ScR steam in the 50's

I indulged myself with a couple of the new Bachmann Porthole coaches, and am pleased with the finish of them. Here is a shot of them on running trials  at Helmsdale behind a Black Five….

they look the biz,have always liked br blood & custard even tho not my area
:thumbs;-):cool:

Ben, The Bachmann Porthole stock does indeed look handsome especially behind a Black 5. I have half a dozen of the same on order myself and hope to achieve a similar look on the S&DJR one day.

A photo shoot today had some results, and here is the probably only tender engine to work the Dornoch branch at Helmsdale - 78052, a BR Standard that was used for a short while there.




And a more atmospheric view.





Vans and brakes waiting their next journey…

G`day Ben,
             I have followed your work for a few years now, from RMWeb with Kylesku and the Mound, through to here and now with The Far North Line, and I must say you are setting standards that one may only aspire to.
            Brilliant work and beautiful to look at and admire
:cheers  Gormo

 Thanks for the kind words- I do try to capture what was there as best I can, that's an advantage of more or less following a prototype,and by sticking to an actual track plan, the rest seems to fall into place. We are helped nowadays by the abundance of products and accessories that make modelling a lot easier than in my youth. Scenic  materials is one such area- standards in this has risen remarkedly- you just have to look at some of the layouts in the RM from the Sixties to see this. Actual modelling may not have come on so much, but the ability to make a presentable layout is open to all nowadays.

A couple more from  the weekend shoot. A Black Five on a passenger duty waiting for the off…





A venerable survivor doing some shunting at Thurso.




And the shed, with  a couple of Highland survivors.

Couldn't resist the latest Bachmann release of the LMS Inspection Saloon, so here it is on a jolly in the Highlands. Roof and underframe weathered and larger buffer heads fitted, along with a painted interior, which is invisible to the eye :???:, but I know its there…..






A shot of the business end, with a full complement of VIP's all in suit and hats, surveying their empire….






And the last Loch on an empty stock train drawing in to Helmsdale. First stop, the water column….

A summer of circumstances has knocked any enthusiasm for modelling on the head, but interest is gradually returning, and I have been doing some playing around with the backscene. It is removeable to allow access to the loops, and it occurred to me that this might offer some variety to things. A brighter version of the ID Hills and Dales was fitted as a trial, and I am chewing this over just now. I have also taken some of the original hills and placed them on the brighter sky, which looks promising. More on this later, but here are a couple of shots with the sun breaking through.











This part of Sutherland enjoys a sheltered micro climate, and the bright skies are quite typical of this part of the line- more overcast weather is to follow though……

It does look different with those brighter skies Ben.Although the contrast does fade with sunny weather.

regards and glad to see you getting back to the railway.

Derek.

The bright sky didn't really work, although I can see  the possibility of using parts of it as a  mini backscene for posed shots. I have played around with a cloudier version, but still not fully there, but it's all going to add a bit of variety to things. Keep watching this space, as they say…

Some interesting light today- a mix of rainy sunshine and the latest backscene gave for a different take on things.

:)Thats a big improvement Ben.It shows the Railway and stock up a lot better.Plus the background looks more convincing.

Keep up the good work,

Derek.

Thanks- the current one is a combination of Hills and Dales foreground and a CloudySky back, both from the Art Printers range, that he printed specially for me. The colours of the hills are more washed out than the original, and I am still thinking about this, but it does give an impression of distance perhaps….

Another couple from recently…. two with the differing backscenes. Firstly, the bright one…




Then the current one, on a duller day…





And a couple of Bens on shed.

G`day Ben,

  I like your experiments with backgrounds and I thought I would chip in with a couple of points. I have asked my wife to run her critical eye over your pics as well. Julie is an artist and understands light and colour better than I do.

  Basically she likes the look of nearly all of your backgrounds, however this one below, she reckons looks like a painting gone wrong….sorry mate!….but SWMBO has spoken…and unfortunately, I tend to agree with her.



  It seems from an artistic eye that there should be a graduation of light and dark. The pic below for example  would look more convincing by having the hills light at the top and gradually getting darker towards the bottom. The same applies to the sky in reverse. The cloud should be light where it meets the top of the hills and gradually getting darker towards the top of the pic.



  Julie said to me that when you look at a landscape on a clear blue sky day, the sky will be a light blue where it meets the horizon, but as you look upwards it will become that darker blue. The land ,on the other hand, is light on the horizon, graduating to darker in the foreground. I guess it`s all about observation. Most of us see the whole landscape and think nothing of it, but an artist will see all the colours and the light and shade and form an understanding of what`s going on out there and be able to transfer it to canvas.

  I hope this has been of some help and I guess a lot depends on your software as well. I imagine it would not be easy to manipulate graduating tones throughout your backgrounds, but there you go??

:cheers  Gormo

Thanks for the criticisms  re the backscenes- its one of the reasons for postings- its easy to lose sight of things working on your own, and feedback is very useful. I agree with you about the colours of them,and I think they are for the chop. The chap at Art Printers I suspect blended the two aspects together to match, but it hasn't worked out I'm afraid. The fact that the last lot were taken in sunshine doesn't help either as it illuminates the foreground a bit much. So I think I'll try a physical pasting of the newer sky and original hills next. This whole experiment started in order to get an extra couple of inches sky to give a bit more sense of space, and if all fails I'll just go back to the original set up. On the last layout I ended up sticking a strip of sky above the then 9" backscene and blending it in  for photos, but that was a fixed background and as this is removable it need to be rigid.


"I hope this has been of some help and I guess a lot  depends on your software as well. I imagine it would not be easy to  manipulate graduating tones throughout your backgrounds, but there you  go??"

Me manipulate tones? - wouldn't know where to start:hmm - I use the simplest editing programme I could find as I have no interest in that sort of thing beyond making images presentable for screen- a bit of straightening, cropping and maybe adjusting backlight is all I normally do with pictures. There has been a bit of fur flying on another forum over photo manipulation generally recently, and personally I reckon that less is very much more in these cases.  One of the reasons for building this layout was to start from the backscene forward, making it the core of the layout ,thus avoiding those photoshopped backgrounds that rarely add anything to an image. Hence my wish to get a bit more physical background here.

Right, off to await delivery of the MkIII version, and I'll be back with the results as and when…and please do let me know your thoughts- that's what forums are for after all.

Cheers,
Richard

Back to the future!- The original backscene is reinstated for the mo. while I wait for developments. The lack of sky can be seen here, hence my trials at increasing its depth…

Just a comment on weather Ben.In real life on a clear but cloudy day the horizon looks a lot sharper and distance is forshortened to the eye.The opposite effect of course is a bright warm day where heat haze etc kicks in and a slight blur effect is witnessed with distance.I think in photoshop one can add blur to a photo to get an idea of the result and of course play around with the setting.
regards,
Derek.

The background at Helmsdale is actually close up- it nestling at the mouth of Strath Ullie, and there is no real need for any impression of distance, not that I could adjust it even if it was necessary,so that is something that I think the first backscene managed to imply. Here is a link to the village itself- the station is on the left behind the clock tower. Perhaps I need to concentrate on the broom…..

(Click to enlarge)

Hi Ben, as a new member I have just been right through this thread and really enjoyed it! Fascinating insights to rail laying, stock, loco's and scenery, very well done and thank you for your contributions!!

Cheers
Ron

Thanks- haven't done anything on the layout for some time now, but hope to get back to it in the spring….

Ben, don't leave it ten years like I did :lol:

Phil