Colors in Japanese VS other countries' layouts

[Ander88]

Hi allí. Maybe this is a too off-topic "philosophical" question but I've been thinking a lot about It over the last weeks.

 

I started building my first model a year ago with japanese trains and assets looking at japanese posts and videos. Now I have my model quite finished, I started watching other country layouts i found that:

 

Japanese layouts tend to have more bright or intense colors (skies, grass, waters, building, etc) compared to other countries'. 

 

Love Japanese layouts and It is true that Japan the country itself has very clean, bright and intense colors you fall in LOVE with and want to represent those in your layouts. However when comparing my layout (which in addition Im not an expert at all) with other countries' I can't stop thinking if other country modellers will think mine is too "toon-ish" compared to European or USA layouts (which usually have more darken/grey colors)

 

Do you also have this feeling or ever thoughr anything similar?

[cteno4]

Ander,

 

Not a all, this is part of modeling and good to think thru well! We have been around this tree a lot in the last 20 years with our club.

 

I’ve seen this happen in other countries as well with scenery stuff being a bit high contrast and color, mainly in the materials I think along with some the process of folks when they make their imagination come to life may also turn up the color/contrast dial some and since its from your imagination it’s hard to see this as your mind can’t help painting what you looked at with some of the imagination. I find my own imagination tends to be a bit more on the vivid side when I’m just brainstorming and it tends to get tuned down in the process of and idea making it into something.

 

Yes japan seems to have a super wide range of color and contrast around train scenes, i think in part due to the scenery and culture and like you stay things tend to be kept crisp and pretty clean (but you can find bits of dilapidation just about anywhere st times and this randomness I love). Lots of advertising signs as well as there seem to be a lot fewer restrictions on what advertising can go where and the advertising tends to be pretty high contrast and color and visually fun as well. Classic scenery like rice paddies, cherry blossoms, Japanese hills/mountains all tend to be pretty high contrast/color as well. Even the scene is just not one cherry blossom tree and a paddy is not tiny and hillsides can be cover in riotous green foliage in the summer.
 

So yeah if you are modeling Japanese scenes many are going to naturally tend to higher contrast/colors.

 

I think one main thing is selecting scenery materials is to choose wisely, I’ve see lots of it that is just really wild in colors, many greens tend to be way to strong. Also uniformity in colors gets you in many scenery materials as nature is rarely perfectly uniform so uniformity with a slightly off color tends to really scream. Same goes for texture and size of the materials. I like mixing scenery materials so they are never perfectly uniform and I find this helps a lot. I also shop around a lot on scenery materials as I find different manufacturers do slightly different colors, textures, and sizes. I use to feel like a drug dealer as I had about 25 little tiny ziplock bags of my main scenery materials and I would take then to a train show to look at materials on sale to see if there was something I didn’t have that looked good to mix in (I did get a lot of strange looks and the brave folks that asked would always comment hey that’s a good idea!). These days since I bought some scenery materials on Temu and aliexpress they come up all the time on emails and once and a while something looks different and they sell small batches for a buck or so so I pick them up. A few of course came from the same supplier but I’ve found a pretty good variety of slightly different stuff.

 

As for how it will be perceived by others, personally I don’t care as long as things are near the real life things (of course there always is some exaggeration due to limits on detailing, time, space, etc). Thats one of the biggest fun things with showing Japanese layouts/scenes to others is they are DIFFERENT THAN THE USUAL LAYOUTS! Here in the US, trains and thus layout scenes) tend to go thru places that can be pretty bleak or it’s just big nature scenes of a forest, dessert, mountains, or industrial/warehouse areas. some can be colorful but they tend to be big scenes and fairly uniform. Around cities trains tend to go thru the backsides of the city or even under them and in more gritty places. Thus layouts tend to start looking similar. One of the reason I got into japanese modeling like 25+ years ago was the variety of scenes as trains are everywhere and due to little zoning restrictions you can have all sorts of wild stuff right next to each other. While Japanese layouts have some visual similarities, I’m always amazed by the variety with in the scenes and the permutations done here on the forums.  Yes others may not be aware of this but it’s one of my first talking points with visitors at our show layouts and I think it’s what draws in most visitors’ eyes in and visually excites them. It’s fun you can watch them slowly sort of perk up and get more focused and animated and interactive with their friends and us. Some folks actually put out pictures of Japan showing the inspiration for their scenes.
 

