Wonderful and inspirational as always Mike.
Ken

Oh boy oh boy oh boy - follow that if you can.:shock:

Your dad is a lucky man Mike to get a present like this on Fathers Day. Oh yes maybe this is a good time to remind you that next week we celebrate the "I've got a virtual friend is Spain Day".

Les:cool wink

"maybe this is a good time to remind you that next week we celebrate the "I've got a virtual friend is Spain Day".     

 Thanks everyone for the kind comments!

 Mike

 

A striking piece of work, Mike!  It gives me something to practice and aim for one year!  Is it based on an actual scene, or collage of scenes?  If I was to locate it it could be SE Wales/Gwent, and I think Jeff might back me up.  What do you think, Jeff?  Near Abergavenny, Crickhowell area?

[user=5]rector[/user] wrote:

A striking piece of work, Mike! It gives me something to practice and aim for one year! Is it based on an actual scene, or collage of scenes? If I was to locate it it could be SE Wales/Gwent, and I think Jeff might back me up. What do you think, Jeff? Near Abergavenny, Crickhowell area?

:hmm It's so close to an actual scene I know that it's scary :exclam:exclam

Take the road out of Abergavenny (where I lived for the five or six years before I was married) towards Hereford and just two or three miles out, you come to Pandy. There's a left hand turn just as you leave the villiage, which goes towards Llantony and the abbey. I swear that road on Mike's backscene is the Llantony road which leads up to Llantony church which you can see in the background :exclam:exclam:exclam 

Mike, do you have any proof that you do actually live in Australian and not the Welsh borders :question:question 

Tim  I did use a couple of photos to kick things off, but they were for things such as tree lines  and the odd building, and also to remind me how green things can be in the distance compared to here. The design of the landscape is mostly made up.
 I was a bit concerned about having a treeless hill. Maybe I should have had a few on it…..?

 Mike

:lol::lol:
Jeff I have been to Wales but I'm afraid the last time was 43 years ago. I just did the arithmetic

 Thankyou for the description of the Abergavenny area. I'll pass it on to him tomorrow.

 Mike




 

 Here's a rundown of how I went about the new backscene painted for one end of the layout. It's 36x24ins, painted with acrylics
  Colours: Ultramarine blue , red oxide, napthol yellow, napthol red, white [sample pot of matt primer]

 The board was primed with one coat of artists gesso, then I painted the whole thing in sky colour - ultra blue, red oxide and white. I hoped the blue underpainting would stop the whole thing getting too warm.

The darker hill/distant trees was added after most of the foreground because the scene was very insipid until then. It was a mix of blue, red oxide and white, plus a little yellow for luck.


 Fine branches were put in with a fine round brush, and some of the bare trees were done with the fan brush, used mostly on its edge with not much paint at a time.




 Buildings were blocked in with a sharp flat brush and near white. Details added with the fine rigger brush.


 Snowy patches were kept off-white.  Sky clour was added to many of the mixes to keep them 'quiet'.
 I didn't take any progress shots because I didn't know where I was going with it.

 Next task will be a more industrial scene for the opposite end. I'll try to take some progress pics as I go, if anyone's interested, but again it will be uncharted territory for me, so it might be a bit hit and miss.

 Please ask any questions at all.

 Mike

 This one came out a bit warm. I don't know why.

Thanks Mike.  I'll never remember all that . . . now the board was primed with . . .  Robert, please save this somewhere I can find it again . . .

Maybe there's a thaw setting in.
The first couple of photos certainly looked cold but the red really came out in the last one, funny how it does that with little things like changes of lighting or camera angle.

It certainly looks the part based on the New England winter photos that you've pointed us to before.

I really like the misty woodlands and hills in the background.

[user=8]MikeC[/user] wrote:

This one came out a bit warm. I don't know why.

Sunrise Mike :cool wink

Brilliant Mike so much depth has been added by painting the back scene, and using a mix of daylight and reflected light has really helped the photo.

I have spent a day reading through this thread while otherwise confined indoors with a bad cold.  It is also getting closer to the inevitable time to take the plunge and "do" the backscene.

MikeC I have to say I am in awe of the work you present here whether it be painted sky, greasy locos or fine trackwork.  MAny thanks for a comprehensive topic which I should be able to make good use of in coming weeks.

I had invested in sufficient of Peco's "cloudy sky" sheets to stick around the main areas of the layout but have still to consider how to merge foreground into background.  I have always intended to use a visual trick to gain depth and hide the fiddle yard at the same time.

Inspection of my own layout pictures will show that there is a 9" high line of back boards immediately behind the running lines in front of the yard.  There is now also a line of much taller boards fitted to the fence with a waterproof membrane on the fence panel side to prevent rainwater reaching the layout.

The idea is that a viewer seated comfortably in the central area will have their eyes at (or very slightly above) track level just as you would see a real railway.  The 9" backscene will become the far side of the line while the fence panelling will be painted as distant hills and sky.  This should give a good visual perception of depth but with the seated viewer unable to see operations in the fiddle yard.  Once hey stand up the illusion is lost and the yard becomes visible once more.

I'll let you know how things go but I am definitely looking at MikeC's methods here.

This topic has been in the Forum Index since it was first started Max.

Thanks for the feedback. I do hope someone finds this helpful when they get around to doing their own.
  Rick your setup sounds as if it should work well.

Mike

[user=8]MikeC[/user] wrote:

……………………….. I do hope someone finds this helpful when they get around to doing their own……………………………….

Mike

To me, there are several threads on this forum that are head and shoulders above the norm - they concern all aspect of the hobby and are the ones I've chosen as my personal works of reference - scenery, electrics, buildings etc. etc.  To say that you "hope someone finds this helpful" is a total understatement Mike.  I've said it many times before - how you achieve such amazing results is way beyond me - I couldn't get that realistic even with photographs !!!!  Your work is without doubt, some of the very best artistic  model railway stuff that I've ever had the pleasure of witnessing - and that inlcudes exhibitions, magazines and the internet !!!!

Hear! Hear! Peter

you two can grovel all you want!!!
but you will still have to paint your own like the rest of us ???

:cool:

[user=15]owen69[/user] wrote:

you two can grovel all you want!!!
but you will still have to paint your own like the rest of us ???

:cool:

No way Owen - the cost of sending them to Oz is only slightly more than the cost of the paint - as for the hourly rate I charge……………………………..:roll::roll::roll:  I've heard Mike needs the practice so is much cheaper !!! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

i give up …..
:pedal:pedal:roll::cool: