Steve

Boxomise: Trees, Clouds, Lighting

Modelling can be strangely circular at times.

You want to do one job but you find you have to do another job first.

So it was over the Christmas holidays.

  • I wanted to plant trees on the layout, but I realised I needed to paint clouds in the sky first.
  • When I had painted the clouds, I couldn’t judge if they ‘looked right’ because I didn’t have the layout lighting in place.
  • I had to make the layout lighting before I could move on.

Let’s look at one thing at a time.

Clouds were painted by the ‘dab paint like clouds’ technique. (Click on a photo for a larger image).

Create the basic cloud by dabbing white paint on with a sponge
Dab on a little light grey paint to add variety. I’ve put too much grey on in certain places
Adjust the cloud by dabbing on a little blue and white
Each cloud is different but I think this is my favourite

Next I created a lighting pelmet for the layout. (Click on a photo for a larger image).

I use L section plastic for the pelmet. A wood strip was added to make it a little stronger
A rough coat of white paint to help bounce the light around
A self adhesive LED strip was added and wired up
The plan was to run the wires in the end of the layout
Unfortunately the wires were really obvious even with the fascia board temporarily held in place
However the lighting effects are rather nice

With the lights temporarily in place, I could add some trees and scenery to check how it looked.

I think it works.

  • The lighting is ‘warm’ 4500K LEDs, which gives an early morning / early evening effect that I rather like.
  • The backscene is slightly less well lit which focusses the eye on the layout.
  • The clouds don’t appear to be too dominant.

I’d be interested to know what you think, please let me know.

There’s more to do. The trees still need to be ‘planted’, I need to reroute the wiring to the outside of the layout, and modify the fascia boards.

At this stage of the build it’s two steps forward, one step back 🙂

6 comments

  1. Well done. I think they’re some of the nicest clouds I’ve seen. I’m just about to paint the sky on the Cement Works layout so have bought some testers from B&Q.

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    Reply

    • Thanks Chris. It’s rather fun to do, I’m sure you’l enjoy it. I found it’s easy to retouch or redo things if I made a mistake. That gave me the confidence to just give it a go and see what happened. Good luck!

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  2. Hello Steve,
    I do like the clouds. You really have done them well. However, * takes gulp as don’t like to sound critical* looking at the overall scene the trees visually appear to be in the clouds. I think having the trees so close to the back scene creates this. If you moved the trees to the front of the layout to get them away from the back scene I think that could create a completely different feel and make the backscene more in the background if that makes sense. Trust I have more offended you with my thoughts.
    Woody

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    • Hi Woody
      Good to hear from you. Thanks for the feedback, it’s really useful. Definitely no offence taken, they’re helpful, constructive comments.

      I’m pleased you like the clouds. A few people have told me that. I’m pleased because I’d spent some time on them but I wasn’t sure if they were right. Good to know they are !

      Funnily enough everyone who’s commented doesn’t like the arrangements of the trees. This was the part that I thought was OK. It just shows I’m focusing on the wrong things 🙂 I will rearrange the trees….

      All the best
      Steve

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