I repainted the river this morning with 3 much darker blues. Added some talus and river rock to complete the scene. It looks much better in person than in my poor pictures. The glue is still wet, which doesn’t help, nor the fact that I don’t know how to turn the flash off on my camera. My Dad could fly an airliner, but couldn’t program his VCR, so I guess I am following in his footsteps… Anyway.
This is how it all looked 2 weeks ago:
This is how it looks right now:
Thanks for all your suggestions so far! If anyone has some more please let me know. Nothing is in stone yet.
Your river is looking great! I’d guess your next step is to make it look wet. Two easy ways to achieve that are to spread Future floor wax over everything you want to look wet. Future has the consistency of water, so you will not get any texture from it. Gloss gell medium will give you the texture and the wet look. Both can be tinted, say blue, or left clear.
Then add plenty of vegetational growth to the banks, and your river will be done!
One more thing. Rivers can be difficult to model. The river on our layout was the very first thing we did, scenery-wise. And it took several tries to get it looking decent. I’m still not happy at all with the banks. Yours are way, way better. But I just kept adding texture in the form of rocks, bushes, trees, etc until the whole thing looked better. You are well on your way to a realistic river. It is coming out incredibly nice!
Well, I’ve already changed things a little. Removed some of the talus in the “deeper” parts of the stream.
I’m going to use Woodland Scenic’s realistic water, and Woodland Scenic’s water effects. When this is all done, there is a waterfall in there somewhere. I’ve never used the stuff before, or made a stream before for that matter, so will see what happens. If anyone has anything against the Woodland Scenic’s water products, PLEASE let me know!! Tomorrow may be the first pour! I’m wondering if I should try to tint it a little before pouring?
Go to the Model Railroader forum and do a search on the water product you intend to use, MPZ. I’ll bet you will find all the information and opinions you can use there.
Once again it appears I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Thanks for the tip Jim! In 5 minutes I found a wealth of information by doing what you stated. I keep forgetting about those guy’s with the “little” trains.
I liked the original color. Looks too dark to me. More like real deep water but then the surrounding area looks like shallow river with rapids. See the eater behind me while I am in a boat. Probably 8 feet deep. Not exactly blue. Dark blue is deep ocean.
As Chief stated, darker usually indicates deeper. It is your layout and make it the way you want it. You may want to lighten up the center and then go lighter as you get closer to the banks. The woodland scenic water looks good when done right. Just remember not to do too much too soon. A little at a time in layers. I mentione the color change now as once you do the water, it is set. For rivers and streams, I tend to go more with browns and greens for colors verses blues and black. I recall that one of the guys on the model railroader article list has a “How To” on this subject.
Good Luck,
Dennis
PS: if you look at Chief’s Avatar, you will note that he knows what water is supposed to look like!
This is the problem with water. Everyone has an opinion. [:)]. The pictures don’t show it, but I did leave some of the lighter blue showing. Except for the Ocean, most water appears green to me. With all the green colors on my layout, I’m afraid it won’t show up as water, but as glossy scenery.
My layout is done in the postwar style, with some more “scenic” features. I want to keep that theme, which is why I chose blue as a very contrasting color. It looks a little bit more “toy-like”, but keeps the feel of realism. I’m hoping for 3/4th. inches of water, and painting/scenicing between layers, so the dark blue doesn’t show up so much, but is still there. Since I posted the pictures, I have changed the look considerably. It is a work in progress, and has been going on for 3 weeks now, and I’m in no hurry to finish it. Everyone’s opinion and suggestions are important, as I don’t know what I’m doing.
I think I’m going to step back for awhile, wait for more responses, look at more pictures of the stream I’m trying to recreate, and see what works for me. I’m not satisfied right now with the results.
Here’s an idea - go to the library and grab a bunch of magazines like Field and Stream, outdoorsman magazines, fishing magazines and poor over the color pics. If they have a color printer or scanner you can use and you find a good one, you can make a copy and actually hold it down next to the river and see what you think about it “in place”. Do it like the girls do when they redo the counters and floors with samples! You might also go get a sample set from a local paint store and put the samples next to the river to see what you think - might be able to buy just a small amount of pre-mixed paint that way too? They can even give you a couple different shades or tints of the same color?
