Im attempting my first backdrop, I put the sky color down and tried at some mountains but im less than satisfied. What are some techniques that you used for backdrops. Im especially interested in your mountain paintings and trees. Are there guides to use for the outlines of mountains and clouds like maybe making a stencils of sorts. Or a line with tape? Any suggestions?
Backdrop Painting Tips?
- Thread starter n1vets333
- Start date
There's a good article that describes how to paint mountains and pine trees at http://www.sierrascalemodels.com/Art_Paint.htm. Try some of the techiques described at http://www.tttrains.com/tips/bkdrp.htm and http://www.tttrains.com/tips/clouds.htm as well. There are cloud stencils you can buy but you'll find you can do as good a job or better using acrylic white and grey paint with the sponge daubing ideas described in MR's "Painting Backdrops for Your Model Railroad". It won't be out until October but I've seen Mike Danneman's work and I'm sure the book will be a big help. Backdrop painting is a little daunting at first but remember the three foot rule. As long as it looks good at three feet away, you've added all the detail you need. 
F
f1_indy2000
Guest
Good post. I went through the backdrop stage last year and read those sites that UP2CSX attached. They are very helpful. If you have a pretty good artistic ability I recomomend looking at clouds and studying in their shapes and shades. What I did was went outside with some paper and pencil and sketched. From there I went down to the basement and started sketching what i saw, then threw white paint and threw in the grays where I thought they needed to be. I still need to work on my horizon, but I guess with all backdrops and scenery you need to have an idea of what you are wanting to present. Is it summer, spring, etc. Where is it, Midwest flat, eastern appalachia, or western rockies or desert? I have one wall that isn't completed and am wanting to put a mountain. Kind of like Look out mountain that sits next to Chattanooga. The way I painted my trees is I just painted the shapes and used darker greens mixed to define what they were versus the surrounding scenery on the wall. Enjoy and have fun with it. Also, after you do a study of the clouds you will look at clouds a little differently .
.
Selector
Well-Known Member
Get out some white cardboard, or buy some bristle board, and practice a couple or four techniques. Try to keep a log of each experiment so that you can duplicate your effort if one of them turns out half to your liking.
Find a light blue, hopefully in the "oops" section of a paint store (wrong mix), and paint a band the length of your backdrop from highest point to below the bench top...on the wall of course. Then mix some white paint of the same type into the batch and paint a swath partway down, parallel to the bench surface, and as it dries, try to feather the top edge into the darker blue first painted. Add more white, and repeat, but start lower. Do this a couple of times and you should have a decent gradient from darker to lighter blue, almost white at the horizon. You can do it, but you must learn that you can do it, and the best way, once again, is to paint up a mock-up first.
For hills, start with a medium green, decant a bit of it and add two or three drops of blue to the smaller portion. Just free-hand some low mountain profiles, but they'll have to be visible in the distance, so they'll be highest on your backdrop. Mix em up...if you goof, you can paint over it. Then paint lower mountains in front of the first with the medium green. When that dries, add lower hills with a wee bit of yellow mixed into the original green.
For clouds, take a piece of thin stiff cardboard (cereal box?) and cut out a hole with irregular edges that you can easily put your hand through. Hold that stencil about three inches in front of the backdrop (well above the mountains please) and give short bursts of a white spray can held about 4-6" in front of the edges of the cut-out portion. Rotate the stencil to get a variety, and try super-imposing some of the shapes to creat larger clouds.
Practice first.
Here is my first ever backrop. It doesn't look nearly as good from 4 feet away, but it looks half decent in an image. Surprised the heck out of myself.
Find a light blue, hopefully in the "oops" section of a paint store (wrong mix), and paint a band the length of your backdrop from highest point to below the bench top...on the wall of course. Then mix some white paint of the same type into the batch and paint a swath partway down, parallel to the bench surface, and as it dries, try to feather the top edge into the darker blue first painted. Add more white, and repeat, but start lower. Do this a couple of times and you should have a decent gradient from darker to lighter blue, almost white at the horizon. You can do it, but you must learn that you can do it, and the best way, once again, is to paint up a mock-up first.
For hills, start with a medium green, decant a bit of it and add two or three drops of blue to the smaller portion. Just free-hand some low mountain profiles, but they'll have to be visible in the distance, so they'll be highest on your backdrop. Mix em up...if you goof, you can paint over it. Then paint lower mountains in front of the first with the medium green. When that dries, add lower hills with a wee bit of yellow mixed into the original green.
For clouds, take a piece of thin stiff cardboard (cereal box?) and cut out a hole with irregular edges that you can easily put your hand through. Hold that stencil about three inches in front of the backdrop (well above the mountains please) and give short bursts of a white spray can held about 4-6" in front of the edges of the cut-out portion. Rotate the stencil to get a variety, and try super-imposing some of the shapes to creat larger clouds.
Practice first.
Here is my first ever backrop. It doesn't look nearly as good from 4 feet away, but it looks half decent in an image. Surprised the heck out of myself.
Last edited by a moderator:
