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Geography enters into it as well; if you look at photos of certain regions, you might notice an overall hue which seems to underlie it all. In Georgia (USA), the red clay soil affects all the scenery, even when it isn't exposed; the shades of green in the pine trees and grasses leans a little bit more towards the orange-yellow end of the green spectrum (as opposed to the blue-green opposite end, which would be found in the Cascade mountains of Washington State). By paying attention to the overall tone, you can generate a more cohesive sense of place. One way to impart the basic tone is to find a weathering medium (like chalks or airbrushing) of the appropriate color, and apply a thin coat of it to everything. Here in Cincinnati, the basic tone would be a sort of limestone-biege color, which would tend to make everything go towards grey when weathered. Other places might be more of a saturated brown, or a darker grey, or even the red-orange of iron ore. <br /> <br />This kind of thing is commonly done with movies these days, and it is called "grading". In a movie, shifting the overall hue of a scene is used to key in certain emotions or understanding of the scene, such as the thick green cast of the Matrix films. A model railroad could attempt the same thing, such as amping up the yellows in order to make the "sunlight" seem more intense (human eyes are most sensitive to yellow and green), or sepia tones might be emphasized to make the layout come off as an old faded historical photograph. Bill Henderson did this with his nostalgic layout, in fact, to very good effect.
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