Any Advice for Water Dioramas?

[Roebeast45]

I'm in the early stages of planning for a diorama based around a submarine breaking the water's surface. Anyone here have any experience with this or can you recommend any good sites on the subject?

Thanks in advance!

[Christian]

I would check out some train magazines.

What you could do is sculpt the surface of the water using some putty or compound. Then paint it with your water colour. You'd rough up the edges where the water is breaking on the sub and paint that white.

Not a very good description but I'm sure this is just the first of replies on the subject

[WarGameGuru]

I'm in the early stages of planning for a diorama based around a submarine breaking the water's surface. Anyone here have any experience with this or can you recommend any good sites on the subject?

Thanks in advance!

Vallejo makes a very nice clear liquid water, which comes in a bottle. I've only used it on a small scale on bases tho.

[Hammers]

I would check out some train magazines.

What you could do is sculpt the surface of the water using some putty or compound. Then paint it with your water colour. You'd rough up the edges where the water is breaking on the sub and paint that white.

Not a very good description but I'm sure this is just the first of replies on the subject

Aye, sculpted putty seems to work best for stirred up water like that.

[Malebolgia]

Waves? Acryllic Gel does the job:

http://modelingmadness.com/navalcorner/robertowater.htm
http://www.modelwarships.com/features/how-to/water-cm/feature.html
http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37923

And one of my favorites:
http://www.jbadiorama.com/

[Frank]

Maybe you can ask this guy, he has a lot of experience with different kind of water:

http://www.bennosfigures.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=5611

[Hammers]

The man really know how to do water. His miniature painting skill are not on the same level, IMO (a bit two dimensional) but the overall effects  in his dioramas are great.

[Argonor]

The man really know how to do water. His miniature painting skill are not on the same level, IMO (a bit two dimensional) but the overall effects  in his dioramas are great.

I think his painting suffers from the 'non-thinned-paint-syndrome', which I think a lot of gamers out there are prone to. If you use the paint right out of the pot without adding water, you can end up with that 'grainy' effect.

Either that, or he is using some paint with too coarse pigments.

I have noticed it on a lot of minis on the web, so I suspect too thick paint to be the problem.

But his dioramas are perfect.

[argsilverson]

Quite! He is excellent in dioramas!

BTW in his site there is a link to NIKOLAI miniatures. In his range apart the figures he has some accessories. one of them is labelled:
"ACC 01 Silicon Water stamp to print waves into resin & Instructions for how to build water in dioramas"
http://www.diorama-dreamland.at/nikolai/index.htm

sounds worth exploiting it!

[OSHIROmodels]

The man really know how to do water. His miniature painting skill are not on the same level, IMO (a bit two dimensional) but the overall effects  in his dioramas are great.

I think this is possibly because they are for museums rather than gaming dioramas and from a distance they would look fine.

Very impressive stuff though, I really like the fountain 

Back on topic, I would recommend to sculpt the water aswell, having seen both types done I think the sculpting way would be easiest to begin with.

cheers

James

[Red Orc]

The site I generally recommend for anyone wanting to expand their knowledge of terrain- and diorama-making techniques is TerraGenesis (link here): inspiring and helping terrain makers to up their game since 1996 (or thereabouts). There are several amazing examples of terrain using water effects and regular discussions about how to get the best results from different products.

[Antenociti]

I'm in the early stages of planning for a diorama based around a submarine breaking the water's surface. Anyone here have any experience with this or can you recommend any good sites on the subject?

Thanks in advance!

This is a huge topic and something very difficult to do well... there are so many different products and ways of achieving various effects that you could easily write a book on it...and still leave a lot of unanswered questions.

My advice, to anybody doing water, is to first of all VERY clearly define precisely what you want to achieve and it is helpful to sketch it out marking where you need different water effects i.e. ripples. waves, white-water, splashes, wet-surfaces...the reason being that all of those utilise different techniques, and in some cases different products.

There is, with water, a case for getting the right product for the right type of effect; you dont have to, you can get away with single products for all effects, but it often makes the job harder than it need be. A lot of water effects are reliant on building-up layers and being very aptient with settings vicosities to get different effects....Water is HARD to do well and EASY to do wrong.

Jumping into a large diorama without practising first on smaller pieces really sint something I would advise tbph as when water goes wrong it generally ruins the entire piece... So:

Sketch out what you want to do and define the different water effects - then practice achieving each one of those effects on small pieces until you are comfortable doing them - then once comfortable doing all of the effects individually, combine them together on the large diorama/model.

You will realise, in doing those individual techniques, how some methods/effects require set orders of work and how they can interfre, or combine, with each other.

Dropping straight into it, without any practice... in my expereince, usually results in dissapointment.

[Christian]

I always had a problem colouring clear resin... that thread linked earlier mentions using Tamiya paints to colour it. Anyone tried this before?

[Michi]

The best tutorial to this subject I ever saw:
http://forum.larsenal.com/viewtopic.php?t=418&start=0&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highight=

[Roebeast45]

WOW! 

Thanks for so many helpful responses! This has given me a ton of techniques to ponder. Some of these examples are truly beautiful works of art. Intimidating but inspiring as well.

Now to figure out how to create a Chinese Type 94 submarine for 28mm miniatures...

Thanks everyone!