Westlake Publishing Forums

Well, it's not "fine scale" ... but since I'm somewhat notorious for unfinished projects, I couldn't resist showing y'all one that was started a few days ago and is now 95% finished!

It's a 10x20" diorama in On30 ... made as a photo prop or display to show a few pieces of rolling stock ... use as a photo prop was the main justification, but it fits nicely on a shelf ... where I'll definitely enjoy seeing something that's somewhat finished! 

-- It started with a piece of black foamcore misted with gray and white spray paints (do both sides to avoid warping) ... then some acrylic gel paint mixed with touches of blue, pink and orange to put some color in the hazy sky ...

-- Painting 2-D images/backdrops is not my forté, so I downloaded a bunch of painting tutorials and lessons, burned 'em to a DVD and watched those for a couple nights before starting ... now that the foreground is done, I realize that I need to go back and put more grays into the predominantly brownish trees ... fortunately the backdrop isn't permanantly mounted yet!

-- Basic contours roughed in with foam ... tried to "design" it to have foreground scenery slope down toward viewer to allow low photo angles ... and slight curve in track to allow 3/4 or straight-on views of stock ...

-- Sculptamold, resin trunks, sagebrush armatures ... one day when I "find" some extra time, I'll go back and add some more branches to those armatures ...

-- Playing with ground textures ... dirt from Smith & Sons, some lovely ground textures from Driftwood Scenery Company (now defunct, very unfortunately) ...

-- And then some experiments to see what would add some "dead leaf" texture to the ground ... tried some actual dead leaves from the yard, but couldn't get those ground fine enough. Ended up using coarse ground black pepper, tea leaves (from fresh tea bags) and some other dried spices ... trying to avoid the ones that have a lot of green in them. Warning: Using ground pepper on a diorama makes your nose feel funny! 

-- Added Woodland Scenics field grass using the "cigar" method shown by Rick Reimer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2rOO1hN8_U

-- That's way too yellow ... could be fixed with an airbrush, but used dry textures instead ... black tea leaves and Woodland Scenics "earth" fine turf (any of the "dead" or dull greens were still way too green ... the "brown" earth goes a bit olive in this setting, which seems to work).

Some spray glue was used to put bits of Woodland Scenics "earth" coarse turf to make a base for bushy undergrowth ... even though that appears a brown color, it goes a bit olive in photos, which works here. Over that, the ONLY green used was Heki foliage (the medium green, IIRC) ... that stuff has a really nice springy texture and spreads out beautifully. Much nicer than the WS stuff, IMO. Fixed that with more Aqua Net hairspray ... the little whitish dots here are glistening droplets of wet hairspray!

Then it's time to play with the Noch "Pulverschnee" (snow!) ... it just so happened that there was a train show nearby the day after I painted the backdrop ... so I got the snow from the Scenic Express booth there and learned that the snow was fixed in place with just a light mist of plain water. This photo shows that the armatures could use more branches (which I hope to do one day) ... but it does the job for now once trains are placed as focal points!

Whole thing was done in three rather long late night sessions ... still have to go back and do some work on the edges and the stream. Then, eventually, add some grays to the brownish backdrop tees and some branches to the sagebrush trees. Doing a winter scene was completely new to me ... and a lot of fun!

(Did I mention that the whole thing was started a few days ago and is now nearly finished?) 

Thanks for looking!

Cheers,
Dallas

Very moody Dallas, I love it!

One of our readers (Volker G.) kindly sent me a copy of one of my photos with improved color balance ...

I'll have to play with this a bit more ... dunno about you guys, but I reach a point sometimes in trying to do a batch of photos where NOTHING looks right to me any more and I just gotta quite for a while ...

When I get a chance, I'll set it up with some better lighting, diffusion, etc and then work out the color balance ... meanwhile, Volker's version gives a nice rendition (thank you!)

Cheers,
Dallas

Thanks for the 'tute' Dallas.   I may just try one myself now.
Did the black foamcore work out well or would white work better/worse?
Just curious why you chose black.

Thanks, Dave!  Hmm ... I had both black & white foam core ... and went with the black ... wanted a hazy, grayish background and think that was the prompt there.  Mists of gray and white spray paints over the black provided a good start ... then white gel paint (think that's the same as acrylic paint with a glaze medium built in) mixed with hints of other colors like pink, orange and blue.  Rather pleased with the results, but I'm a total hack at 2-D painting so it's more of "what I did" than a useful recommendation!    -- Dallas

Dallas,   I like it Backdrop looks great.  Cant believe it only took you a couple days work.

Looks great, especially in the color-corrected image! Do you have any plans to add some foreground trees?

Thanks, guys!  Ray -- I'm not going to add any "fixed" foreground trees, because that may limit the photo ops too much ... but the foreground slopes downward, so I can use locking tweezers or some such to position foreground trees to add more photo possibilities.  Cheers, Dallas