Backdrop painting Part 3

After landing on the final look for the background mountains I started working on the foreground hills. I used the same base colour technique with the palette knife to drag in highlight and accent colours. After this, I started adding some green sections so the static grass and trees I will add later will blend into the backdrop.

The trees in and around the town are more deciduous, transitioning to evergreen trees as the layout moves over the hill. I enjoyed painting the trees and am looking forward to adding static grass to combine the background and foreground. 

Once I've coloured the rocks in the canyon I will paint more rock cliffs onto the backdrop. 

Backdrop Painting Part 2

 After experimenting with my colours I found a blue grey to use as my mountain base. I worked in smaller sections and painted the mountain base colour then used the palette knife to work in white paint for the snow. By dragging the white paint I could block in larger snow fields or smear the white with the mountain base colour to mix the two, creating the illusion of rocks and ridges on the mountains. I was much happier with this technique. The photos here show the results of the mountains. The foreground hills will be the subject of a future post. 

The snow on the high peak near my face was from the first attempt. I'm working from left to right. 

Backdrop part 1

With a few nerves, I decided to scrub in a mountain horizon. I had several landscape photographs in front of me at the time which seemed to help with coming up with a skyline I was happy with. I then scrubbed in the foreground hills. Once dry, both colours appeared too dark. I decided to carry on and see what snow and highlights on the foreground hills would like. In doing so I discovered I'd made a mistake. When I painted the practice board I did each side in one sitting. It was small and the base layer of paint was still damp when you layered on the snow and highlights. This meant the palette knife could mix and blend the colours and create nice transitions. I found trying to smear white paint onto the dry base colour seemed to yield a pretty flat and lifeless scene. 

Given I wasn't happy with the colours anyway I decided to try again and this time, rather than try and do the whole vista at once, I will work in smaller sections. I feel more confident doing this as I have worked out a good recipe for a new mountain background colour. More about that in a future post. 

Before...

After scrubbing in the mountain and foreground hill base colours. 

Looking the other way. I decided both colours were too dark. 

Experimenting with adding snow and definition to the scene.
I decided to paint over this with a lighter base colour and start again. However, even this first attempt demonstrates what an improvement even a basic backdrop can make to a scene. 

Backdrop practice

 I enjoyed painting the backdrop for the last layout. Chris Lyon's videos on YouTube were super helpful and gave me the courage to give backdrop painting a go. 

This time I wanted to improve the look of my mountains and found some videos about painting mountains with a palette knife. I found a long piece of scrap 3mm MDF and started to paint. I started with just half the board and finished a scene. Then another day I tried to fill in the other side of the board and varying my technique. I found the palette knife technique helpful for giving texture and shape to the mountains. A brush smoothes things out too much. 

The next step will be to upscale and try and translate my learnings onto the larger canvas of the module backdrops. I am aiming for a higher horizon line. This gives the effect of the hills and mountains being closer rather than too distant. I feel a low horizon line makes me feel like I am looking down on the scene from a 'drone point of view'. A high horizon line will give the viewer the impression they are really in the scene looking up a the mountains. After all, I am trying to recreate the feel of mountain railroading and my line is set in the heart of the mountains. 

An aerial view of the practice board as a work in progress. 

The completed scene on the right hand side of the practice board.
I didn't give much thought to composition rules. But the lake would look a little
better if it was slightly more to the left. 

The completed mountains on the left side of the board before adding the foreground. 

The completed scene propped up against the module backdrop. The first attempt at scrubbing in the outline of the mountains on the module can be seen behind it.