Down By the Old Mill Stream - 3

New stretch of backdrop. The darker row of "trees" along the bottom of the hill are blocked in shadows that still need some additional detail added.  

This trip down to the old mill stream is taking a LOT longer than I originally planned. You'd think that with the Federal government offices (and most of support contractors) in the DC area closed due to the blizzard I would be able to take advantage of an unplanned 4 day weekend and get all kinds of model railroading done. 
You'd think. 
Instead I've actually been working - all weekend - crunching on a major proposal project. So most of these past four days have been spent on the phone and email revising, reviewing, and revising every word in this thing several times over. 
But I did manage to take advantage of those "breaks" in the action - when I was awaiting input from other team members - to break away and head for the layout room. 

The hillsides to the right (the slightly darker ones) have been repainted to add some more tree detail. The section to the left of this photo (also shown above) is new. 

I managed to get some backdrop painting completed - some of it I "completed" twice as I repainted about three feet of backdrop behind the mill stream scene. I also completed about four feet of newly painted backdrop to the left of the mill scene. 
I've gone back and forth on everything with these painted backdrops from the colors to the approach I use to paint them. I'm actually fairly pleased with this latest section - the photograph at the top of this post shows the scene from "typical" viewing distance in the aisle. With three-dimensional scenery in front of it I think it will work fine. 
I even managed to find 30 minutes today to "block in" some if the distant hills and clouds behind the area where the White River Jct. yard and station had been. 

Sky blue, followed by "clouds" and horizon haze and "blocking" in distant hillsides. 

Speaking of this section of the layout, I'm not entirely sure what I'm going to call this scene. It won't be entirely prototype based, since I need a small yard to sort cars for the locals, and I'd like to have a larger "destination" industry. Instead of trying to get a prototype scene to fit this space, instead I'm going to design and build the elements I need for the layout, and fit them into the space as best as possible.