I have carved into foam board and will paint it blue for depth
What is the best and easiest water product to use on foam board to make a river?
Acrylic gloss medium is the easiest one I’ve used.
I suggest not painting it blue for depth but black or a dark gray, instead. You can feather it to a light gray/green and finally to a tan near the shore. I have used gloss medium which works great on a relatively flat surface, but if you are building a pond or lake or the ocean (or have some true depth for your river), I suggest using Envirotex or WS Realistic Water (not the EZ Water pellets). I’ve had luck with both.
Jim
Paint your ceiling blue. with the proper lighting there will be some sky reflection on the water. That is why real water sometimes looks blue. Envirotex lite gives the best flatness and life span for deeper water. I prefer my water at leaast 1/4" deep so that I can use below surface details like reeds, fish, stones, bathers … The gloss medium works well on small streams and runoffs. Realistic water remains somewhat pliable and holds dust too. I coated mine with gloss medium.
Karl
As stated above use black dark green and fade to the lighter colours toward teh edges. Environtex is what I used. Be sure everything is level and “Water Tight” any leaks and your water will run to the floor. Keep teh stream bed level until the “water” sets up.
I agree with the other posters on painting the riverbed a dark color and feathering out into a lighter shade toward the banks. I’ve got three rivers on my Yuba River Sub, built on a foam base. For the bed I laid in soupy wet plaster-impregnated cloth, roughed out to fill in all the holes in the material, then began with a dark shade in the middle and feathered it out to a lighter shade toward the banks–mixing in a little tan as I moved toward the banks. Then I used WS Realistic Water in two 1/8" pours. Any rocks I needed for the riverbed (this is the Sierra, where there’s LOTS of rocks in the riverbeds) I set in before the first pour had completely dried. Then poured the second layer to flow around them and ‘fix’ them firmly in the bed. Worked for me. WS Scenic water seeks its own level, so make sure that you have the edge of the layout sealed properly if your river runs ‘off scene’. I’ve had the three rivers for almost six years in a garage layout and have had no shrinkage problems whatsoever. I know from talking to other modelers that Environtex works just as well–and is probably less expensive.
Tom [:)]
I’ve had good luck with WS realistic water, but be aware that you need to poor it thin, because, at least in San Diego area, it takes a long time to cure up and become uncloudy.
Hello pls12: I used WS realistic water for 2 streams. They looked fine for a few months. Then they developed un realistic bumps. And they never did harden. So, on my third stream, I tried Magic Water, It turned out great. So, I poured Magic Water on top of my other 2 streams and they also turned out well. I did use WS Water Effects and it was fine. Here’s a photo of one of my streams.
Encouraged in part by this thread, I tried a couple of “test ponds” today. The first was about 5/8 inch deep, and the second was very shallow. For the deep one, I cut a hole in the foam (not on my layout, incidentally, just a scrap piece) and painted the bottom, black tapering to tan as suggested. For the second, I put a piece of styrene in a shallow depression, and painted that the same way.
It’s now in the process of curing, after a couple of hours. The deep one looks better, but both still look like holes carved in foam and painted. The deep one has developed a lot of bubbles both on the surface and at the bottom, which I’m hoping will clear up. Admittedly, this was an overly deep pour (1/2 inch, all at once) but it’s just a test anyway, so I’m not too worried about the final result.
Unfortunately, neither of these looks very good to me, certainly not up to Photo Fun quality. They both say, “Hey, this guy dug a hole, painted the inside, and poured in Envirotex.” Is it just the low quality of my paint job? Or, as has been suggested elsewhere, should I have mixed some acrylic paint into the Envirotex to get rid of the “crystal clear” look and make my lack of artistry on bottom-painting less evident?
Mr. Beasley–
The bubbles probably resulted from the deep 1/2 inch pour, and probably won’t go away. I can’t speak for Environtex or any other brands but with the Realistic Water, the pours should be a series of 1/8", building up after each layer has had at least 24 hours to ‘cure’.
Hope this helps. I’ve also noticed that the water tends to take on and reflect the details of the riverbanks or lakeshores (bushes, rocks, grass, etc,) and the more detailed the surroundings, the ‘water’ tends to reflect these details, and the better and more realistic the water will look. Otherwise, as you said, it’s going to look like ‘holes carved in foam and painted.’ Several of my little high-mountain Alpine ‘lakes’ looked exactly as you described before I scenicked in around them.
Tom [:)]