I am moving into a new house this weekend. In the basement there is room for me to build an approx. 12’ x 12’ train room. I plan on painting the walls blue for the backdrop. My problem… I can’t find a blue that looks like the sky!
What color have you used? Brand/Name/Product #/etc…
Thanks in advance!! [C=:-)]
AppleBarrel craft paint makes a color called Sky blue. I thought it was perfect. I just happened to have the base colors on hand and mixed my own. You could have any paint store match it for you.
I looked at all the swatches in the paint store and couldn’t find one I liked.
P.S.-Wal Mart, Michaels and Hobby Lobby all sell AppleBarrel brand.
This question really depends on what kind of lighting you have and how it affects the blue. Incandescent, fluorescent, combination of both or whatever. Remember a real blue sky is blue above you, but lightens to almost a blueish white at the horizon and you’ll want to do some blending as you paint from top to bottom. I’de look for more swatches from other stores and see what looks best under your lighting conditions.
Matt
I used True Value to mix mine. Like Matt said above the light does make a difference. I think this color worked for me in incandescent lighting. It is:
Meander # 3753
Color E = 30.5
Color V = 1
Here is what it looks like in my light. 
Good luck,
John
I use a color called ‘Nimble Blue’ from Wal-Mart’s ColorPlace line.
My sky is light brown.
Consider yourself lucky to have a layout room where the ladies of the house let you paint the walls to match your layout’s needs.
Get a bunch of those color chips from the paint store and match them to the sky in your area when it looks like what you want. Match to the sky that is about the same height above the horizon as your backdrop.
In Joe Fugate’s first scenery video he also advocates taking a picture of your local sky and look under layout lighting when you do your match.I short cutted and bought some Crescendo Blue at Walmart he used on his layout so I could get moving. However, my layout lighting is much cooler then his so I will be picking a different color on my next layout now that I have a good color printer to print sky pics to match with. For this one, I plan to haze it up a bit with some white to offset the 6500k lights. Next time I am going to go with 5000k lights I think.
Chris
Given the existing paint you have, Mr. B, you could have modeled around Pittsburgh, PA when the steel mills were still in operation.
What ever color you think the sky is, go lighter. Most people look who want to model sky look up. Look at the horizon. In most places, it is more white than blue.
I happened to be one of the lucky ones, who built my 24’x24’ garage loft with inside stairway exclusively for an around the room HO model railroad The hip roof comes down at an angle to within 28 inches of the top of the layout. I have a SceniKing continuous banner (made up of 7"x12" sequential scenes), around the four walls. The sky blue at the top of each 7"x12" section is uniform in color. I matched the blue with Latex flat blue from the paint store, (as you can see in the enclosed photo). If you do not wish to (or cannot) paint the walls, you might make the background from linen-plastic window shades, that are taped to the wall. I used this techniques to cover the two windows with pull-down window shades.(with scene painted on, or glued to the shades.) Note that this window shade scene blends with the wall on each side. Also, note that one should disguise the vertical to horizontal transition with trees, bridges, lakes, buiildings, or raised tracks (as shown in the other photo of a 2 inch raised N scale track behind the HO track. The background SceniKing hills make this forced perspective, quite believeable.
I used three variations of the same colour, from Walmart. The basic colour, used for the mid-range sky, is Number 67310 - Blue Heaven. I bought a gallon of this, as it makes up the majority of the “sky”. The lower sky, near the horizon, is also from 67310, but has some illegible code numbers written in below (tint additives to the base colour). The name is Windy Sky. For the upper sky, more 67310 was used, with different tints added, called Blue Brook. I bought a quart each of the latter two colours, then applied all with a roller, blending the colours together while still wet. Clouds will be added later.
The light area at the top of the photo below is where a second level of the layout will be attached to the wall:
In my opinion, it’s better to go too light rather than too dark. Most layouts have inadequate lighting levels anyway. My lighting is Cool White fluorescents, in a suspended ceiling - not the best colour choice, but by far the highest light output per watt. The camera corrects for the colour imbalance.
Wayne
Because I wanted to use the Walthers backdrop scenes, and cut the sky off of them, I took a sample of the “sky” from the Walthers backdrop and selected a flat latex paint color to match. I just did it by eye and not with the new laser matching devices they have now. So when I cut the sky off, I didn’t have to cut inside the tree branches or water tower supports etc. It worked out real well for me. I probably should have painted and blended in a slightly darker blue above them, but I didn’t.
The sky is always blue, the sun is always at my back, the trains are plentiful and always run on time, I always have permission to be on the property and I always have plenty of film, soda and snack foods.
What was the question?[:-^]
Find a light baby blue, not unlike the blue in the icons around this text box. That will look after about the top 3-8" of your backdrop, depending on its overall height. Then, you start a series of lighter washes of that original colour until the last 2" near your lowest horizon (if you have a flat horizon) is almost white. If you have hills, the hills should be painted after the sky is done and looks realistic. The hills will them superimpose themselves on the various carefully crafted shades naturally.
This image is only cropped a bit…nothing added or altered in any way. The sky was painted first, then clouds added, then the painted trees or hills. Notice the corner line showing at upper right (edit - D-oh! left) in the image.
First thing first,
I think it looks really goofy and unrealistic when I see blue sky on the horizon of a model layout, especially right behind a building built next to the backdrop, as seen in the May edition of MR. Ask yourself when was the last time you ever saw this effect in real life? Maybe in “Pirates of the Caribeans” when they fall off into another world, but I haven’t seen that scene modeled yet. I think the term I am looking for is “perspective”, and how the 3-D model turns into a 2-D backdrop, which needs more than a blue sky where they meet. And what really looks goofy are clouds at the 10 feet above the horizon. Unless you are modeling a train on Mount Everest, this just doesn’t make sense.
Now for the paint question, I used some blue paint that I used to paint my son’s room and then added white latex primer until I got the right color mix I liked. This isn’t rocket science as some people make it out be. Just mix some paints until you get what you like.
just my $0.02
I used a shade called Cornflower from Wal-Mart’s paint department. Here is an example:
I used a flat spray white to create the clouds and a washed out hazy look near the horizon while the upper part of the backdrop is just the Cornflower blue.
My train room was painted blue long before the layout went in.I considered myself sorta lucky in that it makes a nice “sky” backdrop, though it may really not be an apropriate color of blue.It saves me having to specifically do a backdrop, though I doubt I shall paint any clouds anywhere.
Ironically, and/or for point of reference, it is about exactly almost nearly close to the identical color of the blue foam insulation I used on the layout.
-G
Thanks guys! A lot of great responses. I’ll have to go take a look at the colors suggested and see what looks good. I was also thinking about using white spray paint ‘misted’ on the horizon as suggested. Later on I will possibly paint scenery on the horizon once I get things set.
Benjamin Moore Bayberry Blue, wet blended with white near the horizon.
I work at a retail store where we have a paint department and we mixed paint at one time. I took a quart of white and added a drop or two of blue till I was satisified with what I thought was a prototypical sky.