Layouts and layout building

Hey Sir Mad Dog,

What is the condition of the wall beyound the back drop?

Mine is a block basment wall that needed painting so I used foam board and covered the whole wall from the floor to the rafters. It really helped the room appearance as well as providing insulation.

Bob

 The layout will be a show layout, i.e. it needs to be easily dismantled for transportation. Think of it as a box with a viewing window - the backdrop height will determine the size of this viewing window, that´s why this question is so important for me.

Btw, my screenname is Sir Madog - a character out of the Welsh mythology -  - though I may act like a mad dog, now and then 

Since I have an access walkway around the layout I painted the entire wall from floor to ceiling. I also painted the ceiling a sky blue, which makes the river and streams really standout.

 Doc,

How did you do the great blue to white transition on your backdrop as you come down to the horizon?  Did you use an airbrush or brush?  I looks very realistic.

Bob

Bob,

 Thanks for the complement. The photo does not show up the sky the way it really looks, it is much better.

A quick answer to your query is that a backdrop need be tall enough to accomplish its so-called raison d'étre!

A backdrop serves two purposes: firstly it provides a surface for the incorporation of some sort of mural designed to increase our depth perception of our modeled platform. As mobilman said he is increasing the heighth of his backdrop because he found that the former heighth did not facilitate photography.

The second motive of a backdrop is to provide a viewblock keeping our perspective to the area immediately in front of us; if this reason is important to you then your viewblock should be high enough to sustain that purpose i.e. if you are only interested in blocking the view of the trackwork on the other side of a peninsula then it may only need to be a height to serve that purpose. The Yao Mings and Shaq O'Neils are rare in real life; I read somewhere recently where the average height of an American male is 1762mm, that's 69.37 inches. It varies somewhat but the distance from the top of our head to eye level is approximately 10% of that overall height. So if you are an average male with a top of the head height at 1762mm then a backdrop height of about 1586mm should serve your purpose. You're not going to see over that!

I have visited layouts where the backdrop serves as a defacto room divider reaching all the way to the ceiling. These "room divider" backdrops not only obstruct our view of trackwork on the opposite side of a peninsula but serve the additional purpose of keeping operators in the far aisle from being seen. A backdrop need not reach all the way to the ceiling to accomplish this purpose but is generally going to have to be tall enough to block other operators from our view.

With this in mind I once visited a rather large N-Scale layout that was being run as a club. On this particular day there must have been six or seven operators working and one of these operators was an individual who towered a good 6'9" above floor level and who had a mop of carrot top hair. The backdrop on this layout was not tall enough to conceal this guy from view from the adjacent aisleway and I thought it rather comical to be looking at the mural painted on the backdrop and see this shock of red hair protruding into the blue sky. In this case the backdrops needed to be about six inches taller than they actually were.

R. T. POTEET:

It varies somewhat but the distance from the top of our head to eye level is approximately 10% of that overall height.

That's an average of almost 7".  I would question that:  I am average height of 69.5" and the distance from the centerline of my eyes to top of head is about 4.5".  And-honest-I don't look weird!  (One might even say I look average! :-))

Dante 

Remember the coneheads that were on TV several years back.

 Doc,

I look forward to seeing your tutorial on your technique for painting your backdrop sky.  I'm at a point where I need to be doing at least my sky background, but the idea of trying to get something that looks like yours scares me.  I'd appreciate any details on your technique that you could provide in this forum in advance of the completion of your tutorial on the subject.

Thanks for your help,

Bob

Hope this helps, good luck and let me know how it works out.

mobilman44:

Hi!

I have recent experience with the topic, so for what its worth, here it is...........

I'm  building a "replacement" layout for an 11x15 room filling HO pike that lasted 14 years.  The original layout had a 24 inch painted backdrop which extended about 22 inches or so above the main level benchwork.  The walls/ceiling above the backdrop were painted white.  The overall effect looked great, and got a lot of positive comments.  However (there is always a "however"), there were times I wished it were higher, especially when taking pictures. 

Soooo, on the new layout, I opted for a 30 inch backdrop (with about 29 inches above main level benchwork), and that seems to work out pretty well so far.

ENJOY,

Mobilman44

My layout is slightly smaller (11'x12') and I opted for 24" backdrops.  If I were to do it again, I would do as you did and go a litle taller 30"-36".  It helps more with hilly terrain and pictures.  My tallest hill is just 6"-7" below the top of the backdrop.

dante:

R. T. POTEET:

It varies somewhat but the distance from the top of our head to eye level is approximately 10% of that overall height.

 

That's an average of almost 7".  I would question that:  I am average height of 69.5" and the distance from the centerline of my eyes to top of head is about 4.5".  And-honest-I don't look weird!  (One might even say I look average! :-))

Dante 

You got me!

I had been  reading about Paleontology and the reference was being made to the physical differences between modern man--Homo sapiens sapiens--and Homo neanderthalis. A recent tabulation has concluded that males of the genus Homo sapiens sapiens--that's we'uns as they say in West "By God" Virginia--average 1722mm in height worldwide; European males--that's the majority of we'uns I do believe--average 1752mm in height. Our physical proportions breaks our height down to 5.4% peak-of-skull to eye-level, 10.1% peak-of-skull to mouth-level, and 13.9% peak-of-skull to chin level.

We can conclude from these figures that the eye level of an average European male is going to be about 1657mm off the floor which tells us how high a view blocking backdrop would have to be to restrict our vision into an adjacent operating area.

I didn't mean to be confusing but I'm glad you caught me. Confusion such as this is one of the hazards or being in one's 70th year. Had I looked at things a little closer before hitting the "POST" button I would have realized that--I'm 68" tall--my eye level sure as the dickens ain't 61" off of the floor.

R. T. POTEET:

We can conclude from these figures that the eye level of an average European male is going to be about 1657mm off the floor

Have you allowed for shoe sole and heel height ?

Bob

 Doc,

Thanks for the detailed description of your painting technique.  I assume you use acrylic latex paint.  After you apply the bands of color, how do you keep the paint wet so you can blend the bands together?  For your own backdrop, did you use a brush to blend the bands together?  I have some scrap pieces of hardboard that I'll use to try out your technique.

Thanks,

Bob