I so see some modelers at train shows sort of sneer a bit and even comment on strange scenes and such, I think because they have been in a very narrow view in their modeling. I don’t want to cater to them, I would rather give them an example of something different! I enjoy the general public’s non train events over the model train shows because the general public tends to be a bit more open minded and interested in some thing different and things that spark their imagination some as when you do their memory of the scenes is so much more vivid and they will sprinkle in their own visual memory with details not there. It’s really fun when folks come up to the layout and say last year or two years ago I saw you at xyz and I remember this scene of this or that! We do a lot of Japanese cultural events and there the general public tends to have a bit more exposure to Japan and this it’s not so exotic/alien then and scenes already implanted. The best has been when older expats will come up and see the scenes and start saying that’s just like the town near where I grew up! At Japan week in nyc we had one elderly lady standing there and I saw her crying and went over to see what was wrong. She said she had not been back to Japan for over 30 years and seeing these scenes modeled took her back to Japan so strongly. That made my decade! We have gotten a great reception by folks at Otakon, a large anime con here in DC. They love the scenes and the colors and contrasts, very much like anime in a way and anime style sprang from bight scenes where? Japan!
 

But that’s me. Others like to be more part of the local model railroad scene and be more accepted in what they do, so my attitude might not mesh well with that. It’s your railroad and unless conformity is what makes you happy do what make YOU happy with your layout.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Ander88]

Great and deep thoughts. Happy also to hear Im not the only one who has has this feeling.

 

As in every hobby, there is people very purist who need everything to be what they expect. Haven't thought about bright colors being also more atractive to new people.

 

Will try to follow your advice and mix sone different elements and colors to try to darken the bright grass parts. This will give more realism I believe.

 

Thanks again for such a big reflection.

[katoftw]

American layouts for example to be green pine tree forests or brown/orange midwest.

 

Not a huge colour variation/s.

 

Japanese layouts have a mixture of cities abd forsts.  You'll just find more colours naturally.

 

But I've never really seen this as an issue.

 

If you start building a layout worrying about what other think.  You'll never be happy.  Do what you want.

[Cat]

I have a New England bias, but layouts set around here do tend to have a good variety of terrain and colour, unless they are gritty urban.  Fall foliage is popular in these parts!  The best proponent of New England modelling was the British designer Iain Rice whose layout books for Kalmbach Publishing are a pure joy to read; they cover a variety of regions, but he is fond of New England and captures it nicely.
 
For Japanese modelling, we're working on specific scenes in Ibaraki with plenty of Google streetview images fo reference.  The buildings there to tend to be somewhat worn and weathered.  A friend who lived for some years in Kumamoto always marvels at how well the weathering captures the actual grit and shabbiness of so many buildings from their experience.  It's not all Akihabara across Japan!  Even for the urban modelling, the colour palette is different than what we see around here (New England urban goes much heavier on red brick).
 
For my eye, the mot 'toonish' layouts (but still very pleasant to see) are German built ones.  The multi-colour Faller/Kibri/Vollmer kits are all assembled without any weathering at all, nor are any of the trains.  Large roundhouses full of steam engines, yet nothing is touched by coal dust and smoke.

[cteno4]

28 minutes ago, Cat said:

Large roundhouses full of steam engines, yet nothing is touched by coal dust and smoke.

Lol yes, true! Steam is very messy!

 

Again why I love japanese scenes as they can have a huge range of Shabbat to crisp, residential to urban to ag in the same fairly small areas for a scene.

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Japan has a temperate rainforest.  Greens are often very lush. Hillsides are steep enough that tree stumps are often hidden. You model many hillsides strictly with clump foliage. Plus there is a rainy season in Japan from late Spring to early to mid Summer. The Japan Sea is often crystal blue and free of pollution.

 

People around you probably have never traveled and been exposed to new ideas.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_temperate_rainforest

 

 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 01:47 AM by bill937ca

[bill937ca]

More videos with landscape color.

 

 

 

 

[Cat]

Nice autumn colours too!  Fukuroda Falls is up along the Suigun Line from Mito:

 

[Ander88]

So beautiful colors.

 

And for those who start to get bored of forestal colors, soon they will find a vending machine in the middle of nowhere or a spotless clean red bridge.