Painted backscene

[wickman]

Great job Mike , I'v been working on painting my backdrop for the past week and I know its no picnic. I didn't paint clouds only hills and now that I have most of the snow cap mountains done I may not even paint trees as I'm really not very good at them, I may just build up the foreground trees and secondary growth.

[perry1060]

Rob,

Sounds great!! Did you say lottery...'777' is a day away...

[Cederstrand]

Perry, I think your Dino photos were among the first I discovered while surfing for layouts. I passed your's on to my brothers who (being nutty like myself) thoroughly enjoyed your work. BTW, if I ever win the Lottery, can I hire you to build my layout? Neat rock work! You might appreciate some aspects of my ideas for a future layout, like the Soylent Plant (with people in stocks waiting for processing), a "real" prison surrounded by a mote with gators (no gym, TV, etc...). And then there are the personal enterprises which represent freinds and family members, a few rather funny with one being a real "snub".LOL 

Mike, no such thing as posting too many photos. I have enjoyed viewing every one of them and would welcome seeing more of what you have accomplished.

Rob

[perry1060]

Fantastic shot Mike! ... Is that thunder I hear off in the rolling hillside...

[mikelhh]

 Many thanks Rob and Perry.

 Good fun photos, Perry. 

 I too like to play with the lighting. Here's one that I think pretty much shows the effect I was after. It's the last one - I promise

[perry1060]

Nice shots Mike...love the 'bad weather' look creeping in. I can almost smell the rain and hear the trees bending in the wind as the storm rolls in!

 

Here I messed around with a spotlight in an attempt to create an illusion of the sun ducking behind the clouds in the back-right side of  my layout. I love messing with the sky and the clouds...

 

 

Here I dimmed the lights for a sunset shot...

 

My web site...

http://home.mchsi.com/~ironmaster1960/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

 

 

[Cederstrand]

Mike, from a full time artist..."NICELY RENDERED". The clouds you have added truly gives your layout some wonderful atmoshphere. Rob

[mikelhh]

 Excellent, Tom. It'd be a real pleasure just sitting there watching the trains roll through that countryside. 

 

 Mike 

[steinjr]

 

 Looks very good even before you adjust brightness to get the two scenes to look like one.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[Tom Bryant_MR]

It has almost been a month since I worked on the RR - I've been in a dry spell, but not Texas and several other states .

I've been helping Don Z on occasion with his layout and another friend just starting on a design when, finally, the bug came back.  Yesterday, I got off the duff.

Again, I've read the pros and cons of photo backdrops and in some ways that has had me stymied on what to do.

I finally glued down the pine trees on the left, then using other web shots, Photoshop and poster printing software, blended in this scene.  I cut the sky out at the tree lines or where ever it made sense using craft scissors with a really jagged cutting edge (my wife's!).

Continuing around

And still further ... I am still blending the two scenes where they meet in front of the steamer. And, one of these days I am going to re-learn the PhotoShop trick where you can make the lighting between two photos the same.

 

 

Back in the engineers seat again!

Regards,

[steinjr]

Thanks Stein,

I've been off the net for few weeks - hard drive problems.

Since reinstalling XP OS etc, I cannot get The Big Picture to work.  It did before.

The link for Big Picture is: http://www.tml.tkk.fi/~tmakipat/thebigpicture/thebigpicture.html

I located another that does work and appears to do what the Big Picture did.

The link for Posteriza is: http://www.softsea.com/review/Posteriza.html

Regards,

 Hi Tom --

 Thanks a lot ! I'll mosey over and and have a look at both of these!

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[Tom Bryant_MR]

Thanks Stein,

I've been off the net for few weeks - hard drive problems.

Since reinstalling XP OS etc, I cannot get The Big Picture to work.  It did before.

The link for Big Picture is: http://www.tml.tkk.fi/~tmakipat/thebigpicture/thebigpicture.html

 

I located another that does work and appears to do what the Big Picture did.

The link for Posteriza is: http://www.softsea.com/review/Posteriza.html

 

Regards,

[mikelhh]

 Thanks to everyone for the replies and comments.

 

 That's a pretty good looking result there, Stein. Thanks for the links.

 There are some fine examples on here. I haven't seen a bad one yet! It just goes to show there are many ways to make a backscene, and no-one is wrong.

 Regards,

 Mike 

[steinjr]

Lately I've been taking pictures off the web and using Photoshop and Big Picture to edit/print.

