I grew tired of looking at a white styrene sky and a foam-board earth, so while grabbing some groceries last night I nipped across the shopping centre to the big box DIY store and picked out some quarts of flat paint in various colours.
I then took an hour for myself this morning and painted Bydemill – my 7mm Great Western Railway branch line layout.
When creating an impressionistic sky, one has to set perfection to one side and be a bad painter. For this backdrop, I used a 3.5″ brush loaded with very little paint, so it would go on streaky. Working in horizontal bands, I painted light grey from the bottom up and medium blue from the top down, allowing them to blend in the middle.
I used the same brush for both colours, and other than running out the paint until the brush was pretty dry I didn’t clean up between colours. I worked in roughly six-foot-long sections but with plenty of overlap.
My goal was to create a backdrop that will disappear from one’s thoughts when working a train. I’ll have to wait to see how successful I’ve been: I’m out of town for a few days, which will give the paint plenty of time to dry before I run my next operating session.
I also picked up a light tan paint and did all the terrain. This blends together the foam board, painters tape, gorilla glue, plywood, drywall joint compound, and other materials into a uniform surface. It should be less distracting until I get around to doing scenery properly.
Paint is cheap (relatively), and this didn’t take long to do – but it’s made a huge difference already.
The Model Railway Show 