Just an idea! All this talk about painting a river makes me think of happy little trees and Bob Ross!
mpzpw3, didn’t want to upset you. Told you before it looked OK. You have a man fishing and wading. Means shallow. Probably trout fishing. If so, water is clear and you can see the bottom, rocks and etc. Now down my way water is a muddy blue but not dark blue. If you fly around the country like I do, you get to see a lot of water from the sky. This is the kind of the picture you are taking with the model RR scenery [just not 30,000 ft.].
Like I mentioned, it is your layout and you’ll come up with looks right to you. I also have a lot of post war and, while I am going for the more “Hi-Rail” look, I don’t have expectationes of a gorgious layout like Dave Connoly’s. He is a true master and obviously dedicates a lot of time.
“Dennis, the Chief know shallow water. Buckeye knows deep water.” Buckey, that is a big understatement![;)]
Good luck with your layout. You will work, and rework it till it makes YOU happy. That is one of the fun things about this hobby, we can experiment and have fun. If it doesn’t work, so what! You can always redo it.
I’m not upset, especially with anyone’s comments. I’m getting a little discouraged because I don’t really like my results. I have pictures of the stream I’m trying to model, and the water looks brown to me, green to my wife, and blue to everyone else. I would say I’m getting a little obsessed with this project. With rocks and mountains, they can be fixed if the results aren’t quite right, but once I pour the “water”, it becomes a done deal. I can’t put a “happy little tree”[:)]somewhere to cover a mistake.
Reading my previous post, I can see where it could be taken as defensive, which was not the intent. You guy’s have been very helpful on various projects, and I thank everyone for their comments and suggestions.
Here’s a photo of Elbow Falls Near Bragg Creek, Elbow River, Alberta, Canada. I think this might be what you are looking for…If not, here’s a site with a lot of river and waterfall photos, from all over the world. See what you like. http://www.hickerphoto.com/rivers-photos.htm
Kurt
PS Cut up a practice piece to try new ideas might be less stressfull. It’s always been easier for me. When you get close to what you like switch to the layout.
That is the most realistic figure I’ve ever seen. And the fish looks so real. Even the beard on the figure is realistic. Was the fisherman part of a set? Or did you make it yourself?
I didn’t think you sounded defensive in your post, frustrated a little. Listen to your instincts.
Frankly, I liked both versions of your river overall, for different reasons. So did everyone else, again for different reasons. I like my cars black, thank you. Truck and SUV guys may not even like cars, let alone the black.
I’ve been going back and forth between your two threads and the pictures. As I stated in a previous post, I liked the river split, flat rock, and river under the train bridge in the first. Then I saw the changes I believe you did with the bank climbing to the track, and I liked that, plus it appeared you added more rock/gravel effect (shallows, so to speak) and I liked that. The latter reminded me of several rivers and streams I saw in the White Mountains last summer…yes, on a train ride—the Conway Scenic Rail Tours.
If the color of the water is the issue here for you, and it sounds like it is, you’re almost home. Leonardi daVinci probably felt he had a color problem somewhere along the line painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. Of course no one else noticed any of that because there really weren’t any problems; and they were inspired by the body of work. As we are with yours.
Time to sit back and do some thinking and looking rather than doing. Better yet, go run some trains.
The comments about the color of water are all valid, to a point. While your original color in the pictures to me was a little too Carribean blue for my own taste, I liked the fact that it made the river a little more prominent rather than remain hidden. “There’s a river there.” “Where?” “You just dropped your cigar ash in it.” “Oh yeah, I didn’t notice the river. Nice river.”
mp,
I think I have an idea of what you are doing wrong…
In your first pics you have a base painted a bluish green, no rocks, now if you were to pour water medium over this you would get the illusion of deep murkish water (kind of like the Ohio River).
In your second pics you have a bluish base with actual tallus (rock) interspersed. Now if you were to pour the water medium you would get the illusion of a smooth surface deep lake (Lake Superior on a calm day) with rocks sticking up. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that before.
I think what you are attempting is more of a meandering stream, on the shallow side, with slightly rapid water. If this is the case then I would suggest painting the base the color of the original, then put fine tallus over that (go for 80- 90% coverage) while the base color is still wet. Then I would LIGHTLY tint the water medium with translucent paint - same color as the base (go for 20% opascity) and pour that over the tallused bed. You will get the illusion of depth, but still be able to slightly see the rocky creak bed.
Like Kurt said, I would try this on a scrap workspace similiar to what your layout is constructed out of. I would use a Dixie cup to mix the test tinted water medium.
I’m about to start my river construction and this is the method I’m planning to use. When I was researching this I found the following site to be VERY helpful:
