RE: Devo's Painting Log -- Updated 3/21/10
Danger! Rambling ahead....
I think I've got how to do the bases worked out, though I haven't done one "finished" base from beginning to end.
The process started with creating a mold of the water, which simply means a cubic mold that is as deep as I want the water to be plus the height of the base. The theory, which I think I described before, is to simply create the mold, place a finished model into the mold, then fill it with water effects. Easy, right?
It took four attempts before I had a good mold, mostly because it took forever for me to work out a way to create a true 20mm base with smooth sides. (I want the water effects to be smooth.)
This is a picture of a two-hole mold, with a ghoul in the right hole for descriptive sake.
Mixing the water effects took me three tries, too. The mold-making agents set up pretty fast, so you have to keep things moving. Mixing the water effects at that speed introduces a lot of bubbles, which really obscures the underwater bits of the model. I found out that water effects (and I'm using a two-part clear epoxy that doesn't shrink) takes *much* longer to set up. That means you can take more time mixing it. That's important, because if you are moving your stirring rod faster than about an ant would walk, you'll introduce air bubbles into the mix. I figured out that I need to spend about four to five minutes stirring the epoxy together to get a good mix without introducing bubbles. That's a long time, if you think about it.
Anyway, that gives you a nice, calm, flat water effect, which isn't what I want. (Backstory has these guys on the coast of a rough sea with sharp rocks all around.) This is where the Woodland Scenics Water Effects come in. It's almost a putty, right out of the bottle, that dries into "clear" water, while keeping it's shape. There is some shrinkage (as happens in water) so the first set of waves I sculpted didn't look like much. A second layer on top of the first bulks it up a bit.
After that, it was simply a matter of dry-brushing Polished Bone onto the waves. (I'm creating a black-ish water, so the foam should be a bit dirty looking.)
Long story short, here's a picture. The ghoul has just the basic water effect. The test piece on the right has my waves on top.
The two pieces also show you the difference between lots of bubbles and no bubbles, and the difference between a smooth-sided mold and a rougher mold.
