Inspiration for you from our archives!

The Scenic Artists at Cobalt Studios are experienced collaborators with Scenic Designers, Lighting Designers, & Fabric Experts and have a long history of exploring various materials and construction techniques to serve the unique needs of each production.

Below you will find an assortment of past projects that showcase the variety of options one might consider when developing a production design.

Visual Effects Using Scrims

Scrims are a unique alternative to the traditional backdrop, due to the versatility as a fabric and inherent transparency when lit from behind. A scrim can behave just like a regular backdrop when lit from the front, appearing fully opaque, but disappears entirely when lit from behind the reveal whatever is placed behind it. you can also work with your lighting designer to achieve lovely in-between effects to give the object behind the scrim an ethereal glow. Scrims can be folded or “snaked” reducing the appearance of wrinkles and offering a lightweight and durable alternative to backdrops for touring productions. They can be full stage sized, vertical panels, or inserted into cutout areas of opaque backdrops for special visual effects.

Purdue Christmas Story: Show Curtain Scrim & House Exterior Scrim – This is a full-stage painted scrim, that when front-lit appears opaque red. There is an additional scrim behind it with an image of the exterior of the house. When lit correctly, the red scrim vanishes, revealing the house exterior. Because this is also a scrim, when completely back-lit, the house exterior fades away to reveal the interior of the home.

Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre – This custom scrim with a cut-out archway is a good example of the 3 distinct looks one can achieve with good lighting design. When front lit, the wall appears textural and opaque, when lit from front and back, the archway forms an ethereal glow, and when entirely backlit, the wall disappears, revealing the silhouettes of opaque shapes and the dancers behind.

Knoxville Christmas Pageant: Bethlehem Hybrid Scrim /  Drop – This massive drop is a combination Scrim sky and Muslin city with an applied muslin “mountain-scape” piece that hides the transitional seam between the two fabrics.

Idaho Ballet: Nutcracker Scrim Show Curtain with matching Muslin Legs & Border – A great example of how a scrim can function exactly like a regular backdrop, but with less weight & wrinkle creasing for touring productions. This Show Curtain is entirely scrim, but blends seamlessly with the muslin proscenium pieces painted to match.

Velour & Similar Fabrics

Fabrics like Velour, Encore, and Serge are thick, durable, and completely opaque, with excellent light-absorbing qualities. These fabrics are typically used for stage curtains and masking because they drape beautiful and have sound dampening properties. While these fabrics look gorgeous onstage on their own, they can be painted, textured, and used in a variety of creative ways.,

Idaho Ballet: Mini Nutcracker White Encore Snow Drop – Lovely textural trees painted on a white encore backdrop The sky was sprayed first, giving it a smooth and even texture, juxtaposed with the hand-painted trees in the foreground that make great use of the raw white encore as snowy highlights.

Black Brick – A simple “Back Wall of the Theatre” black brick painted on Grey Encore with a stencil and thick paint. Making use of the fabric’s fuzzy texture, these bricks can appear cracked and worn, but the treatment itself is incredibly flexible and durable, resistant to cracking and flaking over time.

Blackout Liner

Most commonly used inside hotel curtains, blackout lining is a thin and flexible, yet completely opaque fabric that is built to block light. It can be painted on either side for a variety of effects, or cut and used as opaquing in lieu of paint for translucencies.

American Repertory Ballet: Nutcracker – This window design was painted on the white back-side of blackout liner, then cut and adhered to window screen to create depth and transparency effects.

Charlie Brown: Christmas Tree Drop – These trees were originally intended to be built scenery, which is bulky, heavy, and takes up loads of storage space. Here you can see the alternative soft goods approach of applying painted blackout liner to square netting, achieving the same visual effect with much less weight and storage considerations.

China Silk

Traditionally used for Kabuki Drops, China Silk is known for it’s light-weight, fluttery qualities that can be easily manipulated by air currents. It’s silky texture rejects wrinkles and offers a lighter alternative to muslin backdrops for touring productions.

Toledo Ballet: Nutcracker Snow Drop – This White China Silk drop was masked with snowflake cut-outs and large, chunky gravel before being sprayed. In the last photo you can see how easily it can be lifted with air underneath.

Scenic Elements Reimagined

When considering scenic elements for your production, space, weight, and cost are always crucial factors. Here are a few examples of soft goods providing a light-weight and cost-effective alternative to the preliminary design.

