My Attempt at Backdrops

I am at the stage of putting in a backdrop for my HO railway.
I have a piece of MDF board that I think I will paint, but having the artistic and painting skills of a caveman I would really appreciate from others experience on how they did theirs.
All suggestions will be greatly appreciate.
PS I have seen Gormo's article but the distance between track and wall is not more than 50mm at the most.
The theme for most of it is a line rising in grade through a cutting then dropping down again.

 

Having looked at the first of these videos this is my attempt at a base for my backdrop, I am going to watch the others and will most likely follow the method.
The blue "sky" is just flat acrylic house paint mixed with artist acrylic as the tint. I started to roll it on to the MDF board and I found that the artist paint did not mix well and left bright blue splotches on the pale blue background that looked plain unnatural. I started to wipe off the mistake with a piece of old cotton bedspread and found that this made a mix of the shades of blue, so I did the whole sheet with the cloth using a similar motion to polishing a car ("wax on wax off!")
I then thought about the cotton cloth and had a brainwave (didn't that half hurt) and dabbed the white base over the blue after dabbing it onto some cardboard to dry off the excess.
Then I remembered an old friend who worked at the met bureau talking about "simpsons clouds as in the clouds at the start of the cartoon show" and mixed a small amount grey to the white to give the darker clouds.

I am pleased with the result and SWMBO has approved so all is well.
Tomorrow is more videos and collecting paints and brushes.
I the idea is to do some mountains next and after that the rock cutting.
There is a corner just to the right of the pictures so I will try and blend in some scenery. I am thinking of using "soft rock" which is a sponge rubber base with paint and sand over it.
I used this method before on my previous layout and it is an easy way to simulate rock cuttings and tunnel entrances the last picture shows the effect.

 

The loco is a Bachmann Spectrum Heavy Mountain 4-8-2 it is my biggest loco and needs min 22" curves so it is being used as the tester for my track, it it gets around then the other 4 will.

 

I have seen cloud patterns done with those net loufers the girls use to remove the dead skin.

I was going to try that but SWMBO said "touch the loufer and you are history!!" "Yes Dear"

 

Been doing a bit more on the backdrop, I have gone around a corner which I will fill in with scenery to try and hide the joints.

I am going to use a "soft rock" veneer over a polystyrene former.

The tops will be torn so that they blend in together and not look so uniform, then the "soft rock" will be dipped in house paint and then dipped into very fine sand (as used in making mortar) and left to dry where it will form a hardish shell. More pictures and description as I go along. Pictures are worth a thousand words.

Corner




Close up showing texture.



This is what it started out as, 2 sheets was torn in half.
I don't normally use foam this thin but there is not a lot of room along the wall for anything thicker, I could have used thicker in the corner instead of the polystyrene former.

 

A bit more on the backdrop, the outline of the cutting filled in with the colour the base will be so that any thin areas will blend in.

I did go a bit heavy handed with the grey clouds in the corner but looking at it now I think of storm clouds gathering over the mountain.

 

I had another go at the mountain in the corner and have filled the corner with a polystyrene cliff. Over this I have dabbed on a "render" made of house paint for the colour, fine sand for some texture and acrylic gap filler "No More Gaps in Aust) this was slopped on using an old shaving brush and one of SWMBO's butter knives that got "accidentally" bent to make a spatula.
The soft rock cutting will now be reduced in size to make it a bit more realistic, I thought its height made it look like tons of rock had been removed and in the real world they would have tunneled
Pictures when it is finished.

This is sort of what I am using as inspiration.



Taken out of the front of my ute and yes that is a B double stock truck coming the other way that was very "fragrant".

 

Yep drove past it five or six times last year travelling between Nowra NSW and Bundaberg Qld moving stuff prior to retirement, they had Bolivia Hill all chopped up building new road works, bridges etc.

Black, white, yellow ochre and raw sienna are the colours I have chosen to paint the mountain over a light grey and scatter foliage clumps over it.

The Modus Operandi for the stock trucks was call "Roll em Up!!" and then we rolled the windows up and put the fresh air onto recirculate and hope that the spray coming off it did not come over onto our side of the road and coat the windscreen.