Well Im to a point on my layout where I can start placing structures and laying out scenery. I keep gettin stumped though. I have a few areas on the layout where Im just not sure what to do. Ive been lookin online at railpics.net for a while and got ideas. just not sure how to tie everything in. Went on the layout and looked at how I want it for a while and all, and man its just not clicking, gettin kind of frustrating. Oh well. Any suggestions on what you guys do to figure scenery placement and all that fun stuff?
Hopefully, you had some idea of what scenic features were going to go where when you sketched out your layout plan. Give those a try.
If not, (and even if so) make some temporary scenery to get a feel of what looks good and feels good. An old suggestion for temporary scenery from the pages of Model Railroader was to ball up newspaper and lash it together with masking tape as the scenery support. Overlay the newspaper with pieces or strips of brown paper grocery bags, and tape down as necessary. Hot glue might work just as well for the heavy brown paper. The brown paper gives you a color that won't jar your senses. Cardboard boxes cut to size - and painted if you want to - are good stand-ins for structures. Another method of temporary sturctures is to tape photos of the desired structure - model or prototype - onto cardboard or a box.
Step back and look at the result. Adjust or rip out and redo to better please yourself. Look carefully again in a couple of weeks while running trains, and repeat the process as necessary. Once it's what you want, you can switch to a more permanent scenery medium like plaster or whatever.
Reality is that unless you can visualize scenery that will fit and look good the 1st time - few of us can - the mockup of temporary scenery is a great way to actually try things out.
The other reality is that you more than likely had some scenes in the back of your mind when you first decided to build a layout. It doesn't matter whether scenes came from the real world, from photos of the real world, or just from photos of other layouts - you had those images in your mind. Recall which ones you really want to recreate, and then screen those scenes on the basis of what will fit on the already built layout. Don't be afraid to rearrange secondary trackage to better accommodate a desired scene. Sometimes even rearranging the main for a better scene is feasible.
Fred W
My best suggestion is to start with the larger elements that you are sure you want to have, and then fill in with smaller elements.
For urban scenery, you will find that some buildings have limited options where they can go, either because they are large or need to be placed in a certain location in relation to the tracks. I suggest figuring out where these stations and large warehouses will fit first, and then fill in the smaller houses and stores. Cardboard mockups for buildings help to arrange things. Or, you may find that it is most helpful to first lay out the streets. Given the shape and size of most layouts, there are only a few ways the streets can be laid out as to make sense and look good. Once a street system is in place, the location of buildings becomes easier.
For natural scenery, the same principles apply. If you are going to have larger elements like mountains and rivers, locate those first. Obviously, they taller mountains need to be in the back, otherwise you can't see what's behind them
. You will find that most layouts have few options of where to place mountains and rivers so they can fit and look realistic. I also suggest taking a hike or drive through the real world, and pay attention to things like the shape of mountains, how steep slopes are, the way engineers cut and fill topography in order to make roads and railroads, and the way streams branch and join together. I find observing the real world is more helpful than looking at a photo.
One big suggestion - I find that layouts look larger if "straight" elements are neither parallel nor perpendicular to the layout's edge. In other words, streets look better if they meet the front of the layout and the backdrop at an angle other than 90 degrees. This means some background buildings may be triangles in plan view, but a viewer at trackside would never know. The same holds for rivers - I would avoid making natural rivers perfectly straight, and avoid having them meet the backdrop and layout front at right angles.
I once made a scale model of my scale model. Sketch or print out the track plan, and then use some play-dough or similar to mock up what you want around the track.
If it is not the overall scheme that is holding you back, but your confidence in your scenery abilities, take a look at what I did when I was in a similar situation:
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Andrew
KevinKrey Wrote:Well Im to a point on my layout where I can start placing structures and laying out scenery. I keep gettin stumped though. I have a few areas on the layout where Im just not sure what to do. Ive been lookin online at railpics.net for a while and got ideas. just not sure how to tie everything in. Went on the layout and looked at how I want it for a while and all, and man its just not clicking, gettin kind of frustrating. Oh well. Any suggestions on what you guys do to figure scenery placement and all that fun stuff?
1. Topography: Your track run, and immediate industrial buildings will have a large impact on the "shape of the land", so the idea of mockups is a sound one. Once those are "located", the "non-level" areas can be determined. I use short pieces of stripwood as temporary stand-ins for groundlevel changes, at least to get a feel for just how far the ground level can change and still look right.
2. Vegetation: Grass, weeds, small shrubs, can be placed as soon as there is "ground". I prefer to build trees, and then find the right location for them, depending on their shape and size. The "Geographical location" will determine the types of trees found.
3. Various other details: Era, and location will determine the amounts, and types of "stuff" that might be found left lying around. Anything that can hold standing water, could have an LPB with a spray pump, spraying for mosquitoes. For urban areas, "Spitfire's" posts have some excellent examples, as does "Steve's", of both natural, and man-made "details".
Hope that helps,
Pete
Thanks for the help guys! I got some ideas to try and see what I want. I had an idea when I had the layout idea, but when laying track, I changed placement a few times, and now its just figureing what goes where I guess.