Thanks first of all to those who pitched in on the scenery thread I started where I was trying to reconcile the grey stone used on the Metcalfe warehouse with the redder hues on the Peco backscene.

To square that away I'm experimenting with various washes over the Metcalfe kit to blend the two colours.

Anyway, here's the first attempt at adding depth to the model using a mixture of Peco backscene and hand-painted hills and skies.

I laid down a white MDF primer some time ago - anything is better than bare hardboard. Out in-house artist, Jo, recommends, however using a white emulsion into which you mix blues and greys. Apparently emulsion and watercolours love each other.

Having bought sections of medium and large Peco backscenes I spent a rather laborious evening cutting round the roofline to get rid of the overly blue sky offered by Peco.

To avoid too much repetition I'm planning on overlaying sections of "large" in front of "medium".

For now I wanted to make some progress around the tunnel portal and warehouse.

I used a mix of watercolours to extend the Peco hill and blend it into the 3-d scenery around the tunnel portal. Hopefully we're not a million miles away from getting the printed part to blend with the bit I painted. I've put a tree in front of the join.

I then started to work on the sky which I wanted to make "threatening". The photos attached look a little bluer than they do in reality. This is a first attempt and the sky will need more work.

And as Jo in the office predicted - it was fun.