Busch Gardens: Iceplorations – Originally meant to be an LED Video Wall, this project was reimagined as a Bleached Muslin Backdrop that was entirely backlit, achieving the same hyper-saturated effect and with carefully planned lighting elements, simulated the rushing waterfalls.

Miami City Ballet: Nutcracker – Originally designed as a heavy steel architecture piece, the production opted for a painted muslin architectural structure suspended on scrim instead. Light-weight and easy to travel, plus no welders needed!

Manhattan School of Music: Mirandolina – Instead of painting  on these complicated angled flats, the design team commissioned a custom wallpaper design that was hand-painted onto muslin skins which were later wrapped around the built scenery.

Idaho Ballet: Mini Nutcracker – A less traditional approach to the classic muslin skinned flat, these architectural pieces were painted on Orange Encore and later wrapped around hard scenery flats. The Orange Encore provides a rich base for the layers and absorbs light, negating and sheen and allowing the lighting designer more freedom than if working with a shiny wooden surface.

Custom Soft Goods Augmented by Projection Mapping

We recognize that the current trend towards projection isn’t losing steam any time soon, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t still surfaces that need paint! Blending old practices with more recent trends, we have worked with designers on a variety of projection surfaces that marry the theatrical with the technological to create a unique visual hybrid.

The Wiz on Broadway: Show Drop – Spec’d by the design team to match a previously created treatment, we created a custom painted projection surface by masking and texturing Black Serge, then painting over that texture with white. The results give the appearance of a high resolution video screen, when in reality, it’s all just fabric and well mapped projection!

Ray Lamontagne: Summer Tour Stage Visuals –  Not all projection surfaces need to be white or solid. These visual panels were painted on Kaos Fabric and used as a projection surface to augment the performance with a variety of different colors and moods.

New York Historical Society: NY Harbor Exhibit –  Sometimes projection from the front is not possible In this case, our custom painted mural was created as a rear-projection surface to enhance the exhibit experience and prevent observers from blocking the projection.

Unconventional Substrates

While we may specialize in soft goods, Cobalt studios is not known for shying away from the unconventional! Over the years we have collaborated with designers on a variety of surfaces to find a paintable substrate that serves their needs.

Camille A. Brown Dance Co.: Ink – This unique project involved a rear projection screen suspended in a frame with artfully glued paper elements chosen by the designer. While the creative vision for the project was intact from the beginning, we collaborated with the designer to find the right adhesives and attachment methods to achieve the correct vision.

Big Apple Circus: Circus Tent Rug – The process for this custom painted carpet was thoroughly tested for durability and designed to withstand the heavy foot traffic of performances with live animals.

Roundabout Theatre: The Robber Bridegroom Show Drop – What may appear to be just another muslin drop, is actually a hand-dyed piece of Monk’s Cloth. Our team devised an in-house dying system for this fabric, that was then dried and custom painted with the show’s title. We love how it was hung to showcase the unique texture of the fabric!

Guinness Book of World Records: King Hammock Sand Floorcloth – Think your project is too big for our paint deck? Think again! This massive floor cloth for the World’s Largest Hammock was too big for our studio… but not for the field! Sometimes an unconventional job needs an unconventional approach.

Bard Barn Mural – Most murals are painted directly on the wall, but in this case, the mural was designed with it’s substrate in mind. This plywood mural installation made use of the beautiful woodgrain underneath and allowed the two to blend in an artfully rustic fashion.

Special Additives

Sometimes backdrops need a little more than just paint! We have lots of experience working with designers to find the perfect augmentation to their vision and have added all sorts of fun extras to our drops over the years.

Ballet Idaho – Growing Tree – After testing out a variety of fabrics, these gold foil tassels were applied to the Christmas Tree for some extra sparkle and dimension.

Busch Gardens – UV Leaves: These vibrant green vines were over-painted with a clear UV reactive paints to achieve an entirely different effect when illuminated by a black-lights!

American Repertory Ballet – Nutcracker Growing Tree: To add extra dimension to this Growing Tree, these fabric pieces were carefully cut, draped, and attached to create the effect of a swagged ribbon garland on the tree.

Oklahoma City Ballet – Snow Scene: The Art Nouveau inspired swirls of this snow drop were made all the more magical with the addition of a clear, chunky glitter that rested like snowfall on the curves of each swirl.