Too late for Sunday Photo Fun (or too early for next week’s), but here goes. Click on photos to enlarge.
Below are some quick photos of our first backdrop. I painted the rough side of 1/8" masonite with house paint and acryllic craft paint. All colors are mixed on a palette from a few primary colors. I was amazed at the depth it gives our layout. This one is 4.5 feet long. The next 2 will be 8 feet and 10.5 feet long. Yikes!
The first photo shows a styrofoam hill I made to keep speeding trains from leaving the table. It sits right up against the backdrop, as does another hill on the opposite side (see photo 3).
The next photo shows a view of the backdrop in relation to the farm. I was fortunate enough to match the painting’s grass with the ground foam grass on our layout.
Someone had asked about making stone walls from lightweight materials in another thread. The wall around the farm is just 1" pink foam board, scribed with a pencil.
The last photo is a wider shot that shows the other styrofoam hill. The painted trees really blend in well with the ones “planted” on the hill. After seeing this photo, I’ve decided the farm needs more trees surrounding it to screen the trains better. We are trying to mix realism with a toy-ish look. Not sure what that approach is called, but as you can see, the farm does have a toy-like appearance.
Thanks, boys. Thor, I am trying to get up the nerve to paint the FasTrack ballast. I know absolutely that it will look much better painted, but as of now, I’m not ready to deface it in the name of realism. Call me gutless.
Latex-based paint would work and you could clean up any mistakes. One way to do it would be to brush reddish-brown paint over the entire track and roadbed in a small section. Then, quickly wipe off the tops of the rails and ties and sprinkle a thin layer of fine ballast. The wet paint would act like glue, holding the ballast in place (you could always spray glue on).
Maybe just take a piece of fasttrack and try it. The advantage would be ballast and rusty rail sides.
Having said that, the fasttrack without the treatment looks good, in a sort of art-deco way, but since you already hi-railed the scenery, you might opt for the track treatment.
Thanks for the tip. I’m not afraid of it looking bad so much as I am of ruining the resale value of the track, should the need come to sell off. Kinda like how no one weathers their Lionel locos or freight cars. Who’s going to buy painted FasTrack? On the other hand, it’s not a fortune to be had either.
Jim, Backdrop looks terrific, you must have some artistic talent. Wish I could paint like that.
I have to settle for preprinted backdrop. It is a pain to glue to masonite, like hanging wallpaper trying to match the edges. The stuff I got from Walthers is actually German countryside although no one but me knows it. I just posted my latest effort over on the coffee pot.
I think the Fastrack looks pretty good, compared to traditional, it looks very good.
Thanks! I just saw your backdrop over on the coffee pot thread. It looks great! Looks like a partly cloudy day on your layout. German countryside is fine by me. I love european scenery - especially Loren and Bardo! I wish I could help you with the glueing issues, but I don’t have any experience there.
I’m going to buy a straight section of FasTrack and experiment with painting it. If I like the looks of it, I’ll do the whole layout. Resale schmeesale!
Thanks, Gil. Your coal structure is coming out just incredible. Our layout is set in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, but I didn’t paint from any reference photos. Just slapped the paint on and hoped for the best. I tried to get cute by painting the birch tree in the foreground.
On some other threads there’s been metion of the textured paints. If you can find the right color for ballast that might be an option for the Fastrack.
Jim, that is really a nice backdrop as is the rest of it. You need not make any apologies for the tree, I just wish I could make one look that real. Your gifted!
