The Home and
Design of the RGW....
This Page
Currently Under Construction (Literally)
Train Room
(Shell) - Train Room (Interior)
- Layout Design
Layout Construction:
(click on pictures for full view)
April 2006:
For the last
couple of months, progress was slowed as we felt it was time to salvage as much
of the usable track, switches, switch machines and electrical from the old
layout. This was a chore that was not anticipated and frankly a bit sad, as it
was hoped many of the former layout sections would be used intact. This was
not to be. The new layout design made it more practical to salvage what we
could, create more working space in the train room and move on.
In early
April, we realized that the best time to paint the backdrop on the four walls
was now, before we put up more benchwork and succeeded in creating obstacles for
ourselves. In order to get this going, research and photographs were the order
of the day. Once we had reference photos and made our trips to the art supply
store for the acrylic paints, we brought in a projector and cast the digital
shots on the wall to outline the various mountain ranges in our region. One
modeling tip, use very light touch when tracing the photos, this will leave a
light pencil mark to cover when painting. A dark pencil line will be harder to
cover with thinned acrylic paint.
To best
understand what you're looking at; first, all of the walls are painted Rodda
Hidden Lake Blue, to represent “sky blue”. Imagine you're looking
straight up outside, this is the blue we are simulating. As your eye comes closer to the horizon, more and more
white is introduced. If you don't believe it, go outside and LOOK! You can
see the penciled on horizon lines on the wall. Then, we painted the clouds
that are furthest from view. These are represented by the wispy white areas painted by
brush, using a dry-brush technique. This means paint is picked up on the
bristles and then wiped on the pan or rag until it's nearly dried off then
applied to the wall with a scrubbing motion to give a hazy or misty white
background at the horizon graduating to blue as you "look up." On top of this
haze, the mountains are introduced, the furthest away represented by the Slate
Gray, again applied by brush. Then, horizon clouds were added
using an airbrush. Clouds were added using cloud masks and the next closest
mountains were added by brush using a purple-blue color. Look at the
picture below with both the painted mountains, specifically Mt. Rainier and the
photo we used as reference to see why we chose the color variations.
All of the
work you see is a “first try”. Needless to say that first time jitters
were the order of the day and much time was spent debating each step.
After completing this phase, we realized that it's much easier than anticipated.
The most important thing is not to rush to judgment about the work in progress.
Step back and evaluate your work frequently.
The rendition of Mt. Rainier, was
a four step process. First, gathering the photos, specifically the one you see
tacked to the wall in the picture below. The second was the projection of the
photo on the wall for dimensioning. The third step was the base coat, which
included darker colors like reds, tans and slate blue. The final step was to
add the snow and work the contours of the mountain in using the same dry brush
technique described above. The next and
last step will be to complete the highlights in the purple region, then to add
the next closest mountain range. This layer will show browns, greens and relief
such as trees, rocks or far away buildings. Lastly, large trees may be painted
over all layers to give a sense of depth and closeness. Then, we graduate into the "real" physical scenery applied near the
walls and outward to the layout edge.
Other Updates:
2008
2007
2006
2005
