I have 115' of wall that I'd like to add a photo backdrop to my HO railroad currently under construction. It's at the stage where it's time to do this. Layout room is conditioned and the walls are painted sheet rock. Any help appreciated as I don't know where to start! Thanks so much!
Jim Norton
Huntsville, AL
Hi Jim,
You have 115' eh?!? What most of us would give to have your problem......
Seriously, you have a lot of options. Here is one method for making your own photo backdrops. Credit goes to Mark Pruitt:
"First I photographed the area I wanted to make into the backdrop. I used my Galaxy Edge 7 cellphone camera. It's surprisingly good - 12 megapixels. I took about 200 photos, most just normal shots, but a dozen or so in panoramic mode. I'd never used panoramic mode, so I was learning as I go.
Then I went home and loaded all the pictures onto my computer, where I could see them on a larger monitor. I could see that many of them were not very suitable.
Next I downloaded some photo stitching software packages - the free and trial versions. None of them worked very well. I got blurry mish-mashes of the individual photos, none of which were at all suitable.
At this point I was pretty disappointed. I thought nearly the whole photo trip had been a waste. Then I decided to take another look at a couple of the panoramas.
I put them aside at first because they all came out looking like this:
(I shrank this way down from its original size - it was a bit over 12,000 pixels wide!). The files are large - about 33 MB for this one, with a total of over 24.5 megapixels.
I didn't think this would be at all suitable - the road on either side is the same straight road. The panoramic function on the camera distorts the picture tremendously in the foreground.
Then I realized I didn't need - or even want - the near foreground. I wanted a section that began to the right of the "stop ahead" sign to the left, over to just before the road enters the picture in the right, and from slightly above the mountains in the distance to about the base of the post of the "stop ahead" sign.
So I opened the panoramic photo in MS Paint (I was a bit surprised Paint would even open it) and cropped the image as I described above. I then blew up the resulting picture so that the height would just fit vertically on a landscape-orientation sheet of 8 1/2 X 11 paper.
Then I printed it out. It took 13 sheets of paper. I cut off three of the four edges - top, right side and bottom at the edges of the image. I left the left side (on all but the left-most page) so that I would be able to line up the next image to the left on top of the page, and using clear tape I aped them together and to the skyboard.
I didn't do any image manipulation other than described above. The 12 megapixel camera resolution makes it possible to blow up the image by 2-3 times without significant pixelation of the image, even close up.
Next I'm going to take the image down to a large-format printer company (FedEx Kinko, maybe) and have the entire thing printed off on a single roll of good quality paper, at their highest quality print setting.
I'll carefully trim off the sky, then use spray adhesive to mount the backdrop to the skyboard. I'll probably do reversed images on either side of this one, which will give me nearly 30 feet of backdrop!
My last step will (probably) be to dullcoat the entire skyboard and backdrop to eliminate any glossiness in the sky (it's really cheap blue paint) and on the backdrop.
So in summary - cellphone camera in panoramic mode and MS Paint (about the most basic image software there is) to manipulate the image. That's all there was to it."
The challenge is to find a suitable scene. Depending on what you want, that may be not too hard or it might be extremely difficult, especially if you are modelling an older era.
Here is a link to mark's layout construction thread. I would suggest starting with the most recent posts and working backwards. Most of the discussion about how he did his backdrop is in the last few pages:
http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/11/t/278638.aspx?page=1
If you don't want to do it yourself, there are several backdrop photo suppliers who offer fairly long scenes:
https://www.sceniking.com/
https://railroadbackdrops.com/
https://tracksidescenery.com/index.php?id_category=3&controller=category
https://www.affordablemodeltrains.com/backdrops-for-sale/
https://wallpapersafari.com/model-railroad-backdrops-wallpaper/
https://www.realisticbackgrounds.com/
I'm sure there are others.
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Jim, I am far from expert on backdrops. I have 76 feet of wall compared to your 115 feet of wall. Currently, I have 24" x 48" sheets of Masonite lining the walls. The Masonite sheets are painted a shade of sky blue, but that is it - - not even clouds.
One issue you face is budget. If you choose to purchase commercially produced backdrops, it is going to cost a small fortune.
