Backdrop at Mason Park Bridge

[Gary S]

Thanks Gus. I'm headed out to the train room right now.

[P5se Camelback]

... Now biL, I've got the feeling you don't really need this thread for doing your backdrop! ...

... but I spent a 35-year career representing pieces of molded plastic, formed steel and "engineered wood product," all "hard edge," man-made objects, primarily with markers, powdered pastel chalks, colored pencils and a few judiciously-placed dots of Dr. Martin's "Bleed-Proof" White on sheets of paper specially produced to accept marker well!

Except for the occasional stylized potted plant drawn in the corner of a "room" or small house plant placed on a shelf on the pretense of knocking the edge off an otherwise "sterile, unlived-in looking" environment, I have not tried to represent anything from Mother Nature, nor used brush and paint since my days at Philadelphia College of Art in the early seventies!

(Using pin-striping daggers or applying paint to LPB's doesn't count 8-) )

I'll need all the help I can get :!:

Knowing what to do and knowing how to do it are two very different things!

[Sumpter250]

"I'll need all the help I can get :!:
Knowing what to do and knowing how to do it are two very different things!"

Practice, Practice, Practice, Practise, Practice.........That much won't make perfect, but it will make "good enough for Government work"

[Gary S]

Desire and motivation... and practice.

Here is the scene right now. Backdrop water still too dark, will let it sit awhile before I go back to it, and will work on the 3D scenery at a later date.

Thanks for following along everyone, it was fun!

   

[faraway]

Gary, that is looking very good. To a certain degree is water surface most time not all even colored. Shadows of clouds, different ground sand/mud and deeper/shallow water change the optical appearance.
Your sample looks like there are a lot of dark plant growing under the water surface in the back. Have a look, you will find them

[Paulman]

Desire and motivation... and practice.

Here is the scene right now. Backdrop water still too dark, will let it sit awhile before I go back to it, and will work on the 3D scenery at a later date.

Thanks for following along everyone, it was fun!

Looking good, Gary!

The darker coloration on the water looks a bit like what you'd see if a cloud was passing overhead. (I wonder if anyone has ever modeled that...)

[dave_long]

Gary that is seriously good.
Water colours vary with differing heights, if you were railfanning that bridge you'd be looking up from the river bank right? Try taking a photo at river bank level looking under the bridge and it may look right, but then your layout height means you will always look down as per the photo.

Dave

[Gary S]

Thanks for the comments, gentlemen. I've been toying with the idea of tinting the water-based gloss varnish with a bit of white, and using that to lighten the backdrop water. Perhaps I even need to put on some of the gel medium that was used on the layout water surface for the ripples?

[Charlie B]

Gary it looks so good I hesitate to comment but I think you need a little light blue and green to blend the backdrop water in. I'll play with it to see what it takes if you don't mind.
Charlie

[Charlie B]

Gary, I put this in Photo shop elements, and the shade is perfect. It needs lightened about 10%. I don't know how much trouble you would get in with a white wash. worse case would be add some white to the original color. Paint sure is harder to adjust color then a photo.

[P5se Camelback]

Looking at Charlie B's Photo Shopped image, it occurs to me that at this point, maybe you might try bringing a bit of the backdrop color down onto the horizontal surface and "fade it forward," if I may play on those words. 8-)

[nachoman]

That's just an overall good scene. I think the philosophy for many backdrops is "don't be a distraction". Some people really aren't looking to "extend" their layout, they just want something unobtrusive that doesn't dominate the scene. But I think you are getting to the point where the backdrop truly adds something to the scene and extends your layout as part of the scenery itself. One of the reasons I shy away from around-the-walls layouts is that I rarely see a backdrop I am truly satisfied with. But your backdrop threads have changed my mind in that a backdrop can be a layout enhancement, when before I always thought of them as a neutral at best.

[Charlie B]

Kevin, Gary has taken all of this layout to the upper levels. I will be happy to get to the first floor. (I'm still in the basement).
Charlie

[Gary S]

Again, I want to thank everyone for the compliments on the painting and the commentary on the water.

Now, if I had it to do over, I would probably take Reinhard's comments and vary the color of the water here and there just a bit. That would most likely help camoflage the line between the horizontal water and the vertical water.

Charlie B, thanks for the color testing. I am surprised how much lighter the vertical water needs to be as compared to the horizontal water. I am to the point where the water color needs to be about 60% of the original green, and about 40% white. That is a huge difference, and is of course, because of the light reflecting off the horizontal water making it much lighter than it really is. I am going to give a wash a try first though.

biL, you may be right on blending the vertical color onto the horizontal. I am noticing a darker reflection on the horizontal water from the vertical water. But if I continue lightening the vertical, it may negate the dark reflection.

Kevin, your comments are very much appreciated. In person, it looks better than the photo. The camera focused on the bridge and left the background a tad blurry. Even though conventional wisdom says to do the backdrop without detail so it isn't a distraction, I am thinking that the very low horizon lends itself to more detail, simply because it doesn't overwhelm the layout as a higher horizon could.

Again, you guys have helped me tremendously, and I'm feeling really good about the scene right now.

[ocalicreek]

I am thinking that the very low horizon lends itself to more detail, simply because it doesn't overwhelm the layout as a higher horizon could.

Now there's a point worth chewing on for a while. I think some of the more impressive 'extend the layout' backdrop tricks I've seen lately were in the recent Kalmbach extra about modeling in small spaces or something like that. Jim Six's layout, the Maumee Route (can't think of the builder off hand) and Tony Koester's NKP all had great backdrop scenes, and all are midwestern, 'wide-open-spaces' themed layouts.

I've got Joe Fugate's Tenmile Creek scenery series downloaded and his scenery is mostly mountainous, plus his backdrops are far less detailed but the distance painting techniques are the same. The horizon line is higher, giving you the feeling of being up in the mountains. Joe is a tall guy and his layout is multi-level (mushroom design) with grades and elevation changes, so I'd be interested to know more about how he figures his horizon in order to paint on mountain ridges and valleys.

Anyway, it's great to see the bayou scene progress to this point. Looking forward to more!

Galen