Best Of Interactive Scenery Clinic Week 4: Water, Detailing Streams , Waterfronts

[wm3798]

In my experience, it's either best to have it smooth, or work real hard to make the surface the way you want the water to appear.  If that makes any sense.
If the base surface is perfectly smooth, then your water product can be manipulated to create little ripples, and the overall appearance is nice and "water levelly". 
In the new section of my river, I used drywall mud to try to smooth over the base, and when I sanded it out, I missed a spot.  So it looks like there's a really odd wave moving in the wrong direction.
This particular feature will never appear in one of my photos, and if it turns up in someone else's, there will be a death squad dispatched immediately.

Obviously, if you're doing a rocky stream, or using a self-leveling product, then you can use whatever texture you like.

Lee

[unittrain]

Thanks for the insight Lee I'll definatley have to smooth out my river bed or I'll have waves everywhere. I will post pics this weekend of my progress.

[cec209]

I'll start by pouring a blob into the middle of the river bed, then use a brush to work it into the rocks and what not.  The bubbles formed when I was stippling it to get some surface ripples.

A couple of questions for Lee on using Mod Podge for water:

Do you ever thin it a bit with water to get it to level and spread?

How thick are your layers for each application?

Charlie

[wm3798]

Hey Charlie...  I'll either pour it into the riverbed then "push" it to the edges with a brush for a thicker coat, or I'll simply brush on a coat, just like paint, then when it dries, go back and brush on another coat. etc.  I don't water it down, because I don't want it to get all over the place.  It's just viscous enough to flow, but not so runny that you have to worry about damming everything up.

Lee

[cec209]

Thanks Lee. I'll give it a try. Sounds much easier than melting plastic pellets or pouring toxic fume emitting liquid.

[Lemosteam]

In the spirit of this thread being a best of:  I would like to add three replies to my engineering thread that I found very helpful and will be attempting a combination of all three. I believe these to be unique to prior posts here.  Credit to those posters is included:

I'm sure you didn't mean matte medium for the water surface in your last post.   

I suggest foregoing a poured product (e.g., Envirotex) and using Gel Gloss over a painted river bottom.  I've used Envirotex before, and it worked okay.  But, once I discovered Gel Gloss (thanks, DKS!), I'll never go back to the hassle of a poured product.

On my current layout, I used Liquitex Gel Gloss for my lake.  What you see in the following picture is craft paints blended to create the shallows and the depth directly on 1" foam with lightweight spackling for the banks.  I applied a coat or two of Gel Gloss over that.  In essence, all you see is painted foam for this lake.  It's very effective, easy, non-toxic, and not messy.  If you screw up or don't like it, then sand it, repaint, and try again.  It's almost failsafe.



Hope this helps,
DFF (Dave Foxx)

this guy was called the "bob Ross" of model railroads in the comments.  I'll say this, he's good . . . 

Philip H

10 coats with a mop brush:

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Chris333

[chicken45]

Hmm. I wish I saw these step by step guides of Lee and that familiar river sooner!

[Iain]

So, how would I go about doing this in N scale?


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[wm3798]

Almost looks like you could build it on a mirror...

[Missaberoad]

Envirotex would provide the smooth surface and reflection.

[basementcalling]

Masonite, smooth side up painted gloss black. Then add multiple, multiple coats of a gloss coat product over top the paint. Gloss shellac works. So would gloss varnish. Gloss medium built up in layers too.

[peteski]

if it is just for the photo setup a front-surface mirror would be ideal, but a sheet of black acrylic will also work (and much cheaper and easier to find).  But black acrylic water surface would not look good as water when viewed on a layout.

I also like this photo as a proof of Ed's law as it clearly shows that real water can sometimes also be mirror-smooth (no waves or ripples).