The Background

In December '03 I started constructing the background. In fact, this should have been done a lot earlier, but I was still searching for the right techniques and, more so, the right material. When I found those, the fact that I had already built a large portion of the layout proved to be a handicap: some places were very hard to reach.

I wanted to have a backdrop that was: Seamless, or had at least very few "bumps" in it. High: 6 1/2 feet above the floor Realistically painted Connecting to the landscape, so with both nature as city themes Completely around the layout An easy-to-use material to work on Eventually I chose for a 1mm thick PVC roll, something I bought in the local home improvement shop. A piece of 16 to 1 yard was cut off for me. On the walls I constructed, where needed, a framework using 2x1 inch wooden laths.

After some trial-and-error using PVC-glue and contact cement - the PVC was extremely obstinate - I re-discovered my hot-glue gun: from now on, mounting the PVC went surprisingly fast (some burned finger-tips accounted for...)

On the PVC base, I brush-painted an Acrylic paint primer, carefully trying not to smudge the layout. Using a large pot of White acrylic paint and some blue pigment tubes, I mixed three shades of light blue: from sky-blue to almost-white. This was again brush-painted in 5 broad layers, the darkest layer at the top of the PVC, so the sky turns almost white reaching the horizon. The visible color differences between the layers were concealed by using the airbrush and a shade of blue "in-between".

The rest of the white paint, and some light gray mixtures, were used for painting clouds. I used both airbrush and dry-brushing techniques for this. Then the landscape is painted in different layers. The most remote hills first, using brighter green tints on more nearby ridges.

The painted buildings and trees will be added later, using the colors in use by then to match the scenery that is build at the place.