Water color

The lake water color depends on the season and ligting conditions.  Usually it appears blue like the Caribbean.  During the colder months, it looks gray, or even white if iced over.  Take a look through the Boatnerd.com photo galleries.

Here are a few random photos from Boatnerd.

The lakes look just like the ocean and that is based on the time of year and weather.  Some days they are inviting blue and calm and others it can look as angry as the meanest beast.  How I miss them.

In general, what you see when viewing deep water is the reflection of the sky. If the sky is clear, the water is blue.  If cloudy, the water will appear some shade of gray.  Because the reflectivity of water is fairly low, the color will appear a deeper, darker shade than what you see directly looking at the sky.  If the water is not very deep, what you see is a mix of the sky and the bottom, which of course varies from place to place.  The difference in the appearance of water is not appreciably changed by the salt content, so fresh water appearance is pretty much like salt water.  Sky and bottom determine what  you see.

It's also worth keeping in mind that Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes.  Lake Michigan, the stomping grounds of the USS Wolverine, is much deeper and larger.  Erie, especially near Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland, is more subject to the effects of silt and pollution.  Lake Michigan will tend be of a deeper blue on a sunny day.   

ikar01

...I have a 1/700th scale model of the carrier Wolverine...

This is out already?  I knew one was coming; it was in one of the newsletters I get from Freetime Hobbies.  But I haven't been paying attention, and I thought it was still a future release.

Lake Michigan is quite well-known for having a distinctive greenish tinge, particularly in non-winter months---probably due to flourishing algal growth. If you do a word-search for 'Lake Michigan color,' you'll find the word cerulean popping up with some frequency.

That having been said---having spent a fair amount of time on and around the Chicago end/side of the lake---when you're actually on it, it often looks a light root-beer color.

Cheers

Thanks guys for the help. 

Someday I should do a diorama of oru C-5 doing damage to teh airport area when we left.  Someopne lost a lot of glass on our departure.  They even got it on T.V.  Several cameras were trained on us when we started out turn to taxi out.  Oh well, we warned them.

Baron.

I picked up my kit a few months ago from Freetime.  The detail is finely done but mine needs a little buldge taken off the hull, probably from the molding.  It shouldn't make a difference.  There is a set of P.E. for the flight deck supports and other things.  It's got a lot of parts and looks like it will be a kit when it's done.

Is the PE set from Freetime also, or from another vendor? If the later, can you name them, for those of us who will want to build that kit?  I was going to scratch one, but the number of deck support girders, which need to be PE, kind of decided me against that route.

All these comments are correct ;

 Now if you want to see angry water with a cruel grey color check them out those same bodies of water when they are stormy . Erie goes from Steel grey to almost a sludgy black with very white spume ( spray )

The photoetch is included in the kit.  In fact you get five sets of P.E., two small sets included measure  about 1X3/4 inches and the other small one is 1/4 X 5/8 in size and 1 2 X 7 3/4 with the last one 2X8 inches.

The detail is very fine and I'm not sure with my eyes in their present condition that I will be able to build this one in 1/700th, but who knows.

Love to see that model.

When I make a water base, rarely, I generally use a black base color.

One of the past issues of Fine Scale Modeler, had an article dealing with this subject for making a water diorama. Some research should reveal this information.

Happy modeling  Crackers