I'm running 027 Toy Train, trying to get closer to Hi Rail. I don't intend to go into the detail that would require a book on landscaping (maybe that's code for "cheap"). Anyway, I've read some of the threads on this forum & bought some recommended light & dark blues. I have AstroTurf on the 6 x 8 foot main layout & 4'x4' 'L'. I want to use a green that matches that to ease into the background.
Do I apply the dark blue first at the top and brush the lighter blue into it or vice versa? Should the green fade to lighter green or a gray?
Also, I am building a 4'x8' that will come off the other side of the 4x4, forming a C. This will have an upper level of about 3'x8', seven inches above everything else. Using a lighter green paint, instead of carpet, should this also fade into the background, or would going directly to blue sky work? I would like to have this elevated area represent higher elevation.
As I said, I''m not a modeler, and my layout isn't of any particular area or region. I don't need anything real fancy, but would like it to look fairly natural.
Any help you guys can give a Toy Train guy will be appreciated.
wyomingscout
Well that seems like a kinda small layout fo 027 but hey it is what it is. For starters the best thing you can do is go out to several locations and just look out at the horizon, maybe take your camera to get a good idea how nature works. I would first recomend loosing the astro turf way too cheezy looking. Stat off with the darker blue not too dark and paint the entire wall or backdrop that color fist. The pick an area approx. 3/4 of the way down and start with the lighter blue apllying it lighter as you get to the bottom or even mix in some while to really fade it out. When you look out into the sky what your actually seeing is the light being filtered through the air and the closer you get to the horizon the less apparent this effect seems to be. As far as the green for the grass goes unless your planning on painting hills on your backdrop don't use it. If you are planning on hills it takes a degree of artistic talent and more then just one color.
Yeah, I'm thinking of a hill running into the background from the upper level - because of tunnels. On the lower level, it was just going to be a gently undulating skyline.
I could remove the Astroturf. It helped with sound deadening since I didn't use a sound deadening board. But that won't be a big concern with the new layout location.
Starting the sky at layout level seems odd, especially since there is a track close to the wall that needs painting. I suppose it would be easy enough to do it that way & add grass scape later if needed.
My grown daughter & 18 year old granddaughter will be the actual artists. Both are pretty good & a whole lot better than I. I want to get as much insight as possible into this type of project for them.
Thanks for the input.
There's no quick answer to your questions. Allegheny 2-6-6-6 has given you some top advice already.
It sounds like you will need some sort of hill painted onto the backscene. For a green I'd try to make something suitable by grabbing a bit of yellow and mixing it with the sky colour, adding the yellow to the blue and creeping up on the colour you want. Just don't make it too yellow.
Mike
Modelling the UK in 00, and New England - MEC, B&M, D&H and Guilford - in H0
When I did my background I just "google" on how to. I used several brushes. If you want the depth, the first hill/mountain will have to have a "white/gray" tint to it. The hill/mountain in the front won't. That will give you some depth.
Also...............write down what colors were used, and how much. I would mix up a bunch of paints, and end up running out. Then I forgot what colors was used.
Here's a picture of my backdrop. Hope this help.
"Rust, whats not to love?"
Thanks, Mike. I'm hoping not to have to get too many colors but I want it to look natural. I'll never get it to Model Railroader standards, but I like the 0 gauge and all the operating cars, etc. My grandson enjoys running the trains and playing with other toys, such as cars & planes, on the layout. As I've heard on I Love Toy Trains, scale didn't matter then, and it doesn't matter now. He mixes Legos and scales of all sizes. Even some of my original postwar Lionel accesories are not to scale, but they are fun!
I'll pass your tips along to my 'set designers'. That way I can do what dads & granddads do best - run the trains and supervise.
Charllie (wyomingscout)
The backdrop makes the layout look better 'cause it hides the wall of the room. Let's face it, wallpaper, paneling, or even sheetrock looks like a room, not a 027 scale miniature landscape. The simplest, and still quite effective backdrop, is just solid sky blue everywhere. The next step up in complexity is to shade the sky color. Made it very blue down at the horizon and shade into lighter blue (mix in more white) as you get higher into the "sky". As long as you keep it even enough to avoid really bad brushmarks, it will look good. For a final touch on the sky, add clouds. If the first attempt at clouds is less than effective, repaint the whole backdrop sky blue. Then you can retry clouds, or decide it's a clear day and you can see forever.
The next challenge is the joint between the sky backdrop and the grass of the layout /train table. How to disguise that joint if you don't just ignore it? With a steady hand you can do a "horizon" in paint. You mark a line on the backdrop, and paint green for grass below the line, leaving blue for sky above it. Doing a prairie backdrop, that line is just a straight line. Doing a Rocky Mountain backdrop the line is wavy to represent the ridgeline.
Or, use a line of city buildings to hide the joint. The buildings can be pictures, cut from magazines and pasted onto a sky blue backdrop. Or photographs taken by yourself. Or, you can buy ready to paste on, photorealistic backdrops. Check for ads in Model Railroader or Rail Model Craftsman, or Google for "Backdrop Model Railroad" and see what you get.
David Starr www.newsnorthwoods.blogspot.com
dstarrMade it very blue down at the horizon and shade into lighter blue (mix in more white) as you get higher into the "sky".
