Background buildings

[Davidfd85]

I am using two back ground buildings on my layout and have a bit of a problem. I have the Walthers Heritage furnture factory and the River City textiles buildings but they are not set against a wall or back drop. They are set on a side track with my mainline running behind them. What can I use to block the windows because you can see right through them to the room wall. Should I just cover them with black paper or something, or is there some interior pictures I can use to cover them? They have to be black and white pictures because I don't have access to a color printer. Any ideas on what I can do?

Thanks

[NH Mike]

Black paper will work. For variety you could randomly paint the back side of a few windows with dullcoat which will give the look of frosted glass. Small sheets of brick styrene in place of a window here and there shows some changes to the building over the years. Blocked windows make the most sense on a ground floor. City Classics has sheets of colored curtains and drapes, not quite correct for a commercial type building but I'm just tossing out a few ideas.

[Secondhandmodeler]

In background buildings I added black foam core backs to the buildings. It helped cover the painted backdrop and adds structural support. Yours being away from a wall would probably benefit from some sort of rear wall anyway. Otherwise, just adding black paper to the windows would help quit a bit. If you go that route, I would try to frost the glass some how. Maybe give the whole building a shot of dull coat.

[Shortliner2001]

Here in UK, many items of supermarket pre-packed meat and bacon are sold in shiny, black-plastic trays - replace the window glazing with plastic cut from these added behind the window frame in place of the glazing

[Railphotog]

I've used black electrical tape to darken windows in a few of my lighted buildings.

[trailrider]

I have glazed the windows with clear plastic that has been "painted" with a blue permanent marker on the side away from the front of the building. I "scribble" the broad tip marker diagonally across the glazing, UNEVENLY, and all in the same orientation (lower left to upper right or visa versa, just so they are all the same orientation). This gives the impression of reflection from the sky. If you want some sunlight, you can put a spot of yellow or maybe a swath across the front of the window material. You do the painting BEFORE installing the glazing.

[NYW&B]

I've employed a couple of different approaches.

The first is as Secondhand Modeler suggests, using black foamcore to create a rear wall.

On some of my low relief models, after the foamcore rear wall is installed, I make up a sheet of stiff paper on which I've colored in (with colored pencil) a series of irregular shapes. This is placed insider the builing about 1 inch in from the windows. This approach will give the impression of storage, or perhaps machinery, inside the building, adding to the structure's interest to the viewer.

NYW&B

[Charles Smiley]

I'm surprised that there isn't a set of building interiors for sale to cut up and install behind model window frames. Factory machinery and warehouse scenes would be appreciated.

Especially for things like grocery stores and hardware stores of the 1950s era. Perhaps they would need to come on a CD-rom and be scaleable for users to print out.

[Larry]

Originally Posted by Charles Smiley

I'm surprised that there isn't a set of building interiors for sale to cut up and install behind model window frames. Factory machinery and warehouse scenes would be appreciated.

Especially for things like grocery stores and hardware stores of the 1950s era. Perhaps they would need to come on a CD-rom and be scaleable for users to print out.

There is a CD out that you can use for all kinds of interiors, signs, decal patterns, etc. & it shows you how to change the scales. I don't know who sells it, but I see it on Ebay all the time & sometimes it's advertised in the MRR mags.

[Charles Smiley]

I think this may be the one you're thinking of.
http://www.theliquidateher.com/window-designer.html

The buildings look OK for backgrounds but in the foreground the window treatments look a bit cartoon-like.

I took photos of real curtains and also found some curtain ads in online and printed dept. store catalogs that were easy to scale in Photoshop. They feature nice shadows that define the pleats and folds and give more depth to the window scenes.

This farmhouse has all photos from curtain catalogs.
http://s1083.photobucket.com/albums/...RM-WINDOWS.jpg