Advanced backdrop painting

Backdrop painting is one of my favorite parts of this hobby. Probably the highest form of this art is practiced in museum dioramas. I highly recommend the following two links for more information on this subject.

First is an essay about the Yale Peabody Museum Dioramas

 Painting Actuality: Diorama Art of James Perry Wilson

The essay in the above link is not complete, but even in its incomplete state, the information on color theory and perspective is invaluable.

The second link is to a video from the National History Museum of Los Angeles that discusses their diorama and backdrop design and construction.

I like how the artist uses his hand as a mask for airbrushing clouds. Again, note the emphasis on realism. Make sure you watch part 2 for leaf and tree making technique tips (at least for full scale models.)

The consensus I get from both these sources is that a realistic backdrop greatly enhances a diorama. Since model railroads are basically moving dioramas, I believe we can learn a lot from studying this art form. In summary,  I am in the photo-realistic (but not photos camp) of backdrop execution. This quote from Wilson essay summarizes my view,

       It might be well to remember that the purpose of an exhibit is not to furnish its makers with a vicarious total recall of where they have been, but to communicate some of the lessons and excitement of the location to others who have not seen the site and therefore respond from a totally different premise.  In short, let us remember to speak to our visitors and not to ourselves.

Finally, I found the following discussion from the Wilson essay apropos. It reminds me of the freelance versus prototype debate we get in model railroading,

     Other artists acknowledged that some of this academic knowledge was useful while painting, but that it must remain secondary to the artist's interpretation of the landscape. John Carlson, Wilson's one-time painting instructor wrote: 

      "Nature is never right" I would modify this by saying that nature is seldom right. The artist must look to nature for his inspiration but must rearrange the elemental truths into an orderly sequence or progression of interests.  

     This is a theme heard repeatedly by landscape painters past and present. According to prevailing theory, merely copying nature produces inferior results. They would take their studies made on-site back to their studios to rework them into larger canvases. Wilson, if he ever made a larger painting from one of his studies, he would enlarge it using a grid and make a direct copy. The on-site paintings were documents of landscape phenomena observed, color notated, contours found, atmosphere harnessed, light translated. This was why he painted; there was no further need for refinement. Wilson, in his quiet manner, challenged the claim that the artist can inspire better results by sensitively reworking the scene in front of them. Wilson, in contrast, chose the landscape over the artist.

Primed and Ready

I got a chance to paint the first coat of primer on the new backdrop tonight after doing some Christmas shopping. The primer revealed a couple places where a touch of more spackle will be needed, but overall I am pleased with the job of feathering the mud into the 1/8th inch thick hardboard.  It won't be long before I can start painting the new backdrop scene.

Primed sky board. Note the cardboard mock-up of the engine house down at the future site of the wye.
The peninsula is 14 feet long.

Here is a study for a potential sky treatment for the new backdrop.  I drew this in Photoshop.  I only added the sky, clouds, river and far shore. The final backdrop will  have ships, boats and some other detail. I think the dark cloud will work in perspective from most of the likely photo angles.  What do you think?

Photoshop study of a potential backdrop sky treatment. From this angle the recessed room light looks a little like the sun.

Perry, Renedra and TA Miniatures (1/56th scale)

Thanks to Brian Kammerer's tip, I started hunting around the web and discovered that a couple of related UK firms are releasing a broad range of 28mm (they also call them 1/56 scale) figures and accessories. The exact relationship of the firms is not clear to me but they seem to share sculpting from the Perry brothers and Tim Adcock. The lines include artillery, limbers, caissons, forges, ambulances and camp scenes.  These figures will be smaller than my 1/48th and 1/43rd figures, but the variety is great.

Camp Scene from Renedra (TA) Miniatures. They
offer tents and several figure poses.

I ordered a batch of camp scenes sets from Renedra Miniatures (though the URL takes you to TA Miniatures) for evaluation. These sets includes tents, camp furniture and figures in off-duty relaxed poses. I have several scenes where smaller figures can be used as background for forced perspective, so I am hoping these work out.

Check out these links:

Perry Miniatures

Renedra Minatures

The Wet Bar

I've been building the new benchwork over the past two weeks in between holiday chores and attending my daughters college Graduation! Congratulations to Danica! Way to go!

During the initial bench work construction for the peninsula, my wife came downstairs with her laptop connected to Skype. She was having a video telecon with her mom and dad. They wanted to see what I was doing. It was hard to explain what it was going to be, so I said, "just imagine a wet bar." Hence the new nickname for the Yuba Dam peninsula for the layout.

Here are two photos showing the construction progress so far.

This is view that you get as you come down the stairs and look toward the layout to your left front.
The hardboard strips on the floor will be the fascia trim pieces.
I haven't decided what color to paint the wet bar.

The sky board will take several coats of spackle to blend the edges into the wall.  The sky board is glued to the sheet rock and has two rows of screws on each end, one into studs and one into sheet rock anchors. The middle is not screwed. I am hoping this construction will allow the center to "float" and thus not crack at the edges as it expands with temperature and humidity changes. I am using Red Devil One Time lightweight spackling. This dries fast and remains somewhat flexible over time.

This closer view shows the benchwork for Burnside Wharf, the coved harboard skyboard and the planned
water surface for the Yuba Dam.

The wet bar creates a neat appearance and opens up a vast storage area under the layout. That made Alicia very happy.  I elected not to put legs under the Burnside Wharf area as I prefered the more open look.

Once the sky board is done with spackling, the whole back wall will be painted with the Potomac River scene.

While the spackle was drying, I added some base scenery in the Clairborne Creek area. I'm trying to get some finished scenes while construction continues elsewhere.

Prototype Rails 2011 at Cocoa Beach

I will be attending the Prototype Rails 2011 meet at the Cocoa Beach Hilton on 6-9 January. The core of this meet are the excellent clinics from some of the best known model railroaders in the US. I am honored to be included and will be presenting an updated version of my talk called, "An Introduction to Modeling the Railroads of the American Civil War." I plan to have some of my models on display.   I will also have signed copies of my books if you would like to get a signed copy.


If you are attending the show, or are in the area, please stop by and say hello.  The web link for the show is http://prototyperails.com/