Backdrop painting

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Hey guys,

Since we had some nice spring weather here this past weekend (8 inches of snow and 30 degree temps) I decided to try my hand at some backdrop painting, more specifically some thunder heads. I’ve used some homemade cloud stencils on the rest of my backdrops, but I’ve always wanted to go back and try to create a big thunderstorm on this 8 foot section of backdrop. I’m not exactly gifted at backdrop painting but I thought I’d give it a try anyway. On Saturday I used a thinned dark blue to darken the whole area I planned to paint the clouds and then I used some thinned white acrylic paint and went at it and got most of the clouds drafted in. I went back on Sunday and filled in some of the darker areas of the clouds with thinned blue and purple colors before adding some thicker white where I thought it should be for the puffier clouds. I also added a down-burst to represent rain. After all of this dried for an hour or so, I then took a 2” wide brush and using long strokes I used water to try and blend everything in a bit. This proved to be the key in making the whole thing look like a storm building in the distance, which was the effect I was trying for.

Tell me what you think – constructive criticism is welcome.
I think it turned out ok but I may go back and re-do some of it.

[gnsteve]

I like the way you've built up the clouds the futher right you go. I would be tempted to use the dark blue/purple for shading on the leading edge (right side) of the storm. If it's already there and my old eyes don't see it in the photos, disregard the suggestion.

[mrlfan]

The back drop looks good, but the engines need a lot of help. Nothing a little Scalecoat BN green can't fix.
You know who this is.

[kcs1967]

Mar 22, 2010 0:13:54 GMT -5 mrlfan said:

The back drop looks good, but the engines need a lot of help. Nothing a little Scalecoat BN green can't fix.
You know who this is.

;D
But if he blended his colors like that, BN would just renumber them, Beside he does not Warren Buffet buying all his stuff. ;D

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Thanks for the compliments guys – you too Glenn.
I do plan to go back and add a little more white here and there to make some of the bigger clouds stand out a bit more.

Here’s another pic that shows the west side of the storm, the only down fall is that section looks different depending on the angle that the picture is taken from.

[cbq2bn]

Looks Nice, I hope I can pull off a back drop as good as this,
Or do like a club I've visited in the past, bought a case of beer for a guy to come and do the clubs layout room like this

Is that a patch of prairie grass? What did you use to make that?

[icghogger]

Looks very nice, Sammy!

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Thanks again, guys.

Larry - yes that is a wheat field. I use fake fur from Wally Mart. I glue it down and dust it with a soil mixture and it looks pretty good. I've used it in several places on my layout.

[mrlfan]

It would look better with MRL engines.

[Santa Fe Sammy]

Here’s a quick pic I took last night. I’ve been re-painting some of the storms, trying to add more detail to the clouds that are closer to the scene.

[kcsthebetterway]

Ya'know a white KCS SD-40-2 #637 would help give you're back drop contrast and "make it look darker" ;D