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Another first attempt at modeling water...

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  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: Seattle, Colorado
Another first attempt at modeling water...
Posted by onyxman on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 3:52 PM

I ignored all the good advice about silicon and went with painted plaster of paris.  The ship is a decade-old 1/700 heavy cruiser Tone.


  • Member since
    December 2006
  • From: N. Georgia
Posted by Jester75 on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 5:13 PM

Ooh, I love it! Any more pics?? A step-by-step would rock!

Eric

 

  • Member since
    March 2006
Posted by TD4438 on Tuesday, August 2, 2011 5:47 PM

I like it!

More pics please.

  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: Seattle, Colorado
Posted by onyxman on Wednesday, August 3, 2011 11:34 AM

I poured very wet plaster over the base, then lifted the base an inch off the table and dropped it.  That makes the plaster level and gets air bubbles out.  You can clean up the plaster that glops (is that a word?) over the edge after it starts to set.

After that was dry, I dimpled the surface with a burr tool on my Dremel.  This is very dusty! 

Trace the outline of the hull. Using light spackling compound I formed the bow waves by hand.

Sprayed a coat of gray primer over everything, then a coat of the bluish ocean color, which I don't remember what it was exactly.  Then airbrushed light blue or aqua near the hull outline and in streaks and spots along the wake.  

Brushed a coat of Future over everything, but this started to fill in the dimples, so after it was dry I sprayed a coat of gloss lacquer. 

Where the hull goes I smeared some spackling compound, and dripped some water on it so it was mushy, then pressed the hull down.  Spackling mushed out around the hull and I smoothed it out into the wake.  A wet Q-tip worked well for that.

Then touched up the waves with flat white dry brush.

This all worked better than I expected. The spackling looks very frothy.   

Fred

 

 

  • Member since
    December 2006
  • From: N. Georgia
Posted by Jester75 on Wednesday, August 3, 2011 7:39 PM

Thx for posting more pics and taking the time to do a short write up onyx!!

Eric

 

  • Member since
    January 2006
  • From: NW Washington
Posted by dirkpitt77 on Thursday, August 4, 2011 9:21 AM

   That looks fantastic!  But I wonder, would it not be easier to maybe dimple it with your thumb or a fingertip while the plaster was still a bit wet, rather than with a dremel after it's dry?  Or does it level out too much?

 

  Chris

    "Some say the alien didn't die in the crash.  It survived and drank whiskey and played poker with the locals 'til the Texas Rangers caught wind of it and shot it dead."

  • Member since
    March 2010
Posted by stcat on Thursday, August 4, 2011 9:24 AM

Looks great!  I was also wondering if it levels too fast to make the marks by hand.  Seems like a lot of work to dremel.

  • Member since
    March 2010
  • From: Democratic Peoples Republic of Illinois
Posted by Hercmech on Thursday, August 4, 2011 9:55 AM

Nice looking water! I have a BB in the stash that I am really afraid to even start on because I want to put it on water but am nervous about trying it. Your technique seems easy enough and I might give it a go. Thanks for the tips!


13151015

  • Member since
    July 2010
  • From: Tornado Alley
Posted by Echo139er on Thursday, August 4, 2011 10:03 AM

Impressive!  Excellent results.

  • Member since
    November 2005
Posted by Anonymous on Thursday, August 4, 2011 10:05 AM

Looks good...you can get similar results with celluclay....

  • Member since
    January 2003
  • From: Washington, DC
Posted by TomZ2 on Thursday, August 4, 2011 10:37 PM

Excellent!

Occasional factual, grammatical, or spelling variations are inherent to this thesis and should not be considered as defects, as they enhance the individuality and character of this document.

  • Member since
    March 2007
  • From: Carmel, CA
Posted by bondoman on Friday, August 5, 2011 12:13 AM

Manstein's revenge

Looks good...you can get similar results with celluclay....

Not really. Celluclay is better, for waves and such. But it doesn't smooth out so well.

I don't like silicone because over time it shrinks.

Fred, that looks nice.

One thing though, modeling water works best when a photo is available. Ships do really weird things like having secondary wakes at the midline, piling up bow waves and the ocean usually has it's own texture that the ship encounters in funny ways...Dead

  • Member since
    March 2005
  • From: West Virginia, USA
Posted by mfsob on Saturday, August 6, 2011 7:10 AM

I'm sticking with acrylic gel medium for the time being, mainly because I like the fact that it cleans up with water if you mess up! Not that I ever mess up ...

It also seems to give a little more "depth" to the water, which is going to be important to a beach diorama I'm going to try to pull of for my just-completed Rufe float fighter.

  • Member since
    December 2005
  • From: Seattle, Colorado
Posted by onyxman on Monday, August 8, 2011 9:35 AM

Thanks for the input everybody.   

Yes, the plaster levels too much to do the dimpling while it's wet.  Another drawback to this is that it is dead flat, so you can't really build in any swell.  I might try doing that by pouring the plaster onto a wavy screen.

Monty is correct about there being no depth to it.  I think the scale makes a difference here.  At 1/700, the depth one can see into the water surface is negligible.  For an aircraft it would make a difference.

Using a picture of a similar ship making a wake would help a lot.  I've spend most of my life looking at a ship's wake, and some of the bases I see for models are the weirdest looking wakes!  Then there is the crinkled tinfoil method, which looks just like crinkled tinfoil.  For the best bases one should be able to judge the wind direction and sea state.

Fred

  • Member since
    March 2003
  • From: Rain USA, Vancouver WA
Posted by tigerman on Monday, August 8, 2011 1:06 PM

That looks quite good.

   http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y269/wing_nut_5o/PANZERJAGERGB.jpg

 Eric 

  • Member since
    November 2005
  • From: NYC
Posted by kp80 on Thursday, August 11, 2011 8:46 PM

Nice job Fred! 

I found a good source for modeling wave patterns here http://www.steelnavy.com/WavePatterns.htm.

I've only tried the tin foil method and acrylic gel, but can see where the choice is scale dependent.

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