The CORRECT way to model water!

[Mileswestern]

After a lot of research & development, please enjoy this multi-part series on how to model water convincingly (and Inexpensively!)

Part 1:
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Part 2:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://modelrailroading.wordpress.com/2009/01/21/how-to-make-a-scale-river-lake-harbor-or-just-about-any-other-body-of-water/">http://modelrailroading.wordpress.com/2 ... -of-water/</a><!-- m -->
Part 3:
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Part 4:
<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://modelrailroading.wordpress.com/2009/01/31/open-the-floodgates-pouring-the-water-for-your-model-scenes/">http://modelrailroading.wordpress.com/2 ... el-scenes/</a><!-- m -->

[Trucklover]

Excellent Miles!!! Thanks for writing and posting these beautifully done articles!!! I have bookmarked them and will DEFINITELY be looking at these again when i go to model water again.

Best part is, it will save SO MUCH MONEY!! Once again, thanks Miles, your the man

[Mileswestern]

You're very welcome Josh! It was a blast doing this article, and it's always nice to know it helps you out.

[cnw1961]

Miles, a wealth of very useful information . You did an excellent article. I’ll save this link and if I ever want to model water, I know where to look .

[LynnB]

Always great to see another How To. There should maybe be one place where all the How To's could be stored and I then only need one Link to that directory.

[doctorwayne]

Nice looking water, Miles.

Shane, as Miles points out, the pours should be no more than 1/16" at a time, and since the material can't be coloured, this is done when you prepare the base. One pour should be sufficient to make it look "wet". You first need to fill in most of the depth of your harbour - if the stuff is acrylic, it's not likely to react with extruded polystyrene, so that might be a good choice to bring up the level of the harbour floor. And since this is a harbour, you shouldn't have to worry about detailing the bottom of it either, so all you have to do is figure a good way to "make waves". If your water is going to be convincing, your choice of colours is the most important tool.
The same applies to your wharf pilings: model the two outer rows or so, then use a little trompe l'oeil - the rest of the supports as a solid wall painted in a very dark colour - you could brush-paint some vertical lines in a slightly lighter colour if you feel that it's necessary, but unless you're planning on installing a lightship in the harbour, with the beacon aimed at the wharf, nobody will see it.

Wayne

[Biased turkey]

Excellent tutorial Miles.
Thanks for writing and posting that highly detailed "Howto".
I already saved the 4 parts in my Scenery folder.


Jacques

[Mileswestern]

Thank YOU Jacques! I always appreciate the feedback.