Listening to podcasts and reading blogs you will find a lot of “right ways” to do the backdrop, or how to hide the horizon on a shelf layout etc. I’m thinking of taking a different route all together.
Rather than try to hide it through placement of buildings and perspective or use photo backdrops I’m thinking of doing a simple solid color. For my perspective the backdrop isn’t intended to have you look at it and thing sky or background or whatever, it’s primary purpose is to hide shelving track. In fact once the layout is completed I’d prefer the attention to be drawn instead to the trains, scenery, and buildings. My thinking is with a solid backdrop your brain will instead focus on the models. Whether or not this is true behavior I have no idea but it seems like it makes sense.
This brings me to color, the visual I want to convey is it’s a gray (or grey if you prefer) winter day. The kind of gray sky that assures you snow is coming, probably soon. With that in mind and the thought of making it not draw attention to your perceptions I’m shooting for a light but dull gray. What I hope to be able to do with the light gray is to use subtle colored lighting to change the time of day visually.
And by this I mean with just plain old white (but not terribly bright) lighting it looks like a dull gray day with snow imminent. However with a dull blue lighting the backdrop will start to feel more like a cold winter evening (an example of the blue evening sky I’m trying to convey). And my thinking is that I’d be able to switch the lighting and mood of the layout and support both lighting situations
I have no idea if any of this will actually work… or even makes sense outside of my brain but it’s what I hope to try and achieve.
Matt's Railroad Blog 