I’ve been working steadily on my river.
After completing the bed I poured the resin. Before pouring I mixed a bit of paint into it to tint it. Once it had started to cure I pushed little divots down stream of the boulders that were just below the surface.
Following that I added a layer of gloss Modpodge and blew ripples into it with a straw.
I messed around with a pile of different techniques now in an attempt to learn how to make white water. Thanks again to
@Scottl for emailing back and forth with me constantly. His knowledge of rivers is immense and he helped me evaluate the result of all if the techniques I tried. There’s no way I could have pulled this off without his guidance. What I settled in was next adding a layer of thick acrylic gloss medium and blowing that around to make larger wave forms.
Once that was dry I created wave crests with clear acrylic caulk. I used very little. Just enough to selectively make the rounder waves into sharper rapids. Finally to that i dressed the crests is the waves in the rapids with a Snow Product I found by Decoart called Snow Tex. It’s a bright white paint that has granular bits in it. It dries hard as rock. I used this product to try to create a three dimensional boiling rapid kind of look in select spots.
Once that was complete I did a little bit of white dry brushing to blend these rapids in with the surrounding water. I also mixed a wash of the original bed paint but slightly lighter to give the impression of aerated water in the rapids. Finally I added a last coat of the thinner gloss Modpodge and blew that around to further bring all of the details together and also recreate the smaller waves that were lost when I added the thicker gel.
I’ve also run my bus wiring, installed feeders, and done the final installation of the bridge and track. So as it sits right now it’s ready to operate.
The next step is to add ballast, ground cover and trees.
Craig
