A good backscene can really help to give a layout depth, whereas a bad one might do the opposite. The trick is for it not to dominate the layout because that’s what you want people to look at – unless you’re an amazing painter and want to show off your skills.
When painting backscenes, don’t use colours that are too dark or rich. They will draw the eye towards them. Muted, hazy colours are the key.
Even off-the-shelf photographic backscenes are very saturated and heavily detailed, drawing the eye towards them. For these, mist over Halfords white aerosol primer from a distance to produce a hazy effect and thus make the landscape look further away.
Chris Morris’ backscene on his ‘Little Aller Junction’ breaks the rules for the colours are very bold. The reason it works so well is that the colours and tones have been perfectly matched to the foreground modelling so that it’s very difficult to see where the transition is from 3D to 2D.
Right: Jerry Clifford painted this excellent backscene for his ‘Highbury Colliery’ layout (MR175). The detail is only modest and the muted colour complements the great modelling without dominating it.
Above: The backscene on Farnham & District MRC’S layout ‘Wickwar’ (MR248) is one long piece of Foamex. When not in use, it can be rolled up and stored safely. Another bonus is lack of joins – gaps in the sky will always detract from the overall look.
Above: A simple way to produce a professional-looking backscene is to shoot a panoramic photographic on a smart phone and then get your local printer to output it onto matt sticky-backed plastic or 3mm Foamex. I lightened the image in photo-editing software to create a hazy look (and made sure the printers were briefed not to correct it!).
Below: A Foamex print can give you nice rounded corners – always a good move if space allows, as in the example below.