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Creating Ocean water in a diorama


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I've had this project in mind for many years but having never attempted to create the look of water in scale forum, I've just never plucked up the courage to do it....until now!

A few videos on youtube and some useful resources from elsewhere have given me some options and tips that could work.  The one I'm gravitating towards most is the two part epoxy resin method of building up a water scene by pouring the resin in layers with varying shades of colour mixed to build up the depth of colour to mimic the depth of the water ie dark colours in the first layer and going lighter in subsequent layers.  

 

The part I'm struggling with is how to go about creating the waves and vortices created from a helicopters rotor wash such as in the scene in Top Gun where a US Coastguard HH-3F comes in to rescue Maverick and Goose following the ejection sequence.  Some of the video tutorials say to keep the resin moving during the setting time and depending on the motion created ie circles, back and forth etc, waves can be created however I'm not so sure that alone will achieve the rotor wash effect:

 

top%20gun%20goose_zpskqnhqqpk.jpg

 

Anyone got any ideas of other ways I could go about this or ways I could use a combination of methods?

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Just an idea. What about using air pressure from your airbrush to push the liquid epoxy in a certain direction while drying and at the same time manipulating the waves ripples and what have you? Maybe it would work pointing a strong source of air into the middle of the "pool" and see what happens just like the real rotor effect does. If you are successful, you could actually make resin castings of it and sell them to other modellers ;-) Good luck !  

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I would not use the two part epoxy resin. I think that will want to self level for a very long time during setting and you will tend to lose the wave effect.

 

I would use some sort of acrylic medium...something like a clear gel medium. Maybe paint the base a dark blue/green color first and then tint the acrylic lighter as you do different layers. You can push the waves into it with a brush or possibly use a hair dryer.

 

Bob

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I second the notion of using an acrylic gel medium instead of epoxy. I used it on my Apollo splash-down diorama and it was very easy to work with. I can't remember what I used but there are additives to make it dry either slower or faster. So for my first layer I added the accelerator and that gave me the smoother wavy pattern I needed without having to work it much. Then for the wave caps and splashes I used a retarder and that allowed more time to sculpt. But even the with the slower dry time the shapes held up very well. My sculpting isn't the best but with more time and a better hand I'm sure you could get the effect you're looking for.

 

DSC_0739cr.jpg

 

Bill

 

 

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35 minutes ago, crushkill said:

That's such an AWESOME display. Please tell me there's a thread for this build somewhere 

 

Thanks for the kind words. Type " 1/18th scale Black Knights Tomcat " in the search box and it will take you there, enjoy.

 

Steve

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