Backdrop and wallpainting!

[Frank Klein]

Hello, I am painting my new build TrainCave and was wondering what would be best for painting the wall.
Would I paint the whole wall, were I plan modules against, sky blue and ad clouds when the modules are placed?
Or paint the wall grey and ad Backdrop to the modules?

Would love the know from the group,

Thanks

Frank Klein

[Lemosteam]

I would suggest looking at pictures of the area you plan to model in the season you wish to model, and try to duplicate that.

You might wish to perform a search for the word backdrop as there are some really incredible and innovative techniques that some folks here have developed and proven.

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I would suggest looking at pictures of the area you plan to model in the season you wish to model, and try to duplicate that.

Definitely. There was just a good discussion going on about the different way the sky looks in different parts of the country, too.

Personally, my walls are yellow. But damn, I wish they were either white or light gray because I want it to look like a winter day.

[Dave V]

Definitely. There was just a good discussion going on about the different way the sky looks in different parts of the country, too.

Personally, my walls are yellow. But damn, I wish they were either white or light gray because I want it to look like a winter day.

You do own that house, don’t you?

I recommend Behr’s “Morning Haze” for a hazy, high thin cloudy day back East.

[C855B]

... sky blue and ad clouds ...

Media placements are everywhere these days. Can't get away from 'em!      

[wm3798]

I went to Lowe's and rummaged through their $5 mis-tint cans and found a reasonably light blue that worked out well.  It was nice because my room was in an attic with sloped ceilings, so the backdrop "wall" actually extended over the trains as well as behind them.



Depending on how I turned the track lighting I could make it look like different times of day, and sometimes it looked like a summer storm might be brewing...

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

I was just thinking about this... if you go with white walls, you can shine colored lights at them to change the backdrop color.

[eric220]

I was just thinking about this... if you go with white walls, you can shine colored lights at them to change the backdrop color.

That's how the original Enterprise did it!

In practice, this would be pretty hard to achieve.  Since light changes intensity as a function of distance, if the light is not squarely in front of the surface to be lit, it won't color evenly.  Also, you're bouncing blue light off of a white surface, so the wall would glow blue, casting a blue tint on everything.

I had thought about using orange and red strip LEDs mounted at the bottom of the backdrop to do a sunset effect.  If the backdrop was a blue sky fading into white haze or clouds at the bottom, those clouds would be lit more than the blue sky, and the natural color drop-off as the light went up the backdrop would actually work for the effect.