Well, I suppose–[%-)][:-^]–
-but what happens when you have some poor guffer who has a superrealistic talent when it comes to modelling but apparently is a 3 year old when it comes to painting backdrop?[:-,][:-^]—I’d rather do photographic backdrop than see what appears to be a 3 year old’s painting of a backdrop-[:-^]—I think the transition would be a bit—um—abrupt[sigh]
Topic diversion Warning:
Sedum straight from the stem is indeed too flat to make a realistic tree. However, if you take a moment to break apart the stems then glue them together to create a multi-tiered crown, it works quite well…
For me the scenery is there as more of a stage set. There’s a lot missing from my scenes. What drives me wild is roads, tracks and other major scenic elements that run parallel to the table edge. I don’t know why, it just bugs me.
Another thing is impossible engineering feats like retaining walls that are 100’ vertical drops, or two tunnel bores that are right on top of one another in an obvious attempt to hide a loop or something. Sometimes you can’t avoid stuff like that, but there are better ways of disguising them…
Lee
The worlds only weed farm?
**Lee-**I would say the top photo is what a ‘Plane’ tree --in southern Europe–would look more like. We, however, need to do them closer to bottom------[swg]
It is odd but in this fellows case I’ve seen—it definitely makes for a chin stroking—hmmmn[:-^][sigh]
Then again, is it possible he could be doing a abstractionist’s poke at us?[:-,]
I’ve seen it in many, many instances. Layouts are built by people accustomed to and skilled at working in three dimensions. Painting a backdrop is two dimensional. Those are two entirely different skill sets.
If one doesn’t like photo backdrops, a clear blue sky can always be used - it never detracts.
One of the greatest advantages of mountain scenery is that it can hide track in tunnels and behind mountain cliff view blocks. It is very hard to do this when one is modeling the midwest corn belt. Some of the more famous model railroaders including John Allen, Malcolm Furlow and most of the 3 foot Colorado narrow gaugers really knew how to use their mountainous terrains to create spectacular scenes and great track work designs. When I first started to model the Klamath Falls branch of the SP in the area around 14,000 ft. Mt. Shasta, I thought I could do it in a small space with a lot of view blocks until I actually visited the area and realized that the surrounding area was basically a 4,000 ft high planes desert with no need for tunnels and the 45 degree rule really became a challenge. Peter Smith, Memphis
…or a three year old modeller with respect to his/her talent using a photographic backdrop scene…that does not compute, either.
Having said that, I must say some photographic backdrops work very well when they are placed properly, and matched in terms of angle of view, with the “scenery” in front of them. Quite often, the two don’t match. The scenery falls toward the backdrop, but the backdrop shows mostly sky…where it couldn’t possibly be!
A master at coordinating a photographic backdrop with his three dimensional modeling was Cliff Powers on his Magnolia Line. As noted in this post, this takes a lot of skill to make it work right. ( Cliff has been previously feature in MR and Great Model Railroads.) http://magnoliaroute.com/magnolia%20route.htm Peter Smith, Memphis
wm3798-- Great idea for sedum and/or shorten them. The 100’ walls are not too nifty as are the 3 layered tracks on rock walls, I think they refer to them as wedding cake scenes. Along with fat gorilla-like figures in shiny clothing ½ way up the side of a locomotive,referred to as gumby figures.
I’d agree there on all points
Shorten them and bunch them as per the second picture
The CN doubletrack west of TO comes up the Niagara Escarpment by Dundas ON–I’m not sure of the incline but it is something—You can hear everything just hammering away going up that incline I’ll say–
Or anywhere—Spandex wearers—
I second the shiny “spandex clothing”…and just people in general…they never look real for some strange reason…
Note to self:
Never open my model railroad to other model railroaders.
Well, that’s one way to never get any objective eyes on one’s work and assumptions. Personally, as much as it is sometimes delivered unartfully, criticism given discretely can help a person to see something about their opus that just doesn’t seem to work, or to fit. Not long ago, Driline mentioned in passing that my tall grass needed some work, and on another forum a person pointed out that my white utility pole insulators never existed. Both were good information to have since it helped me to generate a better product. I actually sprayed some figurines with Dull Coat around Christmas time because I knew continuing to image them as shiny ceramic dolls wasn’t doing the rest of my work justice. I still have to fix the grass, and my poles are now a sort of jade green.
Almost no one posting here has perfect images. There are flaws in all that I see, and others surely see some that I don’t. But, we still have fun and compliment and encourage one another with what we get right.
This thread is a gentle reality check, to me…
My N scale people are now bought unpainted and I just paint them with flat acrylic craft paints—don’t have dulcoat issues—[:-^]—and my insulators are the usual black/dk brown(which I have somewhere in the basement—[swg]
That’s right. You’ll won’t ever see a prototype railroad that goes directly from a tunnel and then onto a bridge, and not along the side of a cliff either.
Mark
Oh really? Better check that out: http://www.insulators.info/porcelain/color.htm Down near the bottom of the page.
While they were not common in many parts, they most certainly did exist. We had a couple hanging around on the farm that I grew up on. They were broken ones that had been removed from the line poles on our road by the farm. We used them as paper weights in the milk house. Line pole insulators came in a huge amount of different colors. The guy who told you that isn’t the guy over across the street who knows everything about everything but doesn’t think that facts need to be involved is it??? [:-^][(-D]
Sometimes, response time of the forum’s servers is waaay off. Most of the time, it’s OK, though.
Glad to see you’re still with us, Mark.
OK, OK. It is just a model. I thought my rock tinting and tree/brush making turned out well. I lost count on how many Preiser figures I used.
Mark