  Anyways - I am familiar with Photoshop. But what is "Big Picture" and where do you get it ? A quick google search didn't yield any immediately obvious matches.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

Here's a link to a thread which discusses the software.  Maybe it will help you find it.

Tom 

 Sadly, no. I did read that other thread too (the one ElectroLove over from Sweden startet), both when it appeared, and reread it now. No dice on where to find this "Big Picture program".

  But anyways - a couple of things I have found that may be useful for others contemplating a photo backdrop:

 http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html - a program to automatically join up partially overlapping pictures.

 Seems okay - here is a quick sample of a panorama (10% of full size) automatically stitched together from 4 photos of Minnesota Commercial's Midway Yard in Saint Paul, MN :

 Some distortion (especially in the foreground), which is only to be expected, since I did not have a proper panoramic mount to put on top of a tripod make the camera svivel around its focal point - these pictures are shot freehand - using the panoramic line-up function of my camera (which shows me a faint image of the right edge of last picture superimposed on my viewfinder image, so I can match up the left edge of next picture with the right edge of last picture).

  Here is a comparison by someone of two stitching (joining) products - autostitch and panorama factory:

http://community.livejournal.com/panorama/88144.html

 I can't vouch for this persons results - I have only done brief testing of autostitch, and haven't tried panorama factory yet.

 Here is a link to a page describing various tools for making panoramic images:

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/panorama/Panorama_Creation_and_Stitching_Tools.htm

A description of how to make and print panoramic images (from about.com - URL run through http://tinyurl.com to make it shorter) :

http://tinyurl.com/2mvcpe

 Smile,
 Stein

[fiatfan]

Lately I've been taking pictures off the web and using Photoshop and Big Picture to edit/print.

  Anyways - I am familiar with Photoshop. But what is "Big Picture" and where do you get it ? A quick google search didn't yield any immediately obvious matches.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

Here's a link to a thread which discusses the software.  Maybe it will help you find it.

Tom 

[steinjr]

Lately I've been taking pictures off the web and using Photoshop and Big Picture to edit/print.

 Good looking photo backdrops, Tom!

 I am currently working on taking pictures with my trusted digital camera of buildings, skylines etc from the prototype RR I am modelling (or rather - from it's successor - I am modelling Minnesota Transfer Railway, but taking pictures along the track of successor Minnesota Commercial).

  Anyways - I am familiar with Photoshop. But what is "Big Picture" and where do you get it ? A quick google search didn't yield any immediately obvious matches.

 Smile,
 Stein

 

[rayw46]

I've never posted a photo on the forum, couldn't figure it out, but with a little instruction I think I have the hang of it.  This is a photo on my layout with a few clouds.  It's an obvious corner shot.

[rayw46]

Me thinks thou dost protest too much.  Looks real good.  A lot of people think a less detailed background, almost impressionistic, is better because it does not draw attention away from the foreground, which is, after all, what we are really modeling.  A trick that you can use is to paint smaller clouds lower on the backdrop and paint them progressively larger as you move up the backdrop.  This give the illusion of distance.

[Cox 47]

Adds miles and miles....Nice clouds.....Cox 47

[wxtoad]

Mike - you did a great job with your backdrop.  I really like that gathering storm cloud beyond the house.

[Tom Bryant_MR]

mikelhh and jacon12, that is really good work.

Backdrops are more art than science and there are a million ways to do it.  I've tried the Walther's preprinted backdrops and they are okay - depends on the situation.  I've a friend who purhased a city scene from backdrop warehouse and it looks really great for the situation he has.

Lately I've been taking pictures off the web and using Photoshop and Big Picture to edit/print. I've had this section taped to the backdrop for several weeks now and have decided it's a keeper.  I'll use rubber cement to put on permanently.

The backdrop is masonite, painted blue with clouds done with wally world spray paint.  Pine trees are from the web printed on paper.

 

Here is a city scene I'm contemplating. Again, same process except this time I put the background tree line on first and then the buildings on top of that.

 

 

Regards,

[jacon12]

Super!  Ever thought about doing this for a living... backgrounds I mean?  To me the hills have that vague, distant look that we all try to achieve and few succeed in getting.

Jarrell

 

 

 

 

Well, I've been busily painting hills,  buildings and trees, and here are a couple of progress photos.

