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Backscene and half-relief trees

Barry Ten

Entry posted by Barry Ten

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One of the benefits of working on a painted backscene, as opposed to a digital one, is that it's relatively straightforward to make changes, either big or small. Looking at the pics I've posted earlier in this blog, I decided that the background hills needed to be pushed back a little more to suggest greater distance and haze. Working with the airbrush is tricky due to the height of the layout, so I decided to try and desaturate the hills using a wash of dilute white applied with a very wide artist's brush, kindly loaned by my wife on the strict understanding I'd give it a good clean afterwards. The brush was a quality one so there was no danger of bristles coming off, which can happen with cheaper versions.

 

I brushed broad parallel strokes, taking care not to load the brush too heavily - I didn't want dilute white running down over the existing scenery - and then went back over it as it dried, to reduce obvious brushmarks.

 

Once that was one, I had to go back over some of the foreground stuff on the backscene to reinstate it, emphasizing the difference between the distant hills and the relatively nearby trees.

 

blogentry-6720-0-34337100-1398110649.jpg

 

At Trainwest, I'd bought some nice half-relief trees from the nice lady on the Ceynix stand:

 

http://www.railwaytrees.co.uk/

 

These were too good to resist, especially as I had been looking to add some low-relief trees along the back of the scenery behind the station building. However, I expected to have problems with shadows on the backscene, one solution of which is to paint additional trees to soak up the shadows from the "real" ones. These don't have to be Constable-level masterpieces; it's sufficient to give a suggestion of further growth. Provided the painted hues aren't miles off the modelled trees, the effect will be OK from most viewing angles. One trick is not to use greens straight from the tube, but to add in a bit of red - this will help the finished greens look less vivid.

 

Here, the tree to the right of Ivo's Bentley is a Ceynix half-relief one, with the painted trees in the background masking the shadows. The purple-brown tree leaning in on the left in the immediate foreground is also from Ceynix, giving an idea of the quality of these models. In the picture above, I also added two smaller Ceynix trees immediately behind the railway station. I could happily add more of these as time and funds allow, bearing in mind that trees aren't cheap. But I think they are worth the investment, especially as my own efforts aren't up to the same quality.

 

blogentry-6720-0-29596300-1398111115.jpg

 

Cheers and thanks for reading.

 

ps - a diesel for Naturol.

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  • RMweb Gold
Captain Kernow
  • RMweb Gold

Lovely scene, Al. The lane blends really well into the backscene, too. I love these 'over the parapet' shots...

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  • RMweb Gold
gwrrob
  • RMweb Gold

Whereabouts on her website are those low relief trees you mention Al. 

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  • RMweb Gold
Barry Ten
  • RMweb Gold

I had to dig around. If you look under current stock, then 3- 6 inch trees, there's a low-relief Maple there.

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steve22

I was sort of convinced by your actions with the dilute white in the first photo and more so seeing the second photo.  Thanks for the tip about adding red to the green when colouring the trees.  I've also had a peep at the ceynix website too via your link - very interesting.

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  • RMweb Gold
Barry Ten
  • RMweb Gold

There are all sorts of artists' tips like adding red to green; anoither one is to add a small amount of yellow to clouds so that they're not pure white. Adding grey makes them look too murky; yellow has the right toning-down effect against the blue of a backscene. On the right side of the backscene I've even increased the amount of yellow to suggest heavier, more autumnal clouds.

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