.................................. Return to Sumner's Home Page....

Return to N Scale RR Main Menu........... Return to Building UP's Canyon Division Menu

=========================================

...............Previous Page.............................Next Page If There Is One

=========================================

…...……………..........--- Sawmill Backdrop Part 1 ---=======================================

On to painting backdrops…..

I’ll start with the hardest and get it out of the way and probably end up with someone else painting it. Actually I did paint some clouds on another back drop ( HERE ) but will probably redo those and the mountains by them.

I want to use our mountains that are just north of town for the sawmill scene. I hope to end up with it looking like the base of the mountains start not far from the mill, closer that what the mountains look like above. To do that I wanted them to be fairly high on the back drop. I took the picture above about 3 miles south of our house, we are on the south end of town and the town is only 2 miles long (4000 people).

To get the height I wanted and restricted by the width of the backdrop two sections of the photo were cut out and….…

….. the photo pieced back together. So already the mountains on the layout won’t be exactly like what we have.

Measurements were taken off the print and multiplied by 3, as it is 1/3 the width of the backdrop, and the tops of 6 peaks were plotted on the backdrop.

Then the outline of the peaks were sketched in as best I could. At this point I was pretty happy with how things were going.

I started watching some videos of painting mountains but didn’t really find one where the end result was what I was hoping for. Lots of different painting styles. I’m not trying to have it to look just like the photo. I want a touch of snow on the tops of the peaks only. Looking for it to look like one of the first snows of the fall with some dark moody clouds also.

I’m having a hard time getting the look and colors I would like but will keep plugging away and maybe have someone repaint it in the future if I can find that someone.

The backdrop has a fairly large curve to it and I noticed that if I take pictures of it the image looks different on the opposite sides of the curve. Look at the right and left mountains above and compare their shapes and how they appear above and ……

….. this image above. Above the right mountain appears narrower and the left mountain wider. I don’t notice this when actually viewing the backdrop. Some is probably due to the camera in a slightly wide angle mode also.

Getting close with about 2 feet to go. The backdrop is about 6 feet wide.

.

Left side of the backdrop, west end of the Abajo Mountains (also called the ‘Blues’) north of town.

.

Put some of the sawmill scene together above to get a feel for how it might look.

Made some changes to Abajo Peak to the right above.

You can find more info about the different aspects of the saw mill down the page a bit ( HERE ) and the print files are all up on my account on Thingiverse ( HERE ).

Clouds next then Spackle and paint the rock-work behind the mill.

A link to this whole build ( HERE ).

=========================================

..………………………......Next Page If There Is One