Autumn Colors

[Skip]

A couple of you mentioned a "dislike" for autumn colors on a layout.  I had been thinking of having my new, in planning, layout entirely in autumn color since it will be located in upstate New York.  Why do you dislike autumn colors, and what do others think?  I just it would be interesting.

[John]

I think it is hard to do it convincingly and it just looks "wrong" when done using the available colors of ground cover.

[Nelson]

I think part of the problem is that autum colors vary a lot from region to region, so one person's perception of what they should look like may be quite different from anothers based on what they are used to seeing.

[wm3798]

My comment stemmed from the fact that I actually liked the look of the layout John posted in the weekend update.  I thought the fall colors looked right, and the trees themselves were well done, and created a nice backdrop for the trains.

Most of the fall layouts I've seen lean more to the garish, using much brighter colors to the point that the scenery looks like something out of the Yellow Submarine, and overwhelms the trains and other details.

Lee

[Skip]

My idea was to take a trip to the Adirondacks next fall (my sister still lives there) and take a lot of pictures.  They I would try to match the pictures.

[3rdrail]

For those whose operations are focused on a specific date in history, and that date happens to fall in the Fall, no problem. But, unlike Summer scenery, which stays pretty much unchanged for between 2 and 5 months each year, fall scenery changes daily. Here in Northwest Florida, we actually had a few days of Fall color this year, for the first time in several decades! BTW, I agree with John that most layouts with Fall scenery are much too garish to look real.

[trainforfun]

I am from the Laurentians mountain north of Montreal , where there is a lot of different type of trees ( maple , birchwood , etc. etc. ) I can tell that it change daily , and year after year it's always a must from me to go back to my native place and take a look at the mountain . The peak period is not very long also , sometimes just a couple of days !
A layout in fall colors does not look natural , the real mountains don't look natural either during that period !

[Ian MacMillan]

I like autumn colors and I will be doing my layout in it. I think that it can be a hard season to model though, because most of the layouts that have done it that people don't like are the ones where the entire tree is orange or fire red, and there is not subtle change to color on the trees, let alone any green ones to make it look realistic.

[Skip]

So much for that idea.  I'll drop it!

[MEC_FAN]

Skip, if autumn is something you like and want to do you should try it. I think autumn done well looks really good and if not done well looks well, not so good. Do some research and try a small section on your layout and see how it comes out.
If you don't like it rip it off and do another season. I don't think anybody here is trying to descourage you from doing it just saying its not so easy to pull off.

MEC

[up1950s]

The other negative thing about Autumn is most folks omit the leaf clutter on the ground . Another pesky detail that needs to be modeled . Winter has had outstanding results lately , and offers the added advantage of seeing the train through the branches ,

[John]

Skip .. dont let our opinions dissuade you .. try a small test section .. and see how it looks to you .. you will know if it don't look good . .. thats the fun with this stuff ..

[ljudice]

I agree with John - build a small diorama and test it.

I think the problem is that layouts are most convincing with very consistant
coloring, and fall is challenging to do that way...

[wm3798]

I think that Ed's experiments with winter scenery should be enough encouragement to give a good fall scene a try.  I also think you should really study the pictures that John posted, as they seem to really capture the "right" look (whatever that is! )

Don't throw in the towell on our say-so....  What we're really doing is challenging you to build a really rockin' fall scene!

Lee

[nsauk]

I say go for it.  As someone else mentioned, I've seen plenty of fall layouts with "garish" colors but I've also seen some that are very well done and quite impressive.

I'm doing fall.  It's my favorite season--nothing like a crisp, sunny fall day outside tossing a football with my boys.  So far, my foliage seems to be coming along okay.  There are some areas that I'm not thrilled with but it's more the overall appearance of the trees rather than the colors.  I stuck with a blending of the WS early and late fall and threw in a fair amount of green trees.  The colors are muted enough to look realistic.  A fellow MR friend who saw some photos of my in-progress layout commented that "he really liked the hill" which represents a western PA ridge in fall color.  Overall, the jury is still out--it may not be as perfect as I hoped but it's not as bad as I feared.

And yes, I plan to have leaf clutter.

As Teddy Roosevelt said (or was it someone else?), "The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena...blah, blah, blah...if he fails, does so daring greatly and thus shall never be among those cold and timid souls that know neither victory nor defeat."  Or something like that.

Don't be among the cold and timid.