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The first layer was done with transparent white with slight touches of transparent red and phtaloh blue red (another expensive one) oil paints.
I poured my mix of paint and resin in the mould which of course went to rest on the crest of the waves (read: the bottom of the mould). I then waited for the resin to set
As everybody who already worked with resin knows it, after some time when nothing goes on, the resin sets very fast. This is during this very short time that you have to stretch the mix on the upper parts of the waves. This is a crucial step so that it doesn’t look like the resin as been layered but really that some bubbles and foam has been forming below the waves.
No need to wait for this first coat to set completely, just pour another one –this time 2 different layers at a time -tainted with the same transparent dark blue but mixed with transparent white near the clearer places –according to the direction of the light you have been setting up earlier. The last coat of resin will be of the same kind of dark blue –but the opaque version so that no one can see the wooden base below the waves (how crap if it was about to happen).
I let it dry for 2 whole days so that the resin was not sticky anymore before unfolding the sea and it was already looking real fine even without the foam. (pic 32)
So now I have been quite logically using some white tinted acrylic gel to create the foam. Those gels come in tubes and you buy them in art shops. I use one called “Transparent heavy gel”, the stuff is opaque when you unscrew the tube which leaves you mostly blind when it comes to the right amount of white acrylic paint you have to pour so that you can eventually shape some realistic foam..
First you have to remember that these kind of gels reduce *a lot* while drying which means that you have to use very few paint. I would say the ratio of paint/ gel is no more than 5%
Secondly keep in mind that you really shouldn’t use too big coats of gels because the stuff might dry on the outside but not on the inside which would lead the inner parts of your coat to stay opaque/white.
There’s a trick to know how much paint you should use: you will notice when you stir your mix that if you use too much white paint, it begins to feel like it’s jellified paint or something, when you just have this kind of heavy paint, then you failed, you have to mix more gel.
In fact, the mix must be still appearing more *opaque*, than *white*. Then when you stir the mix, its heavy texture must stay more or less the same –when the texture begins to flow a bit too much, just stop adding paint.
Last thing: you will be using several coats if you want your foam to look okay. This means that you have to mix a bit of a blue kind of colour in your white to do the foam: only the very high highlights, the crest of the waves will have to appear white! Remember when you are doing a diorama that it’s not a matter of shadows/highlights, but of a matter of an infinity of shadow/highlights, ranging from almost black to almost white.
So when I have this gel/paint mix ready, I have several ways of creating the foam.
My preferred is to dip the finger in the mix and to touch the surface, when you lift your finger, it will look on the water just like a spider web. Just pick of your brushes –that you dipped into water first, and blend all the sides until it looks really good. And then do it again and again. Then I use a stronger mix (with more white paint I mean) to do the crest of the waves –but typically when I build those crests, I prefer “painting” them with a not too loaded brush –and just like the ground cover, put a very loud music in your headphones and just let your guts speak for yourself, and don’t think too much about the places where you apply them…
Actually I look at a lot of pics of foam and sea on Google’s image search engine, tried to forget about the reference, and then recreate the stuff from memory. It certainly works better than if you have one picture near you because you loose some time at checking your references.. and time you don’t have while doing this kind of stuff.
What works for reproducing an accurate panzer or even the shape of the groundwork might not work for the stuff where Mother Nature is involved.
Typically as I am never happy the first time around with the foam, so I coat another lightly blue tinted transparent resin with a brush so that I can bury slightly the first coat of foam. I then make another coat of foam which means 2 layers of transparency without even counting the first more or less white stretched resin coat I have been applying prior to the foam.
When all is set, I apply a coat of Humbrol Clear Cote to seal the stuff. And THEN one last purely white tinted mix of heavy gel that I apply only at the crest of the waves!
Why do I apply this last coat of gel AFTER the Clear Cote? Hey, that’s because the foam is NOT glossy, but the water IS.. in other words the foam that is buried under water is glossy, and the real splash of the waves is not. And indeed the transparent glossy gel plastic texture is ideal to do the tip of the waves
This method seems complex like that, but really isn’t, you just do the stuff over and over on the top of each coat until you are happy with the result. Typically, the more there is coats the more the sea is good looking.
