Ztrains: Final Water Touches

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Adding Waves, Swells And Whitecaps
After much testing with a variety of materials and techniques for making realistic looking water effects, I went with an item called Gloss Gel Medium by Liquitex for my waves and swells. This medium is used by artists to extend paint volume and to produce thick transparent glazes. I was originally going to use Envirotex and stipple it's surface to produce the waves, here's that article: Making Waves With Envirotex.

I found that in order to produce waves that would hold their shape (Envirotex is self-leveling, it WANTS to be flat), there was an incredibly short window of opportunity in which the Envirotex could be manipulated successfully. When creating something that will be such a focal point on a layout, I didn't like the idea of having to rush through it. I much preferred the idea of laying in a few waves, letting it dry, then seeing where I needed to make adjustments. The Gloss Gel Medium allowed me to do this.

I discovered that the degree of both transparency and gloss is virtually indistinguishable between the Envirotex and the Gloss Gel Medium, so I decided to combine the two. I went with an application of Envirotex, 1/8" thick as suggested by the manufacturer. After that dried I applied my water effects using the Gloss Gel Medium. Even though this is a more convenient way to create both real depth and effects such as waves, I wouldn't sacrifice the quality of the final appearance for ease of application. Frankly I like having options, and the Gloss Gel allowed me to adjust the waves until they were just right. When the Gloss Gel Medium dried on top of the Envirotex, it became pretty convincing, the light refractions down on the bottom of the cove are something to see. The last element of creating a convincing water surface was the addition white acrylic paint, very subtly, to create the feeling of water movement. The less, the better as too much would tend to overdue things.

Another aspect of creating a convincing water surface is the creation of the cove floor itself. I very much liked the idea of the perception of depth with water. I found the best way to achieve this was by using semi-transparent layers of paint on the bottom of the cove and it's attached river. I used acrylic paints in tubes, not the liquid variety from bottles. The tube acrylic allows for much greater working times, this paint won't dry immediately so you have the time to gently blend colors. Also, I mixed the paint with a blending medium... it looks like thick water. This blending medium further slows the drying time as well as making the paint more fluid... again increasing the ability to gently blend colors. After the base colors were done, I mixed a very small amount of the paint with a healthy amount of this blending medium, in effect creating a color wash. Since the blending medium does have volume, the result is a thick coat of an almost transparent color. I feel this helped enormously with the perception of depth in the cove and river.

Last Step
My last step will now be adding small amounts of foliage to the water's edge, particularly to the shallow areas, as was suggested to me by Art Fahie of Bar Mills Models, in order to break up the shoreline a bit. I was going to go with additional grasses on the shore, but as the cove is all of 7 inches long and 4 inches wide at it's widest points, I feel the grass would hem the water in too much, and too clearly define the edges. This would have the effect of highlighting the size of the water. By using small bits of foliage instead, I think this will have the effect of making the bodies of water appear larger.

Monday, March 8, 2010
Build Your Own Zthek SW-1 Switcher

Lost Brass Frets... Found Here!

Lajos Thek of Zthek has reported 2 etched brass sheets of his popular SW-1 switcher have been discovered at his etching company's warehouse.

This means that for as long as they last, there will be 28, SW-1 brass frets available for sale. These frets come without the small milled detail parts but at just $35 per brass fret this is a great chance to build your own SW-1.

Contact Lajos via email here: Lajos
You can also reach him through his website: www.zthek.com

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