Attleboro Speedway - Build Progress

[RexCadral]

Got the backdrop painted tonight.

~18' by 42" high. This is mostly leftover house paint applied with bits of dollar-store sponge. The secret is to start with light, muted colors (representing further away) and then get gradually darker and more vibrant, particularly towards the bottom of the backdrop, to represent closer objects. I'm out of scale in a few places, but it's probably "close enough" once I get the track down on the table. once it's dry I'll connect all the panels into one relatively seamless stretch.

[4424ever]

Looks good want to come and do mine

[RexCadral]

I have faith you can do it! It took me a day to build the panels, including buying the wood and the fabric. The wood frames are 1/2" x 3/4" held together with flat steel braces. fabric is stretched lightly and stapled over the frame. I had a can of tan and a can of roughly olive drab paint to work with, plus a few tubes of green/blue/brown acrylic artist paint. the important thing to know is how high the background trees should be - the horizon is always at eye level, so measure where eye level will be on your backdrop and paint no higher than that line (roughly), except for foreground trees, which can break over the top, and hills. I used "car washing sponges" from the dollar store, which I ripped up into "roundish" pieces to prevent hard lines. Start with pure tan, until it's pretty evenly splotchy (but not full coverage). Then add a little green to it and go back in, taking care not to completely cover the tan in the top 4". Then add more green, repeat, get lower, add more green... go full green, then 1 layer of really dark green for the close up stuff, without putting much full dark green towards the top 1/2 of the "hillside". As you add layers, it's just going to get wetter and wetter, you'll end up doing a lot of blending, which is exactly what you want. I also made vaguely "tree shaped" semicircles with each layer to help add some implied hillside or close-tree definition, but you're not aiming for Da Vinci, just something vaguely impressionist.

[1fozziebear]

Great idea and looks good. but it made me feel like I was watching Bob Ross on PBS.

[RexCadral]

...I may have a degree in fine art...