look fantastically real even though he just paints simple hills and a solid blue sky. But he also airbrushes the lower half of his backdrop using white paint, and the results are amazizing.
I did an experiment with Photoshop last year but unfortunately I can't find the mages today--grrrrrr! I went out and took a digital picture of a vacant lot in our neighborhood--just grass, trees and sky. I then digitally removed the sky from the picture. I then created two other images: one a solid blue rectangle matching my sky blue paint color, and another rectangle using the same blue color but fading to white at the bottom. I then digitally added these two fake skies into the original photo with the solid color in the left half of the sky and the bleneded colors in the right half. The difference was remarkable--the sky to the left looked fake and the sky to the right looked just as real as the one i digitally removed from the original photo. If anyone is interested in seeing the actual results let me know and I will recreate the images and post them on here.
Jamie
CLICK HERE FOR THE CSX DIXIE LINE BLOG
I used styrene for the backdrop. Bends around curves easily and the joints are easy to hide. Once in place, I painted the entire backdrop a medium-light blue as a primer. After that dried I did a second coat, and then added some white along the bottom and worked it in so the horizon was lighter. Then I used a spray can of white paint to puff clouds on the backdrop, then used a 1/2" brush to paint hills, starting with light green for distant hills, medium for closer ones, and dark green for the nearest ones.
Nothing fancy but better than nothing!!
Jamie,
I remember your post showing your pictures of the sky and then matching the paint to the sky. Very informative, in fact I decided to go with the lighter color of Behr paint that you had on your post.
CSXDixieLine To me, the most important aspect of a realistic model railroad backdrop is the lighter sky color along the horizon. This is important regardless of whether you are using just a plain blue sky or elaborate backdrop features such as hills, mountains and clouds. Of course if you are using photographic backdrops, you will get this included automatially in the photo. If you look at photos of Joe Fugate's Siskiyou layout, all of his backdrops look fantastically real even though he just paints simple hills and a solid blue sky. But he also airbrushes the lower half of his backdrop using white paint, and the results are amazizing. I did an experiment with Photoshop last year but unfortunately I can't find the mages today--grrrrrr! I went out and took a digital picture of a vacant lot in our neighborhood--just grass, trees and sky. I then digitally removed the sky from the picture. I then created two other images: one a solid blue rectangle matching my sky blue paint color, and another rectangle using the same blue color but fading to white at the bottom. I then digitally added these two fake skies into the original photo with the solid color in the left half of the sky and the bleneded colors in the right half. The difference was remarkable--the sky to the left looked fake and the sky to the right looked just as real as the one i digitally removed from the original photo. If anyone is interested in seeing the actual results let me know and I will recreate the images and post them on here. Jamie
7Rail_Wheels7Its time to bring model railroading into the 21st century!
People have been using photomurals for backgrounds since the last century.
My feeling is the detail in the backdrop should be less than the detail in the modeled foreground. In most instances, that would mean not to use a photo background or even a printed one with details. That's not to say in the right location, with a well detailed scene upfront, a good photo will add a lot (see the video interview with Tony Koester -- the section showing the trestle backdrop is what I mean). But for much of the general background, basic blue with white streaks drifting in and a general impression of darker shades below, perhaps in ridgelines of slightly fading colors, is the way to go. The eye sees something there and acknowledges it, but then focuses on the modeled scene in front. The backdrop does what it is supposed to do -- fade into the background in our eye. On the other hand, an overly detailed backdrop will draw the eye away from the intended target.
An example -- years ago I saw a Shakesphere play staged on a basic set -- no set background, sceneary, or anything. Just some furniture if needed for a particular scene. Heck, they even changed out the furniture on part of the stage without stopping the play on other parts in real time. You know what -- you didn't even notice any of that unless you forced yourself to look for it. Rather the plain staging forced you to look and listen to the actors and the play.
I have seen many a well built layout being spoiled by a too colorful and "detailed" backdrop. Creating a backdroip, that does not draw the viwers attention away from the foreground requires the eyes and the hand of an artist, which I am not. That is way I either buy a ready made backdrop or I just paint it in a very light shade of grey - how many times do we really have a blue sky?
Paint your own. Not that difficult to do, make it as detailed as you wish.
