In a seperate thread I discussed the option of hiring an artist to paint my backdrop. I decided against that for various reasons and now am looking at following options as well as your comments.
Option 1) Strips of commercial photo backdrops. This all-in-one solution gives me a realistic backdrop but at a steep cost. I do not like the cost but the main issue I have so far is a technical one. My layout is in an area that only gets heat/air when I am in the area and turn it on. Otherwise, it is subject to the temperature and humidity extremes of winter and summer. I contacted several manufactures to get their response about using their product on hardboard in my environment.
Mfg #1 recommended that I avoid the use of adhesive and to attach his products with tacks/etc or double sided tape on all edges. Otherwise, with regular adhesives I might have problems with delamination or bubbles in the vinyl.
Mfg #2 said he has had no such problems with his but he was not aware of any installation of his product in such environments extremes. However, he did suggest that I avoid the peal and stick products (including his) and go with his plain product and then use a commercial adhesive to attach it to my hardboard. He experessed a concern that the vinyl may stretch or shrink in my environment leading it to delaminate from my backboard or tear loose from any staples I might try to use.
I am satisfied that any of the commercial products will work OK in a reasonable environment but I am concerned that I may be pushing the envelope too far if I try to use them in my environment. I am not inclined to spend that kind of money and have it turn into a disaster.I am looking for comments on the use of commercial photo backdrops especially in a tough environmental situation.
Option #2) Go ahead and update my existing backdrop (hardboard painted sky blue) with solid sky and clouds and let that become the distant background. I can do that myself. Then, I can start adding flats or other thin structures along the bottom for the foreground. Lots of options for the foreground stuff. This option should cost less. I have seen pictures of such building and structures but have never seen an actual layout done this way. My concern is that it may look too flat with little depth to it. If I can convince myself that this approach will work well, I will probably go this route due to the cost difference. I am looking for opinions on the option #2 approach.
Any other comments also welcome.
Paul D
N scale Washita and Santa Fe RailroadSouthern Oklahoma circa late 70's
First, a couple of questions:
What are you modeling, and what kinds of backgrounds do you plan to use? Background buildings or building flats work for cities and industrial areas but won't do you much good in rural farmlands.
How tough is the environment going to be? Is this a case of a 3rd floor spare room that's kept closed off, or is it something like a separate outbuilding? Some idea of the expected high and low temperatures and humidity will let us compare our own experiences to your plans.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Backgrounds - mix of industrial, cities and landscape of hills, trees and some farmland. No mountains. Think south central Oklahoma
Time frame - 70'
Environment - trailer in back yard. Has heat and air but only when I am using it. Temps can range from zero to 100. Humidity can be up to 90%.
I have already looked at available photo backdrops and can find everything I need. For the flats, I have found some building images I can use but this area could be a challange for some of the industrial images I want. Probably use paint for some of the landscape stuff.
I would give some photo backdrops a try, but just a few with different techniques for mounting. See how they work. Some will work. Others may not.
For other areas, particularly landscapes, I'd try painting them myself with a "soft focus" look, no sharp details. Use on-layout structures and background buildings that are detailed to draw the viewers' eyes back to the layout so they don't concentrate on the background. Look into Super Trees or other foliage, and mix them with high-quality ready made trees to block the edges where the layout meets the wall.
For my staging yard, I've made these scenic covers. Shown here, there is no final landscaping, but they're made of shaped pink foam, covered with plaster cloth and then tinted Gypsolite to get to this point.
The way I've shaped these, the line between the horizontal layout and the annoying 45 degree roofline is hidden, and will be totally obscured once I get some more vegetation planted. If I had the option of painting the wall, I could just use sky colors and it would be fine.
Thanks. I am primarily focused on peoples experience with the photo backdrop vs use of the flats. I know how to do both but I have no real experience with either. Looking for the good/bad experiences people have had with both.
