As
threatened requested in my W.12 progress report, I have prepared a description on "how I did the water". If my explanations are crappy as always, please feel free to ask.
For this base I used a piece of styrofoam, acrylic gel and varnish,some cocktailsticks, a piece of paper, blue green black and white arylic colour, standard tools.
My method is a variation of a description I found on modelwarships.com, "invented" by Jim Baumann, so it is nothing brand new, but already proven a thousand times.
You start with the cocktail sticks, those are glued onto the styrofoam base and will in the end be the base for the "swells"; It's important to put the sticks in parallel, as swells tend to be parallel to each other, as well. Otherwise it will look funny and immediately destroy the effect.
On top of that the piece of paper is glued - inbetween those sticks the paper is glued onto the styrofoam, thus starting a very rough seascape-shape.
Now you have to make cutouts for whatever you want to put into the "water" (normally ships, in my case two floats and two pillars).
The paper is painted with a mix of your acrylic colours (mix of colours depends on the type of water you want to show - northern atlantic might look different from your neighbourhood's pond, thus requiring different colours), I went for much blue with a little green and very litte black. The colours can be applied rather roughly, as it is just a first step.
First layer of acrylic gel has to be applied (no worries, the gel is white (at least the sort that i use) and looks suspiciously like sperm on photos, but will dry clear) in a
thin layer, but leave those cutouts alone. it's important to work in thin layers, only a few mm per layer, as you
will get cracks in your "water" afterwards, again destroying the effect. When the first layer is completely dry, you might want to a) paint it again with a slightly different mix of colours or b) just kind of drybrush the first waves you have created.
On top of that you can add as many
thin layers of gel, as you like, depending on the depth of water you want to show. But remember: it will take an awful lot of time, as you will have to wait before applying a new layer: the old one has to be completely dry, or you
will get cracks. The very last layer will be acrylic varnish.
Remember: this is still a work in progress, as i am still waiting for the gel to dry that i used to fix the floats with. The final arylic varnish is still missing and the water is already highly reflective. the photos were taken with no artificial light, just a bit of sushine, and my camera already gets confused by all those reflections - like a real water surface would be on a sunny day.
Anyone still awake? The ship/floats and pillars are fixed to the base with acrylic gel as the last step. Remember: take your time, work with
thin layers only, or
you will get cracks.
HTH (sorry for talking so much),
Stefan
