Basic Terrain and Backdrop Coloring

The Muddy Creek bridge is a forested and swampy area. 

I painted the scenery today. Since we are using wood ties for the track, the terrain under the ties must be painted before installing the ties. So using a mix of burnt sienna, golden brown, brunt umber and trusty C&O Mountain Sub green, I gave the terrain a basic coloring. Before I did that I painted the blue sky with a few clouds as I didn't want to drip blue paint on the painted scenery. C&O Mountain Sub green is a grayish green color I have used on many of my previous modules and layouts. It works very well with the scenic materials from Woodland Scenics and others.

The overall layout depicts a scene on the Tennessee River, so I used some photos from that area to get ideas for the backdrop. I painted a distant ridge line on the backdrop. I haven't decided how the foreground of the backdrop will be painted. Much of it will not be visible once the structures are installed, so I may wait until they are done to see what works best.

It is amazing what a difference the backdrop makes. I also noted that the LED lighting is very effective with the brighter backdrop. They are working out just fine. It is starting to look like a layout!

I placed a depot from my home layout on the Road Show to get an idea of how things will look.

Testing one of Brian's backdrops behind the depot. This building is also from my layout
and is a stand in for now. The water battery is in the foreground.