I have had further contact with several mfg's of the photo backdrops and they have a common theme - avoid use of adhesives due to the exposure of my backdrops to temperture/humidity extremes. In addition, I was told that my current backdrop (hardboard with flat latex paint) would need to be repainted with an enamel or epoxy paint. Apparently, the adhesives on the photo backdrops will react with the latex paint over time to break down the latex paint and cause it to seperate from the hardboard (or drywall). Not good.
This basically rules out the use of an adhesive backing for the photo backdrops. However, they said that "hanging" the backdrop would work as an alternative method. In this approach, you would hang the backdrop along the top using staples/tacks/etc and then weight the bottom lightly with paper clips or something to help it drape flat. That would eliminate any problem with adhesives or expansion/shrinkage of the backdrop as the environment changes.
Even though that may work in theory, I am not sure I would like such an arrangement. Not sure how well it might work as it turns the corners (rounded - not sharp). This stuff is very expensive and I don't think I want to make such an investment and then find out my experiment was a horrible disaster.
That leaves me with some type of flat arrangement. Actually, I am thinking of a hybrid arrangement of various type of flats. For starters, I will go ahead and add clouds to my current backdrop for the distant background. Then create the foreground via three three methods.
1) Photo images of city building for glueing to foamboard are readily available. This will allow me to make the city backdrop areas.
2) The photo backdrops have some great images of industries that I have not been able to find on the typical site that sell city buildings. I think I can use a photo backdrop and glue the image I want to foamboard and then cut out the portion I want and then use it like the building made in item 1 above. In particular, I have one area that will include an oil refinery. There are several refinery images available from the photo backdrop that would add considerable depth and scope to my refinery.
3) Use of normal plastic kits to make my flats. Can use the front, backs and sides in various ways to make a low relief building. The advantage of this style flat is that it has some depth to it vs the totally flat versions noted in item 1 above.
Landscapes that represent rural areas can be painted directly on my backdrop. Painting not my strong point I think I can make a decent stab at it. Add a few trees or other details along the front edge as Mr B suggested can give it some depth.
In my urban areas I used both building flats on the backdrop and low-relief buildings. Other areas are Walthers backdrops with the sky part removed and some paint used to add snow (since the layout is set in early winter). I use double-sided poster tape; I may go back and do something more permanent later but so far after a year or two it's holding up.
http://cs.trains.com/members/wjstix/files/default.aspx
p.s. I'd be concerned with the weather extremes about track / roadbed warping. I'd look into using 'click track' (Kato, Bachmann etc.) in those conditions.
I used a combination of building kits, building flats made from left over kit parts, photo backdrop, and hand painting.
My "city" scene:
Everything from the 4 story building on the right, to the 3 story grayish building in the center are full buildings.
The 3 story grayish building in the center of the photo and the red one next to it, are fronts of buildings only. The gray building looks like it has a side and depth, but that is a piece that was added on, painted with windows, using vanisihing point perspective, to match the angle of the photo back drop buildings behind it. That building and it's side are on a flat plane with each other.
The photo backdrop of the rest of the city came as a 6' long roll. I cut it up into individual buildings, layered them with 1/8th" masonite between them, to give the scene depth, positioned them to my liking, and hand painted tress, between the layers, for more depth.
It's easy to see the back drop photo from the real plastic buildings by the color in the photo, In real, it's much harder to distinguish.
The rest of the back drop, all the way around is hand painted.
I think your on the right track, a combination of ideas and methods to achieve your overall goal.
The photo backdrop is from Back Drop Wharehouse. I would guess there are many more options out there, as mine was done 9 years ago.
Mike.
My You Tube
wjstix I'd be concerned with the weather extremes about track / roadbed warping. I'd look into using 'click track' (Kato, Bachmann etc.) in those conditions.
I'd be concerned with the weather extremes about track / roadbed warping. I'd look into using 'click track' (Kato, Bachmann etc.) in those conditions.
