Fascia and Backdrop

One of the distinct advantages of an all-foam baseboard is that it is fairy rigid, and extremely light. On the other hand, it does stand up very well to normal abuse – dinting and chipping… As I had leftover Masonite from the baseboard, I elected to add fascia boards. I cut each of the boards to size, following the rough contour of the landscape, and then slathered them with white glue and ‘tacked’ them in place with hot glue, taping the corners with masking tape to keep the joints tight while the glue dried.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to add a backdrop, but as I considered my design it became apparent that I needed to frame my scene. I’ve seen layouts by Christopher Creighton and Brian Fayle at local exhibitions, and I’ve always enjoyed being able to view the layouts from all sides. However, the major difference between those layouts and mine is that their designs have a central subject, and track around the perimeter, whereas my focal points are located around the perimeter of the layout with the track. As such, it seemed that framing the scene with a backdrop would be a good idea, and at the very least would lessen the amount of detail I would need to add as now the audience wouldn’t be able to see everything.

(This is a plus as I still haven’t figured out how to deal with my poorly planned tunnel…)