I was browsing thru the local Teacher’s supply store and found an easy background for my layout until I can get artistic and pint up one of my own-- Bulletin board paper, in a sky pattern! it came in a 4’x12’ roll which I cut into three 16" strips 12 ft long. It was about $8 for the roll. I admit the repettitive pattern is completely un-realistic, but beats the snot out of having the bare (in my case) Brown painted sheetrock walls as a background.
Earl
Sounds like an improvement. Of course we’ve had a couple of days lately that the sky was just BLUE, no clouds, little variation in color. I know you have yours in place, but would it have been possible to cut it at some other point (other than the end of the roll) to get at least a slight variation in the pattern?
Have fun,
I recently added some clouds to my drywall blue painted backdrop as follows. I bought a set of stencil brushes which are round foam type brushes. The pack I purchased has three sizes with the largest having about a 3/4 to 1" diameter surface on the bottom. Got some white acryllic paint, squirted a little on the bottom and began painting clouds in a swirly type motion. Larger clouds at the top and smaller near the bottom. I did not overdo it because I just wanted something simple to add some interest and realism to my sky. The swirly motion and the fact that it did not completely cover the area in white made a believable cloud. Not too dramatic and probably not realistic enough for some but it works for me.
Mark
For me, it was a quick and easy beginning. I later stippled on some “dirty” white that matched the existing clouds on the print and joined a few whispy’s together to get a bigger cloud. Then painted some trees at the bottom to make a horizon line. Improvements to the original. Just yesterday though, the clouds outside were just about the same formation as the backdrop. Life copying art?
Here are a couple of shots of my cloud paper mock ups. I had this stuff laying around that my wife had picked up and was excited about me using it on my layout. Her contribution so to speak. So I mocked up a little scene with some backdrop structures and some track and rolling stock just placed on top of the homasote. This section of the railroad will eventually have an upper deck which will be right at the bottom of the cloud paper line. Keeping that in mind and if one were to imagine the windows of the buildings not being painted over or interiors placed inside so as not to be able to see the clouds right through the structures and if something maybe a tress or a cut out of some sort were placed in between structures to obscure the clouds seen there it may not look all that bad. After all how much of it do you really see in a setting like this where the sky has a limit so to speak. I guess it’s no different then using some of the photo backdrops of clouds sol commercially. It’s just the repetitiveness that bothered me so I opted to just use my cloud stencils and the airbrush. As soon as I get a round to it.
Sorry, Allegheny, but the backdrop looks like “wallpaper” because of the clouds’ uniformity.
If I had clouds, I’d want them to look something like this:
Mark (who will probably end up with a blue background and, if fortunate, with some haze)
I like the clouds.
Mark,
No apology necessary that why I scraped the idea for myself but figured if someone could get something out of it what the heck. Another one of “the wife’s contributions” were these little stick on things you put on the walls of kids rooms called Wallie’s They are stick on clouds about 6" across that are hopelessly fake looking…lol but she meant well I don’t plan on using them for my layout but figured I would make use of them and all the other stuff not suited for a ah hum serious model railroad (said tongue in cheek) on my son’s HO layout that will be out in his 12x24’ playhouse we have for him in the backyard. Hey if Styrofoam tunnels and cloud paper bring the wow factor to a little kids face thats all that matters to me.
When driving along the bayfront with a clear view 200 degree plus around, I noticed some particular about cloud perspective. Straight overhead, they are big and smaller when they are far away and near the horizon. But also, as the view approaches the horizon, one is looking more “flat” across the underside of the plane of clouds. They tend visually to clump all close together in front of each other, like a telephote picture of telephone poles that look that they are placed 2 feet apart when looked at “endwise.”
I tried to capture this cloud perspective on my background, with looks of small cloud “structure” all running together into a haze near the horizon, and getting bigger and more inhdividual higher on the BG.
I am not as satisfied with this one: 
All clouds are from “rattle-can.”
Now, those are lookin’ like real clouds. [tup]
Mark