How to model water for a waterline model????

Hi, this is my first post.

I created water by laying a 1/4" layer of clear silicone sealant, the type that's in a tube that fits in a calk-gun. I let it sit for a few minutes, then I took a large piece of plastic from a garbage bag and layed the plastic over the silicone. Then, just peel the plastic off and it pulls the silicone up and creates a wave-type pattern.

In the past few years modelers have come up with all sorts of ways to immitate water. The standard in the magazines these days is much higher than it used to be.

Lots of techniques seem to work for different folks. I've tried several (by no means all) of them, and the one I personally like best is a pretty old-fashioned one.

I start with a piece of wood (poplar works nicely - and is available at Lowe's stores) about half an inch thick. I draw a series of lines across it, about two inches apart, to establish a vague pattern to the wave formations, and draw the outline of the ship's hull where I want it to be. (I like to pose the model at a slight angle to the baseboard's centerline, with a little more space ahead of the model than aft of it.) Then I start working over the surface of the board with a sharp, spoon-shaped gouge, making a series of irregular, dish-shaped cuts just as shallow as I can make them. (On 1/700 scale even the most shallow depression becomes a pretty big wave.) I'm most comfortable modeling ships that are dead in the water. (Among other advantages, that eliminates the problem of funnel smoke.) If I'm trying to show the ship under way, though, I add the bow wave and wake with white Milliput. (It's a big help to have some photos of the ship under way, to help with the formation of the bow wave and wake. Some ships, at some speeds, produce more complicated wave patterns than others.)

With the "sea" carved, the next step is to apply a primer to seal the wood grain. (That's the big advantage of poplar over basswood: poplar has a really fine grain that's easy to fill.) Either latex primer from the paint store or gesso from the art supply store will work. One thing I learned the hard way: prime both the top and the bottom. If you leave the bottom unprimed, the wood will warp hideously as it dries.

For painting the "sea" I like artist's acrylics. They seem to have much more depth and brightness than model paints - especially when mixed with gloss acrylic medium. Here's an area of model building where personal taste can run amok. The sea assumes just about every conceivable color, from light green to purplish black, depending on the depth of the water, the weather conditions, and the light. Take your pick. When the paint's dry, give it a couple of coats of acrylic varnish (from the art department again). The contrast between the high gloss of the "water" and the flat paint on the ship will be really striking - and realistic.

Like I said, that's only one of many ways to do water. I'll probably try something different next time, but so far the carved wood approach has given me the happiest results.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Thanks alot for the sugestions. i've not heard of Liquidex Acrylic Gel, has it been around long? Where can I get some?

if you get fsm, the aluminum foil method seems very easy to do.

Hi Speedy,

Yeah, there are a lot of methods for making water out there. I don't know which is best, but I can tell you what I did. I used Liquidex Acrylic Gel Medium for the water, and some Milliput putty for the bow wake. The Liquidex Acrylic Gel Medium looks like, and has the consistancy of mayonase when wet. When dry, it is clear. After gluing the model to the base, I applied the Liquidex to the base with a large paint brush, then stippled it a bit with a smaller brush to make look more like water. When it is completly clear, it is dry enough to paint. I then painted it with a mixture of dark blue and green paint, occasionally blending in some white especially near the hull. After the base coat was dry, I mixed some white with the base color on a color pallate, just enough to make it a shade lighter than the base coat, and I lightly drybrushed some highlights across the entire base. This gives the water a bit of depth. When that was dry, I applied white to the tops of the bow waves and drybrushed the white here and there to make whitecaps. When that was dry, I gave the water three coats of Future Floor Wax for that "wet" look. I think it came out acceptable enough. If you'd like to check it out, I have one of my ships on www.modelwarships.com. It's in the "Model Gallery" under "Battleships and Battlecruisers". Look for a 1/700 Tamiya Scharnhorst model by Ted Bunn. As of today, it was #43on the list.

Hope this helps,

Ted