APA Micro Layout (Part 5) Box Art for Backdrops

Here's a quickie if you don't know what to do with these nice kit boxes, once the kits are build.
Between the brick backdrop building and the right corner and under the highway bridge, there was a bare blue spot. I first thought of adding a fence and some brushes to hide it, but there would still be a bit of blue sky behind a fence.

What I needed was some kind of distant building to show behind the fence. I could have cut out a building from an Instant Horizons backdrop painting or paint something myself, when I saw the kit box with the Car Shop parts. Although the picture on the box itself is too large, there are two additional smaller ones on the side that could fit.

Using my metal ruler and a fresh #11 blade in my hobby knife, I trimmed all the excess around the outlines of the pictured building.

Then I shortened the picture to the length of the available space and placed a fence in front to check how it looks.

I used a black marker to darken the edges of the picture.

Then I applied double sided tape to the back of the picture.

That's how it will look when affixed to the backdrop.

With the bridge in place, the fence delimits the shop area and shows another industrial building in the distance. This is a relatively easy way to add some different structures to your background than the usual backdrop buildings found on the market.

The next steps will be trackwork, wiring and turnout control. Stay tuned!