And then as you have –to work pretty fast because of setting times it’s not even that much time consuming compared to other things.
In order for this joint to be perfect, I cut the base at the place where the sand ends and glued both the base + sand and the sea temporarily on a sheet of cardboard. I then poured my sand mix just near the waves. When those were set, I poured a blue tinted resin mix near the shore and one some extra waves. When the joint was perfect and totally set, I wiped out the cardboard sheet and the diorama could have been finished. (pic 35)
I poured my mix of paint and resin in the mould which of course went to rest on the crest of the waves (read: the bottom of the mould). I then waited for the resin to set
As everybody who already worked with resin knows it, after some time when nothing goes on, the resin sets very fast. This is during this very short time that you have to stretch the mix on the upper parts of the waves. This is a crucial step so that it doesn’t look like the resin as been layered but really that some bubbles and foam has been forming below the waves.
No need to wait for this first coat to set completely, just pour another one –this time 2 different layers at a time -tainted with the same transparent dark blue but mixed with transparent white near the clearer places –according to the direction of the light you have been setting up earlier. The last coat of resin will be of the same kind of dark blue –but the opaque version so that no one can see the wooden base below the waves (how crap if it was about to happen).
I let it dry for 2 whole days so that the resin was not sticky anymore before unfolding the sea and it was already looking real fine even without the foam. (pic 32)
First you have to remember that these kind of gels reduce *a lot* while drying which means that you have to use very few paint. I would say the ratio of paint/ gel is no more than 5%
Secondly keep in mind that you really shouldn’t use too big coats of gels because the stuff might dry on the outside but not on the inside which would lead the inner parts of your coat to stay opaque/white.
There’s a trick to know how much paint you should use: you will notice when you stir your mix that if you use too much white paint, it begins to feel like it’s jellified paint or something, when you just have this kind of heavy paint, then you failed, you have to mix more gel.
In fact, the mix must be still appearing more *opaque*, than *white*. Then when you stir the mix, its heavy texture must stay more or less the same –when the texture begins to flow a bit too much, just stop adding paint.
Last thing: you will be using several coats if you want your foam to look okay. This means that you have to mix a bit of a blue kind of colour in your white to do the foam: only the very high highlights, the crest of the waves will have to appear white! Remember when you are doing a diorama that it’s not a matter of shadows/highlights, but of a matter of an infinity of shadow/highlights, ranging from almost black to almost white.
So when I have this gel/paint mix ready, I have several ways of creating the foam.
Actually I look at a lot of pics of foam and sea on Google’s image search engine, tried to forget about the reference, and then recreate the stuff from memory. It certainly works better than if you have one picture near you because you loose some time at checking your references.. and time you don’t have while doing this kind of stuff.
What works for reproducing an accurate panzer or even the shape of the groundwork might not work for the stuff where Mother Nature is involved.
Typically as I am never happy the first time around with the foam, so I coat another lightly blue tinted transparent resin with a brush so that I can bury slightly the first coat of foam. I then make another coat of foam which means 2 layers of transparency without even counting the first more or less white stretched resin coat I have been applying prior to the foam.
When all is set, I apply a coat of Humbrol Clear Cote to seal the stuff. And THEN one last purely white tinted mix of heavy gel that I apply only at the crest of the waves!
Why do I apply this last coat of gel AFTER the Clear Cote? Hey, that’s because the foam is NOT glossy, but the water IS.. in other words the foam that is buried under water is glossy, and the real splash of the waves is not. And indeed the transparent glossy gel plastic texture is ideal to do the tip of the waves
This method seems complex like that, but really isn’t, you just do the stuff over and over on the top of each coat until you are happy with the result. Typically, the more there is coats the more the sea is good looking.
And then as you have –to work pretty fast because of setting times it’s not even that much time consuming compared to other things.
10/ Gluing the sea to the sand.
Just another nightmare because of course I didn’t foresee that I would need a bit of extra place so that I could do a realistic beach with waves crashing gently. So I had to add a bit more of resin at each side so that the sea could fit with the ground cover.
