I’ve recently returned to the hobby after the usual wife n kids layoff period (15 years!) and have started back with ship modelling. When I was a kid I built a few but never put them on a display base. However, I’ve seen how good a ship can be when placed on water and was just wondering if anyone out there has a good recipe for fake water. I’m building ocean going subjects (battleships etc) and torpedo boats at the moment so I was thinking something based around household plaster filler (Polyfilla etc) may be useful. Any and all tips greatly appreciated.
I’ve been wanting to do waterline USS constitution but haven’t had the time. my plan was to use a sculpted base out of drywall mudd to get the texture of the ocean that i wanted, waves, wake, etc. Then paint the base color deep blue green or whatever color you prefer the ocean to be. Next i was going to use woodland scenics “realistic water” it’s a gel you put on in layers and should give the water depth. as i add layers i’m going to add some white details in the waves and wake to simulate bubbles and spray foam to give it some depth as well. just a thought.
Two suggestions I can offer are clear silicon caulk, available at any hardware store, and water-based acrylic paint, available in tubes, at art supply stores or at more reasonably priced stores like HobbyLobby, Michael’s or AC Moore.
The silicon caulk can be laid down on a flat wooden base that has been painted with your basic color, and can be painted itself, when it sets up. You can sculpt it to make bow waves and wakes, and swells.
The acrylic paint can be used to produce a relatively calm water surface. One of the guys in my club (Delaware Valley Scale Modelers), Bob Ciccone, gave me that tip, and he uses it for some of his 1/700 builds. Apply the paint right from the tube, without thinning, and it’s thick enough to allow for some sculpting with the brush. You won’t get really deep swells, but like I said at the top of this paragraph, more of a calm surface.
Either application can be used over a plaster or Celluclay base, too.
Many great articles in back issues of Finescale on modelling water. For the ocean type of water you are modelling, I’d probably stay away from the resin/epoxy type used to denote ponds and streams and such.
The key to remember is that you can use anything you want that looks good as a base, but the key is to finish the top in a high gloss. You can paint with acrylics and then top with future, any gloss clear coat or look for Mod Poge in craft stores, get the gloss. It is a thick white ‘gunk’ similiar to glue, but dries very glossy and clear. Nice thing with it is you can use it to model waves and swells.
I personally use celluclay as the base, you can shape it into waves, bow waves, wakes etc, Let it dry then paint it the color you wish, picking out the tops of waves/wakes and swells with a white (I like Titanium white) then over coat with many thin coats of a gloss medium. Usually future in my case.
One other technique I have seen used well for calmer waters. Look at hardware store for the rippled plexiglass light covers. usually 2 x 4 ft. For a waterline model, just set the model on the cover (its easily cut) mark the location, paint the bottom of the cover, then use white to dry brush like the highlights and use an acrylic gel to model the wake and bow wave and blend the ship into the base. Looks great when done.
What you use also depends, to an extent, on the scale you’re modeling in - I’m a 1/700 guy so it doesn’t take a huge amout of material to model a “giant” wave.
For my dimunitive works, I’ve gotten good results using acrylic gel medium. It’s what artists use to give their acrylic paint some bulk if they want texture on a work. It looks mikly white when you apply it but dries clear, and comes in either gloss or flat finishs so you can skip the final gloss coat step. Since it is acrylic it cleans up with water, shrinkage is minimal and you can layer and sculpt it into just about any size or shape of wave you want, from calm harbors to stormy oceans. The clear gel picks up whatever color you paint the base, and you can highlight select areas for contrast and then drybrush on spume, wakes and what have you with white. I like acrylics because they clean up with water and they dry fast. Here are a couple of examples. First is a stormy North Atlantic with 20-foot scale waves:
And the second shows a calm harbor scene in the Aleutian Islands in WW II. Note how the gel medium picks up whatever tonal differences you put down as the base color, to give the water a little life and avoid the monochromatic look:
I tried acrylic gel medium the last time I did water. It didn’t dry clear, it dried milky. Did I get the wrong type of stuff? It was only in the thicker areas, higher waves, that it stayed milky- is there a thickness limit for it to stay clear?
Don, there are different types of acrylic gel medium. I get the kind that is marked “gloss” on the container, but I have also used the kind marked “matt” and it doesn’t dry completely clear. Maybe that was what you used?
That could be- it didn’t say either gloss or matt. Apparently there is also difference in "stiffness- I was told if I wanted to do higher waves I needed a special type.
Special type??? I will look at mine when I get home, if I remember I got it at A.C. Moore, maybe Michael’s, and there is nothing special about it. I just kept slopping on layers until I got the height I wanted.
There is artist’s acrylic gloss medium, which is a thick-creamy material. Think melted vanilla ice-cream. It is supposed to dry with a clear gloss finish. It can be used with the acrylic paints to thin them and give a gloss appearance. There is also matte and semi-gloss medium which provide other finishes.
Then there is gel medium. It is a mayonaisse consistency product. It is designed to give extra body & heft to acrylic paints. Useful when paiting with a palette knife. Left un-mixed and/or applied thickly it does dry with a cloudy finish.
Then there is sand medium, fiber medium and other artistic finishes. Suggest you google Liquitex, manufacturers of a number of art materials.
When working with gloss medium I’ll use multiple layers, working from a heavily pigmented mix to a much lighter one. I’ll mix different colors which results in an appearance of depth. My putting white into a layer just below the final lightly tinted top layer the wake froth appears in the water as opposed to being painted on top of the water surface.
Don - what I have been using is Liquitex brand Gloss Heavy Gel Medium. I think the product number might be 5120, I believe I got my 8-ounce container at Michaels.
