RandKL's
GI Joe Modeling Page
Modeling Water
Modeling Water
This is a re-print of a long email I wrote to a guy in the Sandbox a few years back who was trying to model a beach diorama. It may not be what you're looking for but I hope it helps you!
Charlie,
go to your local home supply store or check online if need be and look for textured lexan bathroom shower window/door material to start with. It comes in the semi-transparent form with preformed ripples that make perfect water for a calm water surface. Look around until you find the rippled stuff and not the prismatic or shell-print stuff.
It usually runs $15-20 for a 4x8' sheet so it's not too much more than a sheet of good 3/4" plywood as a base.
Once you get that sheet, lay it down flat and step back and think about where and what you're going to embed. Don't cut it yet! Just think about where your items will be and arrange them on the sheet until you're satisfied.
I could go into a long diatribe about the art of "aesthetic mathematics" (yes, that is a real artistic term even if it is pretty much unknown these days), but I'm going to assume that you read the article on "the perfect diorama layout".
When you've decided where you want your items to be, drill a small hole through the lexan as a start and then scroll saw or coping saw the rough shapes out of the lexan. Finish the cutouts with files as you test fit the items over and over until you reach the right size and shape of holes. They'll be covered later so a semi-good fit is ok at this point.
First tip....plan your total diorama near the center of the lexan sheet so you can work around it and cut it out to size afterwards! Cutting it beforehand gives it an edge that's impossible to disguise later....cutting it out later removes the edges and gives a "boundless" look to your masterpiece. If your dio won't fill the entire sheet, by all means cut it down at this time but be sure to leave at least six inches all around it for cutting later!
Second tip....coat your items with a layer or two of latex so the resin you pour won't stick to them. If you have to make a second try at the water, you don't want your items permanently embedded in the first resin!
Once you get your latexed items embedded to the desired depth and angle, tack glue them into place with some rubber cement or white glue and seal the holes from the underside with the same stuff. Now flip the entire sheet of lexan over to the back and mist coat the back with different shades of blue and white. Mist coat....not full coat! Start with your white and work to your darker blues. Remember your planned dio and work towards that goal....as in using your white to mark the wake or the whitewater. Go back and do the same with the different blues but wait for each color to dry before going to the next. An alternate method if you want to replicate straight waves is to do the white/blue coats in parallel lines down the back of the sheet.
Remember, real waves don't come too close together so don't paint yours too close together!
Now comes the hard part....the waves. This will probably take you a couple of tries to get it to your liking so don't get discouraged! I experimented with this for weeks before I ever got it right!
Your local hobby shop will have cans of clear casting or "embedding resin" called Crystalcoat, Crystalcleer, or Aristocrat. They're all polyester resins so they'll stink to high heaven as you work so do this outside or in the garage. Since it is polyester resin you'll be working with, DON'T mix it in a waxed-paper or thin plastic cup! Mix it in a plain paper cup or one of the disposable paint mixing cups you can buy at your home supply store. You'll need at least a gallon for the size diorama you mentioned so try to get it off the web in one of the art/hobby supply stores in a bulk amount and save some cash.
Ok, let's get to making some waves.
Start off with no more than one cup (half pint or so) of resin and mix in the required catalyst as per the instructions. Don't overmix it because we want it to flow a bit on our base. Pour it in thin, wavy lines onto the top surface of your lexan sheet with at least 8-12 inches between the lines. Don't try for total coverage....you *want* it built up in lines for your waves and this is where we set them up. Remember exactly where you poured each line because you'll want to pour on those same lines again! Now let those lines cure until they get back to room temperature and then drybrush or spray a mist coat of light blue over the entire upper surface of the lexan. Once again, go for splotchy and not thick....and then drybrush your white highlites again.
Here's the third tip....if you lay your lexan sheet flat while you pour and cure the resin, you'll end up with gentle, rolling waves as you pour more and more layers. If you tilt the sheet a lot, the resin will run as it cures and give you "faster water". Since we want waves though, we are going to start off level and then tilt the board more and more as we go. You can do that by placing a thin paperback book under one edge your base and add another book to the stack between each pour.
Notice how the tilted-base resin runs around your latexed/embedded items and hides the cutouts? Be sure to drybrush those ridges to highlite them between pours!
Mix your next half pint of resin and do the next set of lines DIRECTLY onto the same places you poured the first set....not where your waves ended up, but where you POURED the first lines. You want it to run exactly as before and build up the previous lines and to do that we pour exactly in the same place as before and we rely on the tilt to flow the resin. Once it's cured again, drybrush or spray another mist coat with a slightly lighter color of blue.
Do that as many times as it takes to build up the waves you need and keep tilting your base more and more between each pour. Think about how each new layer of water will build up on an ice shelf and freeze and try to replicate that. Keep drybrushing your colors and highlites but leave the last resin layer clear.
Now you can CAREFULLY remove your latexed items from the resin bed and peel the latex off. Once they're clean, re-embed them and glue them with white glue from the underside of the lexan. Touch up any edges around the items with a drybrush coat.
Once your water is to your liking, start measuring and planning your cuts to get it to the finished size you want. Use as fine a tooth saw as you can find so you don't chip the resin and saw from the backside of the lexan. A table saw with a metal-cutting blade is what I use but any saw will do as long as you have the time.
Remember that resin isn't good for your health so *WEAR* your dust mask while cutting it!
Once my dios are cut to size, I go back to the local home supply store and buy a couple of pieces of picture framing stock and make a frame around the outer edge of the diorama. You'll need a miter box to cut the corner angels of course. You can also check your yellowpages for a framing shop in your town and just get them to build the frame for you....they won't run over $10-20 at the very highest.
Ok, this got longer than I figured so I'm gonna stop here.
I hope this helps ya, Charlie!
Be sure to post pics to the 'Box!
ral
Richard 
Kristi
