[NOTE: I thought I had posted this thread earlier, but I couldn’t find it, so I’m posting it now - if this is a redundant post I apologize!]
Q: What can modeler do for a backdrop when they are (1) short on time and (2) have only 12-18 inches of layout surface to work with?
A: Throw some latex paint on a sheet of blue extruded foam insulation (a.k.a. MDF).
A few months ago I got a half-dozen sheets of this stuff to have a more natural-looking background and hide some ugly garage shelves with all their clutter. Then I painted-on some ‘trees’ - or should I say, splotches of green paint that resemble the edge of a forest. I saw fellow modeler “cheese3” do this on his layout, said he got the idea from watching a TV artist named Bob Ross. As for me, I used to do landscape oil paintings this way during my college days. In any case, this was a cheaper solution than buying several hundred dollar$ worth of Woodland Scenics foilage clumps - especially since I had a leftover $60 gift certificate for my local hardware store, might as well put that to good use!
Here are some of the materials and tools I used: Medium and light shades of green latex paint (also black which isn’t pictured), a round 1" brush, a natural sea sponge to apply paint for the ‘foliage’ effect, and a disposable paint roller tray for pre-squeezing excess paint from the sponge.
To figure out the correct shades of green to use, I brought some fragments of Woodland Scenics ‘foliage’ in both medium and light shades of green and held them up against the various green paint color ‘swatches’ in the HW store.
The next three photos illustrate my forest-painting technique on a sample chunk of MDF.
First, apply a base coat of black to simulate the lower, shadowy areas…
[IMG]http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e182/CSX_road_slug/LayoutUnderCons