American backscenes and low relief buildings for indoor layouts

[Mohawk Valley]

I realise that this may only concern a small number of members, but being in the UK and modelling an American Shortline indoors, can anyone tell me what backscenes or low relief buildings I can use, and more importantly where I can get them from without paying very silly international postage charges.
There are plenty of backscenes available in O gauge, but I don’t seem to be able to find any in G scale.

Cheers
Martin

 

[Paul M]

O gauge ones would give a sense of depth of field, and for closer "buildings" try suitable pictures from magazines

 

[Mohawk Valley]

Thanks Paul, I have a few O gauge low relief buildings which I will use as you say. It’s the printing of backscenes that I think will cause a few problems…

 

[chris m01]

I make my own backscenes. This can be applied to all scales and is very cheap. I use GIMP free photo software to do this.

First I find the right photographs. For G they need to be quite high definition, for N that doesn't matter so much. For my indoor US based layout I went through my holiday snaps of US roadtrips and found useful photo. You can of course get photos from the internet but this is best avoided if you are going to exhibit the layout. I then shop the photo to make it what I want. Sometimes I start with a nice blue sky and then lasso various bits of other photos and plonk them on top of the sky. I also use the clone tool to smooth out any joins. Eventually I get a jpg file that is suitable for use as a backscene. Once I have this I send it to a printer to be printed. I use an online company called Solopress. They will print a 60" by 40" poster for around £20 including VAT. I find you can get quite a few backscene strips on a 60 by 40 poster. I have also used a guy called Geoff Readman to print backscenes. His prints are better quality print and can be as long as you want so no need for joins. They are a bit more expensive but no joints is good. Geoff's email is geoff@acompleteservice.co.uk. He is a fellow modeller so understands what we are doing.

 

[dunnyrail]

Another way is to get your local photo shop to upsize 00 ones, this is pretty cost effective. Yes you will have joins but on building back screens pretty easily disguised. So long as you are careful with country scenes, perhaps using trees or scatter to represent trees these joins can be disguised quite well.

 

[Mohawk Valley]

I make my own backscenes. This can be applied to all scales and is very cheap. I use GIMP free photo software to do this.

First I find the right photographs. For G they need to be quite high definition, for N that doesn't matter so much. For my indoor US based layout I went through my holiday snaps of US roadtrips and found useful photo. You can of course get photos from the internet but this is best avoided if you are going to exhibit the layout. I then shop the photo to make it what I want. Sometimes I start with a nice blue sky and then lasso various bits of other photos and plonk them on top of the sky. I also use the clone tool to smooth out any joins. Eventually I get a jpg file that is suitable for use as a backscene. Once I have this I send it to a printer to be printed. I use an online company called Solopress. They will print a 60" by 40" poster for around £20 including VAT. I find you can get quite a few backscene strips on a 60 by 40 poster. I have also used a guy called Geoff Readman to print backscenes. His prints are better quality print and can be as long as you want so no need for joins. They are a bit more expensive but no joints is good. Geoff's email is geoff@acompleteservice.co.uk. He is a fellow modeller so understands what we are doing.

Many thanks Chris, that is very helpful.
Cheers
Martin

 

[Mohawk Valley]

Another way is to get your local photo shop to upsize 00 ones, this is pretty cost effective. Yes you will have joins but on building back screens pretty easily disguised. So long as you are careful with country scenes, perhaps using trees or scatter to represent trees these joins can be disguised quite well.

Jon,

What would be the scaling from OO to G if I were to use OO scale backdrops?

Cheers
Martin

 

[dunnyrail]

Jon,

What would be the scaling from OO to G if I were to use OO scale backdrops?

Cheers
Martin

I just had A4 doubled up to A3, nothing technical but worked for me to give some perspective distance to buildings and tree lines.

 

[chris m01]

G is very roughly three times bigger than 00 but of course G scale isn't simply one scale. When making my own I always print just a section on my own printer and put it in place to see how it will look. I will then make it bigger or smaller to make it what I think looks best.

This is the photo I used above. Luckily I had decided to do one on those twirly shots (panorama).


This is what I edited into. As you can see I flipped it, got rid of the road and also the nearby fence.

 

[chris m01]

And this is the backscene on situ. This is the other side of the layout where I have used the same backscene but the correct way round.

 

[Paul M]

Be careful with buildings on your back scene, I've seen so many good layouts marred by the buildings in the background set to the wrong focal point. For instance, a terrace of houses that seem to be going upwards rather than straight back

 

[chris m01]

Be careful with buildings on your back scene, I've seen so many good layouts marred by the buildings in the background set to the wrong focal point. For instance, a terrace of houses that seem to be going upwards rather than straight back

That's why I always do a test print of just a section of my backscene from my own printer before sending it off to be printed. I always have to have a few attempts before it looks right. I developed this technique for my own photo based backscenes on my N gauge layouts but it works just as well for G .The issue in G is that the photos have to be sufficiently high definition in the first place. Going slightly off the main point here are a couple of my N gauge backscenes using stitched together photos.





On this last one I pinched the house images from Google street view (don't tell them) and plonked them on top of some photos of trees that I had taken. The location for this model is Dawlish Waren and the houses are photos of the fronts of the houses along the road bhind the station in the correct order. I have shopped them a bit to make them look less like the house fronts. I decided to use street view for this as I felt it would not be good to wander along the road taking photos of every house. The gardens are all my own work.

At the other end of the layout I have tried to blend my customised backscene into the scenery.

One day I will learn how to hold the camera straight!

 

[chris m01]

I am fortunate in having a dedicated railway room. I was able to photoshop some of my photos together and print a whole 60 by 40 poster and paste it to the wall. I built the totem with various free photoshop tools including Gimp and Paint.net. Something like this could look impressive in G if you had a large enough room! It also applies to US backscenes just as much as UK. You probably need to go on a US road trip to get the photos you want. Hopefully this has provided food for thought.