Visual compromises: a whole separate topic. How do you make it so a person viewing the layout "sees" a big city, or a scene in the mountains on a layout that might be just 3 or 4 actual feet deep, or a "city" that is an actual 5 feet square??
Some ideas:
- No straight, "through" streets. Make your streets zig zag or go diagonally across the space.
- Have your streets go "off the layout" and think about adding a mirror at the end to visually stretch the scene. A 5X7" camp mirror will fit about anywhere. I turned the BACK of the mirror into a billboard. Coghlan's Three Way Camp Mirror- available Promax Supply for $7 or so, shipped at:
https://www.ebay.com/usr/proma...rksid=p2047675.l2559
- Use building flats instead of full buildings on the edges of the layout.
- Make a single layout building have TWO different sides- I have a 3" deep building that is a PRR Welding and Bogie (truck) shop on one side and an apparel maker on the other- both different colors, with the end hidden so the viewer cannot SEE that it's a 3" building.
- make sure the viewer cannot see THROUGH a building- opaque the windows, or put a downloaded photo of an interior of a full scale building like yours instead of a full interior. A diner photo for instance.
- When placing buildings, LOOK from every vantage point that a viewer might see of your layout.
- Out of scale accessories- if you are using a 1:64 ceramic "mantle building" (like used on the mantle at Christmas) or a Plasticville structure, placing it high on hill adds to the illusion of distance AND allows you to use the building even if you are trying for a scale appearance. Place your larger than 1:48th vehicles close to the viewers' eye, and your smaller ones farther away- again to add to the illusion of depth and distance.
- detail the close-to-the-eye structure interiors, and save time by opaque windows on those far away from the eye.
Let's hear some more "tricks" about visual enhancing of an "O" layout!!
