Like most of you, I painstakingly paint my lake/riverbed before pouring in clear polyurethane or other brands of fake water. After it sets, all I see is the riverbed I spent so much time on to make it look real. And it does look real! But, the water doesen’t. Real water is full of sediments and always seems to have a blueish tint to it. So, is there anything out there that you would suggest that can be used to color/tint the the clearcoats we all use for our water projects?
I use Envirotex Lite for my water. I always use several thin pours, as recommended by the manufacturer. I add a bit of acrylic craft paint to each pour, except perhaps the last one. For the first pour, I’ll use a dark tint, black, dark blue or dark brown. The next will be lighter, brown or green, and so on. This progressive tinting leaves the water cloudy and it gets “murkier” towards the bottom.
This is an earlier picture showing the pre-Envirotex look of the canal I’ve been working on:
With a few layers of tinted Envirotex, the bottom becomes murky.
The key is to use just a bit of paint. For this project, I used an ounce or two of Envirotex for each pour. To that, I added a drop of paint, perhaps an eighth of an inch across.
This swamp is a bit more heavily tinted, with more green:
I painted the river bed and poured Realistic Water. As it cleared, I could see the river bed, which looked great, but the water was clear, which was not realistic.
So, I made a sample with Realistic Water and poured a few drops of paint into it, then a few more drops, then more drops. Stirred the sample gently and poured it. When it cured, it looked like a had spilled paint and allowed it to dry.
I must add that my paint was flat latex. Not only should I have just poured very few drops, but I can’t help but wonder if it would have helped or hurt to use the gloss version instead of flat.
If you want what looks like mild turbidity, or opacity, add a very tiny amount, a half-pinch of dry plaster of paris powerder to your water medium and mix it in thoroughly. I use a two-part epoxy for water with a top layer or stippled gel gloss medium. However, I also add a tiny bit of paint to my epoxy. I use Hauder Medium Green (I think, or it is Hauser…) from the craft paints section at Wal Mart.
Like Mr B, I use Envirotex and craft paint. For my small swampy pond, I used a drop maybe two of olive in the first pour, one in the second, very little in the third, none in the final two.
Small streams and some larger rivers can be crystal clear. For those you need to use something that looks like real rocks for the bottom. To show movement use something like WS Water Effects to make ripples. For a little faster movement, drybrush the tops of the waves.
I suggest getting a paper bag or something else like it to cover the “water” while it dries. There is always dust and other things floating around, even if you are not actively working around the water.
For water that isn’t meant to be crystal clear I use brown first, then green, then blue-green on top. Just a little acrylic paint - no water - into the resin [same stuff as Envirotex]
Having fished the American, Rogue, Umqua and several other rivers in the west and even many areas of the Colorado, what you can see quite often is the bottom such as rocks and logs. In most of the pictures of rivers in the magazines that model the west there is too much green to see any detail of the river bottom, even those that make trips to the areas that they model they still use too much green as well. So look at some pictures of the area you model and find out what type of fish inhabit the water. If there is cat fish then go for the greens or brown tints so you can’t see the bottom. If it has trout or salmon go for the clearer water, some of the rocks will show some algae but the water is clearer with just a touch of very light brown tones but you will still see the bottom and what is on it
Wow. Your creek/river looks great! What resins are you using? “Minwax” maker of the polyurethane tells me I can’t mix any paint with it without dire results. What kind/brand of resins are you using that allow you to mix acrylics with it? I want mine to look just as your does when done…
Bill my resin is Aussie made Glass Coat - a two part high gloss epoxy that’s just the same as Envirotex Lite , from what I’ve read.
These are my brown, green and top coat blue-green [more like a faintly greenish blue] mixed into the resin and ready to go. Pours were at least 24 hours apart to let each layer dry thoroughly.
You need very little paint to make the tints. Obviously once the tinted resin is spread around thinly, the colour is much less noticeable.
If you allow water to get into the resin it goes milky and takes an eternity to set [if at all]
