Beautiful job! One question... what is in the water in the middle... looks like there's a fence or barrier of some kind? What did you use for the water? I love the reflections! Nice weathering on the bridge... looks very realistic!
The fence is a barrier for the barges that go through when the bridge is rotated. Below is a photo of the prototype. I used Enviro-Tex for the water. I will be using gloss medium on the water yet to simulate moving water and make it not so reflective.
I really like the bridge. I really luv the reflection of the trains in the calm water...would be a shame to lose that :tb-sad: .
The bridge turned out great! I too like the water calm, but living on the northern end of the Mighty Miss, I know you hardly ever see it calm (and it's tough to see to far into the water too-she's not the cleanest river around)...awesome work Daryl!
Added the photo backdrop. I'll probably leave the water calm/still for now. Even though water movement would be more prototypical, it does look cool as is. I need to order some etched brass stairways for the control tower, but its pretty much done. The prototype: The model:
Fantastic piece of work Daryl(!), especially with the water in place. The highway bridge photo is quite good - but I think I would be tempted to cut the sky out between the towers (following the arc of the cable) if you haven't already affixed it to the backdrop. I think it would blend with the painted section quite nicely then. -Gary
I thought about that too. Decided to put it up with it not cut out to see how it looks and then cut it out if I felt it needed it. Right now I agree with you that it would look better with it cut out, but I'll give it a few more days before I decide for sure. Daryl
That backdrop really nails it (although agree you may wanna cut the sky portion out to help blend) but that and the water and the bridge weathering are great!
Daryl, I've been watching this with great interest here. And I sympathize with your struggle on the suspension bridge on the backdrop. I had a similar problem with a roof sign on the Monte Vista Hotel secured with a lot of guy wires and open structure, and having it DIRECTLY on the backdrop. The photo I had had a bunch of clouds in it and didn't match the backdrop sky at all. I tried cutting it out and that failed too. Came to this: http://gustafson.home.westpa.net/MV15.jpg I ended up with a hybrid solution....part printed and part model (a wire structure soldered up and almost directly on the backdrop). Using the photo as a template you may want to try the hybrid approach. I've tried mounted printed sky backdrops and all they did was bubble, yet in this case the suspension bridge backdrop image is really, really, really good and it just makes the entire scene. If you laid that photo down on some softwood, you could literally follow it with brass wire and Plastruct and make a 2D model. The size and perspective would be dead-on, yet it would be see-thru to the sky. As long as it is dark and almost backlit like it is, the detail isn't all that important. The perspective and proportion on the photo is important. The structure I soldered up LOOKS like it is 3D and perspective when it is really only 2D and distorted to follow the photo. Just a thought. Love your project!
Thanks Randgust! I like what you did with the rooftop sign. It looks very convincing. I've used photos for backdrops in the past and there always is a problem with the 3d effect of the photo being on a 2d backdrop. The photo might look good at one angle but will look completely wrong from a different angle. Knowing about this problem when I took the photo, I was very determined to make sure I took the photo as straight on as possible to eliminate any 3d effect. Since I did not have access to a boat, I had to walk along the west shore of the Mississippi until the shoreline curved inward and I could get a straight on shot (It was by some restaurant for those familiar with the area). By this time I was pretty far away from the bridge and had to zoom in as far as possible and set the camera on top of a trash can to hold it steady. Even with the zoom, I still had to scale the photo 165% to get it the right size for the backdrop. This fuzzed up the detail a bit but this is not necessarily a bad thing for a photo backdrop. With the image of the bridge being pretty much 2d, the bridge looks appropriate at any angle. I like your idea about the brass wire and Plastruct. I may try that at some point. My main hesitation is that I do not want the highway bridge to draw attention from railroad bridge. I will probably cut the photo out along the inside curve of the cables and see how I like that. If I am not satisfied with how that looks I will give your idea a try. Daryl
Great job on this bridge AND backdrop.... I'd like to offer an opinion on the river 'water'...I'd go for your original idea for adding 'texture' to the surface and cutting down on the 'mirror-like' effect of the dead calm and high gloss... Although I agree with a lot of the suggestions here that the effect of the 'mirror' is beautiful, IMO, it just doesn't 'capture' the feel of the prototype, PLUS, I beleive the 'dead calm' of the river diminishes the 'majesty' and scale of the bridge i.e...to my eyes, it makes the bridge and the scene appear 'smaller'... I've grown up on the Mississippi (New Orleans) and glass-smooth bayous....the difference in scope and scale is TREMEDOUS..in fact, I've lived on the water for most of my life....ANY current or breeze disrupts the highly reflective 'see-through' effect as well... I cast my vote for your original idea for the treatment of the river...I believe it will only serve to augment and highlight your fantastice work on this subject! Sincerely, Bruce
Daryl, Some of the most convincing river ripples are on Kevin Beck's N-scale Central Carolina Southbound layout. His Yadkin River bridge scene is similar in size to your scene. Here is a photo: I emailed him a few years ago and he told me what techniques he used for the ripples although I can't rememeber exactly what they were. You may want to drop him a line. BTW, I really like the ultra gloss look for some reason! Jamie
That's easy to explain...that reflection shot is just unbelievably good. Hard to argue with that result!
