Water effects for bases

[DiscipleOfTheWord]

Hi all,

Just a quick question. Does anyone know where I can get some materials to make water effects from? (I'm in the UK.) I want to have an Iron Warriors Contemptor standing in a shell-hole filled with scummy water, and I'm not sure how to create this effect or where to get the materials from. Thanks!

[WarriorFish]

I'm sure someone can offer some more fancy advice, but you can do a dirty water look quite easily with any hobby water effect (GW did one a while back even, I presume they still do if you can't get one elsewhere). Paint the area you're going to cover with an appropriate colour(s) (I've used a dark brown) and then blob the water effect on top. I've found the thicker it is the better it looks, and that it's better to do it in one go if possible. If you're going to have craters it should be easy to fill it up and leave it to set - be aware that the more you put on the ever longer it takes so the model might need putting aside for a while if you put a lot on.

 

Once you get some water effect experiment a bit to see what you can do, a good opportunity to play with some bits and maybe Green Stuff as well to get nice craters

[Toomanyprojects]

Woodlands scenics (railway modelling folks) do a damn good, reasonably priced starter kit for water that does the job really well and will be enough for literally dozens of bases

[Kierdale]

If you can get resin that cures under UV (read: sunlight), sold for making jewelry/accessories, you can get small tubes of it (4-5ml) very reasonably. Here in Japan you can get tubes from the hundred yen store (less than a quid). Clear or tinted, hard or soft.

If I want to do a large area of water I’ll buy Tamiya or other ‘modelling’ water effects as it’s more economical for the volume, but for small areas this UV-curing stuff in small tubes is great.

 

I see on Amazon.co.uk there are some bottles of UV-resin but not as cheap as over here. Bigger bottles though (though in that case Woodland scenics or tamiya may be comparable). Many seem to be sold with a UV torch, which I do not think you will need. The sun will suffic- Oh wait, you’re in the UK? ;P

 

The sun will do, it’ll just take a while!

[Arkhanist]

Two-part air-dry epoxy resins are nicer than the usual hobby single-bottle ones; they don't shrink when they dry or have to be done in multiple thin layers, though they are a bit more expensive.

 

Envirotex Lite Pour-On has a good reputation, as does deluxe materials solid water - I've used the latter and can't fault it.

 

I've used tinyworlds swamp guide a few times for dirty water effects and it does look good. If you're doing an urban effect you likely want to use stuff other than leaf-litter detritus though; ideas include rusty barbed wire, skull or two, shell casings, part of a barrel, bit of rubble/brick dust...

Edited October 24, 2017 by Arkhanist

[DiscipleOfTheWord]

Thanks everyone! There's certainly a lot of good looking things out there it appears. The deluxe solid water seems very cheap - I might give that one a go.