Link to one of the best clinics on backdrop painting, wish I would have seen this before I did mine.
http://lyonvalleynorthern.blogspot.com/2008/04/bytown-bobber-backdrop-clinic.html
Good luck
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52481330@N05/
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/1/ppuser/8745/sl/c
I agree that a backdrop can be overdone, but that does not mean that you should always be limited to just a basic blue sky. Take a look at this wallpaper of Jerry Merker's On3 Denver & Rio Grande Western/Rio Grande Southern layout in the current issue of MR:
That is a great example of a detailed backdrop that really works, adding depth and framing the detailed layout in the foreground. Of course, it takes a whole lot of skill to pull that off. Jamie
CSXDixieLineI agree that a backdrop can be overdone, but that does not mean that you should always be limited to just a basic blue sky.
Exactly.
There's no question that in parts of the US & Canada, when you look in certain directions, all you have is "flat". Then the "blue sky" thing is appropriate, but in many parts of the country, like where I live you can see one hill after another, after another. And I don't live near the rockies or some big mountain chain either. Sure you can run some hills up to the edge of the blue background, but what about the hills that should be part of the background themselves?
I think the amount of time/money put into a good background, either painted or photographed, will pay big dividends in creating the miniature world that many of us strive for. For me, I've spent lots of money on engines, cars and structures-- I didn't want the background to overwhelm the "live" portion of the layout, but I didn't want it to be the "red headed shepchild" that backgrounds often end up being.
To me backdrops should be "background", a device to give the illusion of something beyond the walls of the layout room. I've always painted mine with one rule in mind: keep it simple. Flat muted colors and no need for "sharp" details. Distant rolling hills, some sky, and perhaps a cloud or two. Think of how it would look on a hazy day. Also you are trying to create the illusion of something a mile away not just a few feet away. (One technique that worked for me was to project a slide on the backdrop location to use for a pencil outline and later painting it. Gives a great preview too.)
I've done only a sky-type backdrop so far, graduated from a fairly light blue near the top, to almost white at the horizon. I may add clouds at a later date.
This area overlooks Lake Erie, so sky (and maybe clouds) are all that's needed:
In some areas, some backgound "trees" are sufficient to do the job:
In this curved corner, I've added a section of Masonite "distant hills" - simply painted the rough side dark green, added some ground foam, then an overspray of light grey paint, then curved the panel and slipped it into place between the plaster scenery and the existing curved "sky" backdrop.
It's also important to be able to control the viewing angle, especially if there are any structures shown on the backdrop. My layout will be mostly at either eye-level or, on the lower level, viewable only from a rolling office chair.
If you want a photo backdrop, of literally any length, check here: The Backdrop Warehouse
Wayne
Looks great Doc.
I reckon it comes down to personal choice. I happen to like my backdrops to be a bit more developed. I wouldn't say 'detailed' though. If you like yours plain blue I'm not about to say you're wrong.
You can get away with buildings on there as long as they are depicted 'flat-on' to the viewer to minimise the awful skewed pespective. Yes they'll always get a bit squashed when seen from an angle, which is why I try to keep them a bit vague. But photographed from an angle they tend to be softer focus anyway.
Mike
Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0
Pretty impressive painting skills, Mike. Very nice, and very effective, too - sorta reminds me of a Homer Winslow painting.
In reply to Frisco-kid, whose question seems to have disappeared (I suspect that the censor may have been at work here), the blues which I used were from Wal-Mart and were, I believe, their "house-brand". The upper sky is called "Blue Brook", the mid-sky is "Blue Heaven", and the lower sky is called, surprisingly, "Windy Sky". I bought a gallon of the mid-sky colour, and a quart each of the other two. To blend them together, I used a roller, working horizontally, and overlapped the colours while they were still wet - because the colours are, more-or-less, shades of one another, the demarcation between the bands aren't especially noticeable. The picture below shows the bands fairly clearly, although they appear darker than they are when viewed in person. The white band (and wood-work) part way up the wall are where the second level of the layout will be anchored to the walls.
Wayne,
I can't believe you had time to catch that post before I deleted it (nothing nefarious, just self-censorship) ... it was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it thing.
Thanks muchly for the paint color info.
Kudos to all - some very nice backdrop work here.
Rick
Here's some Youtube vids that might help.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=painting+backdrops&aq=f