Aquia Landing Backdrop

Before going with the computer printed backdrop, I thought I would take a crack at hand painting it. If this didn't work out, then I could go to the computer backdrop. Sticking with hand painting means the whole layout would have a unified look, which may be a good thing.

Here are some in progress shots.


I am pleased with how it is turning out so far. I like the ability to control the backdrop-modeled terrain junction by hand painting.

My clouds are not as good as computer printed ones, but they do add a sense of depth.

At the left is the in-progress view as you walk into the workshop where Aquia Landing is located.

I painted the far shore a bit closer than it should be on the north end, but it vanishes off in the distance as it goes south. The Potomac is 3 miles wide at Aquia Landing, so the distant shore really should only be a thin line.




The boats are cut out from computer prints, then touched up to blend into the scene by adding the rigging, smoke, reflections and other details as needed.

Controlling the perspective with cut-out boats is not as easy as when laying it out as one whole image in Photoshop. Once you make the cut-out, you can't rescale it or distort to change the prespective.

I am pleasantly surprised at how the hand painted rigging looks - better than I expected. Not having to trim all the rigging saves a lot of painstaking work.

I have been using smaller boats than I had originally designed. I may add some larger ones next.