???Battleship or Carrier??? *PICS*

Oh my! That's one of the down sides of modeling, at least for me - Knowing When To Quit!

I used acrylic gel to make my first ocean base, and after getting the wake and churned up water around the hull wayyyyyyyyyyyyy too white, tried to tone it down with random splotches of blue-green and light green ... decided that looked unrealistic too ... dabbed more straight Titanium white on ... finally had to put it up for the night before I ended up throwing the model against the wall out of sheer frustration. Sometimes you just have to set things aside for the day, and come back later with either a fresh perspective or new resolve. 

NucMedTech wrote:

I used future floor pollish.

...good 'ol Future...thanks!

Hi Manstien,

    Great job! looks really great!

As for an ocean base, on a previous model I tried using plaster of paris. I spread it evenly on the base, then as it was drying I pat my fingers in the plaster to create waves. Here are my results.

The bow wakes were made with sculpey clay then put down before the plaster. The froth at the stern was made by stipling an old stiff brush in the plaster as it was drying. The difficult part is keeping the plaster from getting all over the ships. One other thing, you need to gouge the base in order for the plaster to grip something. I hope this helps or gives you some ideas.

  Ah, to take a nice build and destroy it!    I love it!  Show us how this turns out. The smoke is the hard part, to get it to look like anything but cotton.  Shell splashes and junk blown in the water can be made with good ol' gel medium too.  Make a frame kinda sorta like a trellis but round, bend the ends over and slather it in gel.  As the gel dries and hardens up, pull the tuffts of gel into the splash shape, paint, more gel, future...........................

 Really interested how the smoke turns out.

                          G.L.

mfsob wrote:

In that scale, for smoke, you're pretty much going to have to use cotton tinted with watercolors. You would have to "tease" out individual cotton balls to get the puffy effect of smoke, and use thin wire or a very thin clear plastic (acrylic?) rod to support the smoke so it doesn't all eventually collapse and lie flat on the display base. You could also look into the fluffy pillow stuffing sold in fabric shops, but I'm not sure how well it would take watercolor dyes.  I vaguely recall the photo you're speaking off, and that the deck was bulged up in one place due to bomb hits. It's a fine looking model as is; I'd opt for showing it on an ocean base and under way.

...the buckling of the deck is complete...now drilling bomb holes into the flight deck...

Yeah, you can trace the outline of the ship on the base and then build your celluclay waves around it, then do most of the gel medium, set the ship in and seal it in around the water line with more gel.  OR   set the ship on the base then build the whole ocean around it.  There is more chance to screw up by inadvertanly slinging celluclay or gloss on the flight deck  OR  you could skip the celluclay and build your ocean totaly out of gel medium.  That's more expensive though as gel medium costs way more than celluclay or spackeling putty,  comes out nice though.   Remember that ships sit IN the water not ON the water. Get the gloss gel medium and the future on the hull.   Avast ya lubbers.......dueling popsickel sticks at one paces!

                                      G.L.

glweeks wrote:

Quick & Easy = make ocean troughts and valleys with something like celluclay (mix water and elmers white glue about 50/50 or so, add blue acrylic paint for a pre-dye) schmeer it on whatever your using for a base.  Have fun it's like first grade! Sculpt your ocean, have the waves going as you like- storm & high seas.  calm & ripple, whatever.  Know how to put iceing on a cake? Very similar stuff.   Now that your celluclay or whatever ocean has been formed and is dry, go and cover it with a coat of clear gel medium. It goes on white but dries clear (did I say thin coat?) you can see your blue celluclay depths.  You will notice while spreading the gel it (like cake iceing) form little tufts or spikes when you lift the popsicle stick, use these tufts to form whitecaps, curling waves, bow waves, wake prop wash, whatever you need.  You can build up waves by using several coats of gel in that area.  When you've applied the gel wavws you can dye them with an acrylic color wash, or after they dry outright paint the suckers with acrylics (or oils I suppose) to get the frothy, foam and deep dark trough.  HooHa!  When ya get it how you want it, let dry, give it and around the waterline of the ship a coupla coats of future floor polish an yer good to go.       Have fun... go play in the ocean...                                        G.L.

...dumb question: I'm assuming you do all this after you place the ship on the base and work the medium around the hull...?

Or try photoshop. Grab a photo off the net of a seascape at the right angle, then drop your ship in and go to the races. It's easy to put a shot together that would fool anyone that it is the right thing.

Mind you, this is not modeling, but is effective and would allow you to show all manner of images.

Quick & Easy = make ocean troughts and valleys with something like celluclay (mix water and elmers white glue about 50/50 or so, add blue acrylic paint for a pre-dye) schmeer it on whatever your using for a base.  Have fun it's like first grade! Sculpt your ocean, have the waves going as you like- storm & high seas.  calm & ripple, whatever.  Know how to put iceing on a cake? Very similar stuff.   Now that your celluclay or whatever ocean has been formed and is dry, go and cover it with a coat of clear gel medium. It goes on white but dries clear (did I say thin coat?) you can see your blue celluclay depths.  You will notice while spreading the gel it (like cake iceing) form little tufts or spikes when you lift the popsicle stick, use these tufts to form whitecaps, curling waves, bow waves, wake prop wash, whatever you need.  You can build up waves by using several coats of gel in that area.  When you've applied the gel wavws you can dye them with an acrylic color wash, or after they dry outright paint the suckers with acrylics (or oils I suppose) to get the frothy, foam and deep dark trough.  HooHa!  When ya get it how you want it, let dry, give it and around the waterline of the ship a coupla coats of future floor polish an yer good to go.       Have fun... go play in the ocean...

                                       G.L.

mfsob wrote:

In that scale, for smoke, you're pretty much going to have to use cotton tinted with watercolors. You would have to "tease" out individual cotton balls to get the puffy effect of smoke, and use thin wire or a very thin clear plastic (acrylic?) rod to support the smoke so it doesn't all eventually collapse and lie flat on the display base. You could also look into the fluffy pillow stuffing sold in fabric shops, but I'm not sure how well it would take watercolor dyes.  I vaguely recall the photo you're speaking off, and that the deck was bulged up in one place due to bomb hits. It's a fine looking model as is; I'd opt for showing it on an ocean base and under way.

...what would be a quick and easy way to make that ocean base???

ww2modeler wrote:

Hey, Manstein , you at 1,000 posts. Couldn't resist. David

...cool, I knew I was getting close...when the confetti and balloons fell from the ceiling is when I must have hit it...LOL...

Hey, Manstein , you at 1,000 posts.

Couldn't resist.

David

In that scale, for smoke, you're pretty much going to have to use cotton tinted with watercolors. You would have to "tease" out individual cotton balls to get the puffy effect of smoke, and use thin wire or a very thin clear plastic (acrylic?) rod to support the smoke so it doesn't all eventually collapse and lie flat on the display base. You could also look into the fluffy pillow stuffing sold in fabric shops, but I'm not sure how well it would take watercolor dyes. 

I vaguely recall the photo you're speaking off, and that the deck was bulged up in one place due to bomb hits. It's a fine looking model as is; I'd opt for showing it on an ocean base and under way.

Nice build.  Very clean and the detail is sharp and crisp.  The cammie graphics on the deck look like the Japanese were doing anime long before the cartoons were created ... LOL!

 Thanks for the excellent photos, too ...

 Acrylic Gel Medium (gloss), Black, Blue, Green, White acrylic paint, brushes, popsickel sticks or putty knife, Future.

              G.L.