Perhaps for a New Hampshire sky but in the states or countries that I've lived or traveled, it's the opposite. :-)
Dante
Robbie, David, & Dante,
Thanks for the tips. I think I will start with just sky & see how that looks. I can add more detail if needed.
Robbie, I see you have an incline from your layout to the backdrop. I like that. Just heard about that yesterday at a hobby shop about 3 hours from home. If I decide the layout needs a horizon line, that is probably the best way to use forced perspective.
As I told Medina1128, it is time to get the layout up & running again; don't want my grandson to lose interest in the trains. I keep reading that no one's layout is ever 'finished'. So with that in mind, it's time to get going & add/change as we go along.
Thanks for all the tips & advice. Usually I monitor the Toy Train forum.
What I did is start with painting the entire backdrop a solid light to medium blue, sort of as a primer. Then I went back a few days later and painted it again the same color. While this second coat was still wet, I blended in a little white paint towards the bottom and worked it up about 1/3rd to 1/2 of the way up, so it's almost white at the bottom and blends to become the darker blue higher up. In my case, my backdrop is for a shelf layout so it's only about 14" high, on a higher backdrop you could do the same thing only add some darker blue from the top and blend the same way.
For clouds, I like to use spray cans. If you do it in little puffs the right distance away, it gives a nice effect. Acrylic paint won't work as it can run, but something like Floquil or Testor's will work fine.
For hills, it doesn't need to be too complex, just do a few light green hills to represent far away hills, then darker ones in front of those to represent closer ones.
BTW doing 3-D scenery is probably cheaper than putting down carpeting. You can shape hills with cardboard strips glued to the benchwork, or just wad up newspaper in a pile and use some tape to hold em in place, then put plaster soaked paper towels or Woodland Scenics plaster-gauze over that.
Basically, that is what I intend for now - maybe minus the clouds. I figure we can add in clouds & horizon line later, if desired.
I'm still undecided about the AstroTurf. It's quick, easy, & I kinda like it; I have a lot of other stuff on the layout, so it isn't nearly solid green carpet. But maybe starting with a basic paint on the plywood & adding scenery as you suggest would be even better in the long run. It should still allow for running the trains & add/complete landscaping & scenery as time & money allow. Yeah, I like that, too.
I think the biggest improvement regarding a backdrop is just having a backdrop. If you put up a backdrop and are careful about hiding the seams, whether you use wood or styrene sheet or whatever, and paint it light blue, you're made say a 90% improvement right there. Anything you add later as far as light to dark color as you go up, adding hills and clouds etc. are going to just make it even better.
Woodland Scenics makes rubberbacked grass mats that look pretty good, you could maybe put those down over the plywood. Short term, you could paint the plywood gray or black, and use the mats for grass and anyplace you wanted roads or parking lots you could just leave the gray or black painted wood showing. I did something like that on my previous layout when I was first getting it going, it didn't look great but it was a LOT better than bare plywood !
The backdrop that is of concern right now is a wall. It's painted white and is ready for the sky colors. I've about talked myself out of the AstroTurf; I'll have to take up an extra 20 -30% more track, though. Later, if I decide backdrops are needed on two more sides, one can just be sky & mountains and the other will be rolling valley floor & sky, probably only 6-12" high.
I was thinking of painting the plywood some color of green. Thinking it would be easier to cover later rather than darker colors such as black or gray, rather than the other way around. Maybe gray would be better: more neutral & still easy to cover? I would be duplicating some roads & a small town, so I know where most of the roads are going to be already.
Following some other threads & links, the wadded up newspaper covered Woodland Scenics Plaster Cloth seems the way to go. I bought one roll & that should get me started.
wyomingscoutI was thinking of painting the plywood some color of green.
Not a bad idea. I suggest trying a shade of olive that is a gray-green.
dantedstarrMade it very blue down at the horizon and shade into lighter blue (mix in more white) as you get higher into the "sky". Perhaps for a New Hampshire sky but in the states or countries that I've lived or traveled, it's the opposite. :-) Dante
Sorry about that, I did get it backwards. Can't imagine how that happened :-)
I bought some Rust-Oleum American Accents STONE,a textured finish that was going to be for bridge abutments. My wife suggested spraying the plywood with it, too.
If I tape off areas I know are going to be smooth, eg roads & town, & paint the STONE gray-green, how would that be for a base?
The easiest way to make the transition from table to wall is with a 3-D bit of scenery. On the right, you see a bluff right up against the scened divider (the sky blue bit of styrene there). The bluff is made from some 3/4" foam, which was cut in a rough scroll, then shaped with a rasp to look more like the foreground scenery.
Later I covered it with trees so you don't really see the transition at all. Now this in N scale, so I can get away with a little bit more, but you could follow the same idea. Here's the background scenery underway at the Delmarva Model Railroad Club's HO layout:
Here we took some 1" foam leftover from an old O scale display. It had been the layout surface, so it already had ground foam glued to it for a basic texture. Now we're just detailing it with rock faces and trees. For your purposes, I would go with this approach, just get some foam insulation board, cut it in a wavy pattern to represent the horizon, round off or taper the top edge, and paint it green. Lay it up against the wall, see how it looks, then trim and fit to taste.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
Thanks, Lee. I'll give that a try.
Charlie