As anyone had any experience ordering from www.backdropwarehouse.com? Or, as I'm not a painter, what is a good neutral color to paint for the backdrop?
I personally don't have any experience with them but have heard good things. As for paint - use a very very light blue - lighter than you would think you will want to use. Remember that most of your backdrop will be seen near the layout's horizon - and on the next clear day - check out the sky near the horizon - it will be much lighter blue than the sky over your head. Don't try to paint clouds. IMO this is almost never effective (sometimes it is, but generally this is when the clouds are painted by a proffesional artist)
I have ( I think) Realistic BackDrops, which I purchased in an LHS, but have no experience with this outfit. I do need some new areas covered, so I may purchase some when it gets to that project, as I don't think repeating the same industries or downtown structures would look good. I have also purchased some of the painted Walthers backdrops, but in comparison to real photos, well there is no comparison! Using the realistic backdrops (also photos) I cut out the building, et al, and use my own painted sky back drop, rather than paste up the whole photo. I use black marker on the edge of the cut to give a bit of depth. The white paper edge kills realism. I painted my own backdrop a light blue (from Sears, but can't recall the actual color. BTW, I know some who use gray, feeling its better for photography) including clouds, using stencils available in the hobby trade, with good results!! Simply locate and tape up the stencil, spray white from a brush or can, and voila. Raise the stencil vertically and paint some light gray on the bottom side of the cloud for depth. Raise it off the wall a bit for either color, and you get fuzzier edges. Believe me, you need no artistic ability to do it with these stencils. Good luck!
I have seen good.. no, make that excellent backdrops done both by hand painting and using "purchased" offerings from photo shops, etc. Personally, I have painted my own on two different layouts now and have gotten compliments on both for the sky color. Yes.. light blue will do, but pick out a good shade of this stuff. The way I have selected paint was by buying it on the clearest, nonhazy day that would come along. I went to Home Depot, got several shades of light blue, went out in the parking lot, and then held them up to the sky to match. I held slightly darker shades up to higher sky angles and lighter shades to the lower angles towards the horizon. Obviously, this is because looking straight up, there is more "air filter" depth to the sky and it appears darker. The haze and airborne 'garbage' near the ground makes the lower angles lighter. Just get some light blue color chips, hold them up to the sky.. and have at it!!! Painting backdrops is always one of the coolest parts of doing a model layout. It is sort of self feeding. If you get the backdrop done early, you dont have to crawl all over the layout to put one up later.. PLUS, it is a "finished" encouragement/enticement to get the rest of the layout moving along ... including that all important scenery. GOOD LUCK!!! -Kitbash
I've picked up two of their backdrops and found them to be very good, though expensive. The problem I had with a commercial backdrop is finding one that represented the scene I needed in as small a space as I needed. In my current layout, I wanted to show Quartz Mountain in a three foot space. If I had taken a photo and made it a backdrop, it would have taken twice that size. By hand painting the backdrop, I was able to get it to fit in the area I needed. Above is a photo mosaic of my 18 foot, hand painted backdrop. and below, the prototype inspiration. Remember, the purpose of a backdrop is to enhance your models, not take attention away from them.
Check this site out. The drops are cheaper, though smaller. Great lookin city scenes. Most peeps cut the sky off the backdrop with a hobby knife, then glue them to your light matte blue walls. http://www.realisticbackgrounds.com/
I've used these too. I liked them, but transitions from one backdrop to another was sometimes rough. I also tried cutting out portions of the backdrop and rearranged the buildings on the backdrops, but because of the thickness of the paper, it was necessary to take some grey charcoal and color the white paper edge. But that is just how this "peeps" does it...
re: www.realisticbackgrounds.com - have you used them for N or HO scale? I found on the site that they are 13" tall, but how long are they? The price certainly is great. Thank you for the information
I used the realistic backdrops in N, and I think they look great. After all, how far in the background are they? If supposedly closer, then okay scale for N. I, too, cut the builidings out against my blue backdrop, rather than use the whole thing, and even rearrange them. I am using some of the downtown twice, separated by Atlas skyscrapers so its not so obvious. So, 38" length hasn't hampered me. I would like to try a few of the backdrop warehouse items, but at $125 each (40% discount if you buy two) I'll stick with the others.
I purchased a backdrop warehouse unit on ebay when they were selling the shorter pieces there. At the time, I got one for $24.99. Now, they are selling them for a lot more, but check ebay. I used wallpaper paste to attach it tothe backdrop. It looked great, was easy to use and added a great deal of depth to the scene. I used it in N Scale. Jeff Augsburg & Concord R.R. (a fictional shortline in Central Illinois) http://www.pegnsean.net/~revnjeff
I personally prefer photo backdrops, their quality is usually much better than the average backdrop I have seen painted on by the modeler (or his "friend"). I personally have used Faller (these can be found in the Walther's Catalogue - but get one about two years old as this years catalogue shows less selection than is actually available). Also with Faller, you can cut out the "Realistic" backdrops and paste them on the Faller ones. Also Vollmer makes some photo backdrops as well at a very reasonable cost (in Walther's). The reason I recommend Faller and Vollmer is that they are much cheaper than the Backdropwarehouse jobbies. I much prefer the backdropwarehouse one's but with the Canadian dollar exchange, they are out of my reach with the lengths I would have needed to order. One word of warning when using photo backdrops. Your track planning process will change as I would recommend you put up the photo backdrops then plan your track arrangement around what is in the photo. If you don't, you could end up with some strange track work/backdrop themes. The implication of this is: You won't be able to use CAD software in the design process. It is almost impossible to put the backdrop in CAD software, then design around it. Instead use the butcher paper method. Put up your backdrop, get some real turnouts, etc, then plan your track accordingly on the paper. This way you can co-ordinate what is happening with your track work, with what is going on in the picture. [ 27. August 2002, 18:09: Message edited by: rsn48 ]
A warning to CANADIANS about Backdrop Warehouse. I may be wrong but I believe it says somewhere on their website that they will only ship within Continental USA.
Well, I was curious about www.backdropwarehouse.com in regards to Canadian shipping. The toll free number is good to Canada and he will ship to Canada. I hope others get into this line; so far the only competition he has that I know about is a chap here in Vancouver, BC who does good work. Another chap in Australia, who is more expensive than the backdropwarehouse prices are. The fellow in Vancouver is cheaper.
