Starting the new layout!

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Hi Ron! No, but I am almost there. I have had to finish up on some structure building and to finally have a cleanup of the layout room. I do hope to start on it very soon. Not having it done, prevents me finishing up on that section that has been in limbo for too long:o . :)
 


Ok, Ron. I am moving stuff out of the way and getting the paint and tools ready to go. I will start a thread or post photos somewhere when I finish up. Wish me luck!
 
Rex,
Good luck. If you get this before painting, take some progress pix as you go. Painting the stripes, blending, smoothing out with horizontal strokes, etc. I think that will help people understand the process, and also show them how easy it is to get nice, effect sky.

see-ya
 
Good idea and I hope that I am not embarrassed by the results!

I have bought my paint and ready to start with painting in the a.m.

Questions:
Are the criss-cross strokes like "XXXXXXXX" or more concentrated? less concentrated.
Are the X strokes from the very top of the blue to the bottom of the white or more in the middle?

Hope I know when enough is enough!:eek:
 
Questions:
Are the criss-cross strokes like "XXXXXXXX" or more concentrated? less concentrated.
Are the X strokes from the very top of the blue to the bottom of the white or more in the middle?

Hope I know when enough is enough!:eek:

Random... Random... Random. Make XXX's, Make Y's, Make a Q for all I care. All I'm really saying is start in the middle, your just trying to pull some blue down into the white and some whitye up into the blue. It's a "you got your chocolate in my peanut butter" kind of thing... as long as you mix them together, it's gonna taste(look) good :) . When you think your happy with the basic blend of colors, up and down, then start the long horizontal strokes to soften the whole thing. Even after the horizontal strokes, if you're not happy pull some blue into the white, or vise-versa. When you're done, the sky should have a blurry graduated dark blue to light blue, top to bottom look.

look, not even, blurry, almost looks like watery clouds.
View attachment 7308

View attachment 7309
 
Thanks, all I need to do is take a deep breath and dive right in. I will let you know what happened tomorrow evening. Thanks for the photos;they will give me something to go by.
 
blue sky and clouds..

Hi Ron!'

I am following your thread from the beginning. It is very very intersting.. from benchwork to tracklaying etc.. and with a lot of pictures!:) just great!
Your last subject: the sky and his little friens the clouds shows that with some courage you can make a beautiful "background"! thanks!
When I see your background/ sky it IS always "vacation "feelings to me:D
btw Rex: don't bother about it...actualy nothing can go wrong...there are so many types of clouds....! :D
add one of them...

Jos
 


Hi Ron!'

btw Rex: don't bother about it...actualy nothing can go wrong...there are so many types of clouds....! :D
add one of them...

Jos


Jos,
That cloud is way to cool. After seeing that one, I Googled "strange cloud formations" and WOW are there some weird, beautiful, neat looking clouds out there in the world... or umm, I mean sky.

clouds.jpg


cloud.jpg


cloud.jpg


_nebraska_looming-presence.jpg


View attachment 7312

I'm not to sure about that last one?:eek:
 
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:o Well, here goes!:o
Ron, I painted the backdrop using your method. The results...well...they weren't too bad until I got to fooling around and the more I did the worst things got. One problem seemed to be too much paint or at least too much white. The other was the work time was only a few minutes, I guess because of the type latex.
One thing I really liked is it gave the sky a moisture loaded look (haze) as we have here in the South during the warmer weather. The method is very good and I can easily see that with a little practice, one could create a beautiful sky. I may do it all over again. I'm still thinking about it. I do wish that I hadn't started fooling around trying to put a few thin clouds in. I should have saved that part to do with an artist brush and different paint...or not at all.:D

The first is before and all the rest are after. Forgive the photo quality because of the lighting I had.
 
Rex,
Lookin' nice. Yeah, once you start fooling around things usually go awry. The clouds look good though. I especially like the last shot. Ride it out awhile... give it a week or two. You might start to like the way it ended up.
Now you need to start hand painting mountains with highly detailed trees, down to the individual sticks:D ... Maybe an industrial building behind that refinery, and paint the detail of the handrails or even chainlink fence.!?:eek:
 
Hahaha! Ok and thanks for the encouragement. I probably do need to let it sit for a week or so. Right now, my eyes are crossed and blurred from looking at it so long:confused: . One thing for sure, it looks better than a blank solid blue backdrop.;)

Detail painting a backdrop:eek: :eek: Forget it!!
Heck, I'm lucky to be able to paint a bedroom wall. LOL:D :D

Many thanks again for an excellent and easy method. I'm sure you have helped many more than me with your posts. I will look forward to more posts on your layout progress.
 
vernissage..

Bonjour Monsieur Rex Ca va? The vernissage is waiting in "Guggenheim":D :D
Nah..seriously: It looks a lot, I mean "much" alot better.
The sky comes to life! It is not as "clean" ( steril?) as it was before...much better
IF :eek: you try to do it again you will see it is going to be a "piece of cake";)
About detailing the background: maybe you can paint or with a spraycan "paint/spray" some silhouettes of buildings on the background , using paper/cardboard plates. About the colors: use the atmospheric perpective , with other words use a pastell( for example : concrete) color with some white and a little bit of light blue in it...

Ron YES those are great pictures, I knew/saw them already on some other websites , besides mrr it is one of my "obsessions":D too

Baako yes it is. It was over the town of Enschede, in the far east of our country.. after a very hot day!! Spectacular
And now back:eek: to toppic: the layout of Ron AND the progress he makes:)

Jos
 
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Reawakening the post.

I just decided to wake up the post again to say... a trip to my Dad's is coming soon. It's slated for Dec. 5th. I have a lot of stuff planned for the trip. It's been awhile because of school... well that's over, thank goodness.

One of the main things I want to get done is installing the reverser units. I have 2 reverse loops and the turntable. I also want to start to install a couple more jacks around the layout for another walk-around throttle. This will especially help because of the center backdrop being installed now... It's just to damn hard to see the other side of the layout. I'll probably temporarily install the panel to a cross member of the bench work since I don't have the fascia up yet.
I'll see how long the wiring goes, but I might install more of the engine service area tracks. I was holding off because I need to see where the turntable fell to align the tracks.

Alot planned for a 1 day trip, but I usually dedicate 2-3hrs the night I get down there and then another 8-10hrs the next day before I have to leave to come home. It sound like a lot of time but I only get down there every so often.

Be assured there'll be plenty of pictures and videos.
 


Looking forward to the update. :)

How much roughly did the reversers run you Ron? I'm looking at building one for a turnaround loop, just wondering on the cost of a pre-built one.

Mark
 




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