Stix - I am already using Kato unitrack on 3" of foam. Been in place and exposed to wide range of temperatures for a year now and no obvious harm
The latest MR has several articles on backgrounds and backdrops. I heartily recommend getting a copy and reading it. It looks very comprehensive.
I purchased 6 sections of photo backdrop.These fit together to create a continuous scene as long as you want. I needed this feature because I have an around the walls ho scale layout that's 27'x13.5'. So I took these 6 sections to a local printer and had it enlarged to 15' lengths. I installed the first 15' section with double sided tape. I' p a picture but Im not going to all that trouble.
Santa Fe all the way! I purchased 6 sections of photo backdrop.These fit together to create a continuous scene as long as you want. I needed this feature because I have an around the walls ho scale layout that's 27'x13.5'. So I took these 6 sections to a local printer and had it enlarged to 15' lengths. I installed the first 15' section with double sided tape. I' p a picture but Im not going to all that trouble.
PEDBackgrounds - mix of industrial, cities and landscape of hills, trees and some farmland. No mountains. Think south central Oklahoma
Or Nebraska, Kansas, west Texas, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa... They say that if you're in a tall building (two stories or more) in Omaha, you can see the Gulf Of Mexico, because, there's nothing to block the view.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
Paul
On my HO scale layout, I have used simple sky blue backgrounds without clouds and a low, relatively flat horizon line appropriate for the relatively flat area I am modeling. However, I used photos of the back sides of several layout structures to augment my simple backdrop in an urban scene about 48" wide. I printed each building photo on regular printer paper sized a little smaller than true HO scale to force the scene perspective a little. I also shot the buildings from a height similar to that the average viewer would be looking at the scene so that the roof perspective and angles would be similar to those of the 3D structures on the layout. I mounted a few of the photos on foam core board to suggest additional depth, then tried various photo positions until I had a scene that looked plausible. After that, I applied some spray adhesive and attached the photos to the backdrop. The building photos perfectly match the architectural styles and coloring of the layout buildings because the photos are the layout buildings! Because the photos show the sides of the layout structures you can't see from the aisle, they look like completely different buildings. This was a fun and entertaining project that cost little more than the printer paper and the printer ink.
On the other hand, I painted a new backdrop for a small N scale switching layout last weekend. I again painted a simple clear blue sky but I also wanted distant mountains. I first sketched out basic mountain shapes along the lower half of the backdrop. I had read that varying the color of different mountains would make some appear closer and others farther away. Thus, I painted the farthest mountains in a purplish-gray color, slightly closer mountains with a brownish-gray color, and finally the closest mountains with a greenish-brown color. Then I went back and drybrushed "terrain" onto my plain mountain shapes using lightened shades of the three original mountain colors. When finished, I had pretty stark looking mountains painted by a real amateur. Then I remembered John Pryke's secret for weathering locos -- the control coat. Instead of the black wash control coat John suggested for weathering projects, I used a thin wash of my sky blue backdrop color and airbrushed several light coats over all of the mountains. Once the control coat dried, my mountains took on a very believable distant and hazy look. The control coat did a great job of muting and blending the starkness of the different "distance" colors I used and I suddenly had very realistic looking distant mountains with very little artistic skills. Before you give up on painting your own backdrops, try this technique on a practice piece. I think you'll be amazed at how well your mountains and other terrain will look!
Hornblower
I used a three part solution to a _similar_ problem on my layout ...
on the photo backdrop i used ordinary vinyl coated sky and clouds, nothing fancy, cost was about $40 or so , plus 3M sticky solution , so far in 5 years or so there is very little delamination of the vinyl [there is some] ..
overtop that i used prints [copies] of 8 1/2x 11 inch reproductions of cliffs / rock faces for a more gradual look, and finally some carefully placed trimmed trees to hide joints and seams
I have a couple of photograhic backgrounds that I picked up in Chicago last year clouds sky and a moutain that I shortened to go under a window. I took the backdrops to a paint store and had them match the Blue using their computer it blends pretty well.
Joe Staten Island West