 

 Mike 

[mikelhh]

Well, I've been busily painting hills,  buildings and trees, and here are a couple of progress photos.

 

 Mike 

[mikelhh]

 Many thanks for the replies and constructive comments. They are all most welcome.

spectratone, bone and anyone else who's interested - The board is 3mm MDF, sealed with artists acrylic binder medium, and primed with one coat of artists gesso.  I've used cheap students acrylics [about $2 a tube in my local bargain store] For white I'm using my gesso. Colours used in the sky are a pale blue, a violet, a pale yellow similar to Naples Yellow - essential for greying the violet which must be used sparingly -  and a flesh tone. 

 For the darkest shadowy parts of rainclouds you could add a hint of violet to a puddle of white, then add some naples yellow, and maybe some blue. Experimentation is the key to getting it right.  Paler parts can be white plus some naples yellow. Brush some sky blue over the edges to soften them. If it mixes with the cloud paint it's all good.

 Brushes used so far have been cheap bristle, similar to oversize pastry brushes, from 2 inch up to 3 inches wide. Some art shops sell these as "gesso brushes".

 A fine misting sprayer, such as used in orchid and fern culture is a must. I never use retarders because they impart a degree of gloss, and I really don't think they're effective anyway. The mist will assist in blending, and pre-wetting with the sprayer enables wet paint to go on "softer"  over dry paint, with fewer brushmarks. In my experience nothing blends paint better than hands and fingers. Use non-toxic paint though.

 Having said all that, I feel that spraying would be a better option than brushing, because it's terribly difficult and tedious having to smooth out the brushwork, and textured paint in the sky would look awful. I chose to brush it because I'm an artist by profession.

 wjstix - yes I'm experimenting with cutouts, and I'll also experiment with painting some buildings.  I too hate the cartoon look.  The hills are only roughly suggested so far, and some still have some growing to do.

 

 nucat78 and selector - yes I agree that clouds are not essential, and I'm mindful of the danger of having it all distracting attention from the layout itself. They show up best in the distant photos, of course, and these two photos were chosen because the clouds are visible.  From early experiments with lighting, and when viewed from different angles, they are often  difficult to see, which is fine by me. Most of my layout photos are taken from ground level with a minimum of sky anyway.  I enjoy creating different weather effects by adjusting the lighting.

 My main reason for wanting clouds is that I'm working at getting a just-rained look with puddles and wet streets [it's England, after all ] and a clear sky would look odd.

 

 Thanks again for all the replies. If anyone hates it, feel free to say so. We're all chasing our own goals, anyway. It's one reason why this hobby is so addictive, and things would be very dull if we all wanted the same.

 Mike 

[BATMAN]

When I saw that threatening sky I thought I should get in the house, then realized I was already there. (Beautiful job!)

PS; I need one like that about 14' long. If you have any spare time.

[jacon12]

I agree with Bone, they look Great to me too!  Wish I could do that, I know it must have been a real challenge.  If you have more pictures, I'd appreciate seeing them.

Jarrell

[selector]

Now those are clouds! That looks fantastic. I can see you suggested threatening weather behind that house in the first picture. I have to know your technique. Great job.

If I may interject, and I do agree that our OP has done a very nice job of it, clouds are important for the operator and for guests if not having them included in the backdrop leaves it kind of bland.  It should look natural enough....just enough.  Fact is, though, that for focused operation, and for most photography that you are going to do, the clouds add little value.  Far better is a nicely blended and lightend horizon that is just slightly blue, close to white. 

The clouds only become "needed" in wider and more distant photos, such as the one below.

For closer and tighter shots, it doesn't matter much, as you can see here.

Once again, though, nice job on your backdrop.  I should take lessons from you!

 

 

[Bone]

Now those are clouds! That looks fantastic. I can see you suggested threatening weather behind that house in the first picture. I have to know your technique. Great job.

[wjstix]

You can do a mixed-format backdrop. Now that you've painted the sky you could add preprinted paper backdrops, cutting out the sky part. Or paint in hills in the background and just cutout individual buildings and attach them to the backdrop. Check the Walthers catalogue, a lot of choices are available.

Buildings are a lot harder to paint than sky, hills, or mountains because you have to be so precise. You did a great job on the sky and may be a good enough artist to paint buildings, but I've seen otherwise great layouts look kinda silly due to poorly drawn cartoon-like buildings on the backdrop.