Thank you, Gavin!

roryglasgow

roryglasgow

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Jun 3, 2001
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Gavin,

I tried your cloud technique on the back side of a strip of vinyl flooring, and it worked great! I never imagined that I could make a backdrop that looked that good! THANK YOU!!!!

Below are a couple of pictures of it. My digital camera is kinda flaking out today (it seems to go in cycles). Anyway, the actual color blue that I used is a shade somewhere between the two that you see here.

Next I will probably put in some background hills. It haven't hung it in place, yet--right now it's just sitting on the foot of the bed... :)
 

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No, Pete, that's a sort of pillar thingy between the master bathroom and the master bedroom. I was using some of the light from the bathroom to help illuminate the backdrop, but didn't realize that the pillar was casting a shadow until later.

I went ahead and hung it up behind the layout. It worked great! You're right, Charlie, vinyl is very easy to work with. I was able to easily dodge an electrical outlet that is very inconveniently located along one of the the short ends of the layout, plus it handles the corner very nicely.

I got the vinyl scrap from my landlady. I called and asked her if she had an extra piece about 8 feet long and 1.5 - 2 feet wide. When I went and picked it up she was puzzled and asked me what I was going to use it for. She told me that she didn't know why she had been hanging onto it, so I told her I figured that she knew that someone would eventually need it for a model railroad. :)

I'm going to leave it up there for a day or two and think about how and where the background trees will be located... Once I have all of that figured out, I can decide where (and if) I'm going to paint in some background hills.
 
I just joined yesterday. Read all your posts on building the Copper Ridge Railway throughly enjoyed your building of a great layout. The scenery and sky is wonderful. Keep up the great work and keep posting on the progress.
 
Looks very good Rory, like the way you blended the clouds.

Hi Dan and welcome to the gauge.
Shamus
 
Rory,

I haven't been able to access "The Gauge" for a few days (kept getting "Page not found" message, yet every other URL I tried worked fine - go figure!!).

Finally got back in just now and saw your cloud work.

FANTASTIC! I am impressed (go to the top of the class).

The first image especially looks like REAL clouds.

You have definitely mastered the technique!

Gavin
 
To all other "students" of this template teqhnique, study the images of Rory's clouds and note the realistic effect he achieved (especially obvious in the first picture) by holding the template closer to the backdrop at the top for a nice, sharp "sunlit" cloud top while allowing the bottom to "feather" into the blue.

Note also that you achieve the best effect by superimposing several cloud "images" over each other to give the effect of cloud "billows" WITHIN a cloud bank.

One caution - don't use the same template-formed cloud image twice in close proximity. The human eye has an uncanny knack of quickly detecting such matching pairs! Better to turn your template over and use a reverse image.

As long as you use several superimposed cloud images though, you yourself will not be able to identify individual template shapes in the overall "billowing" cloud bank.

Once again, great work Rory. You will inspire a lot of others to give it a try, I'm sure.

Gavin
 
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