The best ways to add ground cover to a layout and blend it all together?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

What are the best ways to blend the scenery to match the Pennsylvania hillsides and rolling mountains.

Thanks,
Greg

2

Hello Greg,

That’s can be a rather tough question to answer as the scenery in the Pennyslvania hills/mountain areas actually varies, however it sounds like you’re looking for a “generalized appearance”.

[1]Go to www.AllenKeller.com Excellent video series!
Checkout Volume 37 which features a beautiful layout in the Pennsylvania region. The scenery videos also available would likely be very helpful to you.

[2] Another option: If I’m not mistaken, Tony Koester, who has a column in Model Railroader Magazine, has a layout based on that area of the U.S. Throughout the years, his layout has shown up repeatedly in the magazine. The scenery is TOP NOTCH! If no one here can help you, contact mrmag@mrmag.com and request that you would like to contact Tony for the info you just mentioned.

Since I am more of a visual learner, media material like Videos, DVDs, and photographs are most helpful to me.

God Bless & cheers !

3

That’s a pretty broad and vague question. Are you talking about blending the 3D portion of the layout with the backdrop?

There are many ways to create realistic scenes on a model railroad. Forced perspective is an interesting tool. There can be places where you want the viewer to feel close to the trains, in which the sky may not even be visible in the scene. At other times the train may be running through the wide open spaces across flat ground, in which case you need to cram miles of vision into a few inches.

One secret is that no matter how clear the air seems, the farther away things are from the viewer, the more white they become. It is very difficult to make a hard line transition from 3D to backdrop look good. It is much easier to force the prespective so that the 3D scenery rolls away behind a hill just in front of the backdrop. This allows you to start a new hill with paint, adding white as the distance gets larger.

4

I bought the walthers backdrops, but have not installed them yet. I have the rolling hills and mountains and the city. I have the layout built with track down and two small mountains built on each side of the layout. Room is a 11 x 14 room using only 2 and a half walls.

Thanks.