Another issue is content. Dave mentioned Mark's photo produced background scenes but those scenes are mostly prairie in the foreground and hills in the background. If you also want structures on your backdrops, finding the right scenes will be more of a challenge.
Another issue is era. I model the Chicago area in the 1950s. That makes it a lot tougher to find scenes of old buildings to photograph when so much from the 1950s is now gone and replaced by more modern structures.
Another issue is material used to produced the backdrops, paper versus wood product versus plastic. Wayne has used styrene plastic, purchased as 48" x 96" for some of his projects. The advantage of styrene plastic sheet over Masonite board or thin wood product is the ability to shape it around curves.
One thing that I have considered is to find an art student or starving artist to paint the desired scenes on my backdrops. I could do it myself except for the fact that I am totally incompetent as a artist.
Rich
Alton Junction
I have been in the hobby for 40 years. I have never gotten to point of detailing a backdrop (in theory this should be done before the benchwork is in the way, but it doesn't seem to work out that way).
So my approach will be based upon what others have done and what I have seen.
I have about 75 linear feet around three walls of shelf style layout. Georgia Piedmont being the locale. IOW, lots of trees and foliage.
I'm thinking of practicing the Bob Ross method of making forests on the backdrop, where there is really just a big blend of paint strokes and different shades of green with a few exposed trunks here and there for definition. Then placing store bought trees in front of the backdrop for more 3D effect. If I mess up, I can roll out the blue again and start over.
For the two towns with buildings, I will leave the backdrop a simple sky blue. My attention will be drawn to switching the trains and the detailed foreground. The and the lack of detail on the backdrop won't really be noticed. At least that's the plan.
- Douglas
richhotrain...Another issue is material used to produced the backdrops, paper versus wood product versus plastic. Wayne has used styrene plastic, purchased as 48" x 96" for some of his projects. The advantage of styrene plastic sheet over Masonite board or thin wood product is the ability to shape it around curves....
I use the styrene sheets mostly for scratchbuilding structures, like this station...
...but for backdrops, simply painted the drywalled, after coving all ten of the corners in the layout room using 1/8" Masonite.
Here's a sketch of the layout room, showing all ten corners. The grey area is where the partial second level was to be added, and it's now in place and operable, although nowhere near "finished".
Right from the beginning, I had planned to eventually add a partial second level to the layout, so the "sky" in that area had been done as two distinct scenes...
Here's one of the coved inside corners, getting some modification to accommodate the addition of the partial second level...
...and one of the coved outside corners...
...another coved outside corner, this one bulged out to accommodate a drain pipe...
...the gap left to allow for the benchwork of the partial upper level.
Other than some light blue paint for the upper portion of the "sky" and some white paint to lighten the blue as it nears the horizon, I've not painted any further background scenery on the walls on the walls.
Here's a close-up view of the coving, showing the 1/2" drywall used on most of the room, and the 3/8" material used for at least one stud-spacing on each side of each corner....
As stud spacing at the corners can vary, I simply use a tape measure, curved in an approximation of what I think the curve should be, then transfer that measurement to the Masonite, and cut it appropriately. Next, one edge of the cut piece is place against the protruding edge of the 1/2" drywall, the the centre of the Masonite is pushed forcibly towards the corner untl the other edge snaps into place, butting itself against the 1/2" drywall on the adjoining wall.
Here's a sketch of the set-up (the unlabelled red line represents the drywall tape, while the green stuff is the drywall "mud")...
If the curve turns out to be a little too abrupt, simply press the centre to release it, then trim the Masonite as needed and re-install it. I drill the edges for drywall screws and then use a countersink to ensure that the screwheads don't protrude, then tape and mud it as you would any drywall. After more than 30 years later, there are no cracks or popped screwheads anywhere in the layout room.
I've used some printed-out background structures affixed to styrene, but have not yet painted any other features directly onto the backdrop, as most areas use the scenery/landforms or structures as the "horizon".
Wayne
Wow! Thanks for all the detailed information! Certainly enough for me to pour over the next couple of evenings! Yes, the cost is staggering to purchase these back drops! I am looking at about $1,300.00 at this point. Thanks again! - Jim