During the research phase of a project, scenery designers may need to seek out visual materials from many sources, especially if scenes take place in other times and places. Libraries are a good starting place, but most designers accumulate research materials of their own over time such as books, magazines, and clipping files. The designer's creative work culminates in realistic color drawings of the finished settings called renderings . The rendering is a perspective view of the scenery as seen from the middle of the audience or from a long shot camera view. Renderings may be done in any media, but most often employ watercolor or gouache, colored pencil, and markers.
Some designers prefer to make scale models in addition to, or in place of renderings.
Models are especially useful to demonstrate how scenery is moved or changed during a stage production, or to plan camera angles and positions for a film. Models may be fully detailed and painted, or simple plain white models . A white model is made by photocopying scaled drawings, spray-gluing them to mat board or foamcore, then cutting out and assembling them. The designer is normally required to supply scaled drawings and plans of all elements of the set to ensure that the carpenters, painters and other craftsmen build the scenery exactly as designed. Scaled means that each unit of measurement on the drawing is equal to a larger unit of measurement on the real thing.