How do you create a Transition Scene

Ron,

In a city scene, you can use retaining walls or building flats to transition from one scene to another. Try to match the coloration of the flats to the backdrops. These photos show foreground scenes, building flats and photo backdrops. (Kong really doesn't help the transition, but I try not to aggravate him. )

Use colors to push the background into the distance. Distant objects are lighter in tone and slightly bluish due to haze. Colors are brighter and warmer the closer you get to the viewer.

I used a light, bluish gray overspray with canned spray paint on the backdrop photos to push them into the distance. Building flats were weathered with lighter color  chalks to separate them from the foreground structures.

Here retaining walls separate the scenes so the viewer's attention is drawn first from the foreground scene then up to the more distant scenes. The difference in elevations helps separate the scenes also.

In a rural scene, shallow relief cliffs or trees can serve the same purpose as building flats. Here you have foreground rocks, low relief cliff faces, and then the painted backdrop. 

Even something as simple as a row of low hedges (chunks of clump foliage, for example) along the base of your backdrop will hide that seam and connect it to the scenes in front of it.

The more difficult transitions might seem to be scenes placed side-by-side rather than one in front of the other. But, we seldom have the room to progress gradually from the city to the country, for example. Luckily, the viewer's eye will tend to focus on one scene at a time, not the space between them. 

The more detail you have in each scene will help keep the viewer's eye focused where you want. He will tend to ignore the less detailed intermediate scenes.

Jim

Jim, Thanks so much.  Trees and rocks seem like a good idea.  I drove around today to view the real world to get some ideas.  I'm moving from a corn field to a scenic valley.  The backdrops are different so I needed a view block of the transition.

Ron

Ron,

I've used a piece of 3/4" plywood cut to the shape of a hill and just high enough to cover the land areas of the two adjoining backdrops. Paint it a green that goes with both backdrops and cover it with lots of foliage to look like a wooded hill. It wouldn't have to be too wide - just enough to cover the seam and have a believable slope on each side. 

Sort of like the cutouts in this photo except a single hill covered in foliage:

Here's a corner scene that would look good with different style backdrops on either side of the hill. For a straight away, a low relief hill/stand of trees extending out only an inch or two would work.

Jim