The more medium you use to soak the cotton, the less visible it will be. In some places, I want my cotton to be brighter and whiter. Usually along the waterline and where the wake has initially spread out from the bow.
It's possible to add cotton here and only lightly wet it. Too much medium everywhere and all the cotton buried in it looks mushy and low contrast. A little contrast adds punch and realism I think.
Sometimes I will add a piece of cotton by one end and fold it over on itself to make a cresting wave of whitewater. I don't soak this, but leave it semi-raw so that it is bright and white.
BOW EXPLOSION/WHITEWATER SPRAY
I am certainly not the first guy to use cotton to make a bow wave. This is how I'd go about doing it. Probably no different in technique than some other similar looking bow crashes out there.
To make the bow explosion, I simply use puffs of cotton that have a directionality to them. I brush down some medium and attach the cotton in sections to build up my bow crash.
Here the different chunks are adding up to a big whitewater explosion
In the past, I have simply sprayed this fuzz to 'fix' it in place. I no longer find that this to be convincing enough.
I now coat my cotton with tiny touches of acrylic clear gloss medium to form a glassy net around the cotton. To do this, I use a tiny brush and very small amounts of clear medium. I gently touch the medium onto the surface of the cotton and control the fuzz to be a unit. I don't want to over-soak the cotton; I just want to create a modest coating over 30% of the cotton.
As things get a bit more covered, I can carefully manipulate the goopy cotton into splash like shapes.
I check the explosion for all angles to make sure there are no cotton hairs sticking up to ruin the illusion. It's one, glassy explosive object made of mysterious materials.... fuzzy strands betray the method.
To conclude my sea, I coat the ocean surface with HIGH gloss acrylic varnish from Liquitex. This product is very shiny (comparable to epoxy), without the yellowing properties. I no longer use any epoxy in my seas due to its fugitive nature.
Here is the final sea...Not the greatest as it was quickly done for this demo but it basically shows what I do.
This HMS Howe was done exactly as per above. As you can see, I did not not and add gel medium waves to the paper layer. What you're seeing here is just paper that has been thoroughly coated and sanded. I then painted it as per above, did my cotton stuff, and applied several coats of Liquitex HIGH gloss medium
As an alternative to sanding and sawing your sea sculpt, I discovered that you can make very natural ocean swells and undulations by holding your sea inverted over your head (before attaching the ship of course) and simply using a lighter at about 8-10 inches away. The heat causes the foam to recede in very predictable and controllable ways. Passing the lighter back and forth directionally produces very convincing swells and ocean rhythms. The sea in these photos was created entirely and only with a lighter and a bit of light sanding. As per the tutorial above, I I finished this sea by coating it with paper towel (not regular paper on this one to consolidate the overall texture. Had there been a ship in there, the paper towel would have solved the small gaps along the waterline as well; The lighter thing works great for extremely rough and turbulent seas. It's a much neater approach as well.
The more medium you use to soak the cotton, the less visible it will be. In some places, I want my cotton to be brighter and whiter. Usually along the waterline and where the wake has initially spread out from the bow.
It's possible to add cotton here and only lightly wet it. Too much medium everywhere and all the cotton buried in it looks mushy and low contrast. A little contrast adds punch and realism I think.
[attachment=9]40.jpg[/attachment]
Sometimes I will add a piece of cotton by one end and fold it over on itself to make a cresting wave of whitewater. I don't soak this, but leave it semi-raw so that it is bright and white.
BOW EXPLOSION/WHITEWATER SPRAY
I am certainly not the first guy to use cotton to make a bow wave. This is how I'd go about doing it. Probably no different in technique than some other similar looking bow crashes out there.
To make the bow explosion, I simply use puffs of cotton that have a directionality to them. I brush down some medium and attach the cotton in sections to build up my bow crash.
[attachment=8]41.jpg[/attachment]
Here the different chunks are adding up to a big whitewater explosion
[attachment=7]42.jpg[/attachment]
In the past, I have simply sprayed this fuzz to 'fix' it in place. I no longer find that this to be convincing enough.
I now coat my cotton with tiny touches of acrylic clear gloss medium to form a glassy net around the cotton. To do this, I use a tiny brush and very small amounts of clear medium. I gently touch the medium onto the surface of the cotton and control the fuzz to be a unit. I don't want to over-soak the cotton; I just want to create a modest coating over 30% of the cotton.
[attachment=6]43.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=5]44.jpg[/attachment]
As things get a bit more covered, I can carefully manipulate the goopy cotton into splash like shapes.
[attachment=4]46.jpg[/attachment]
I check the explosion for all angles to make sure there are no cotton hairs sticking up to ruin the illusion. It's one, glassy explosive object made of mysterious materials.... fuzzy strands betray the method.
To conclude my sea, I coat the ocean surface with HIGH gloss acrylic varnish from Liquitex. This product is very shiny (comparable to epoxy), without the yellowing properties. I no longer use any epoxy in my seas due to its fugitive nature.
[attachment=3]48.jpg[/attachment]
Here is the final sea...Not the greatest as it was quickly done for this demo but it basically shows what I do.
[attachment=2]49.jpg[/attachment]
This HMS Howe was done exactly as per above. As you can see, I did not not and add gel medium waves to the paper layer. What you're seeing here is just paper that has been thoroughly coated and sanded. I then painted it as per above, did my cotton stuff, and applied several coats of Liquitex HIGH gloss medium
[attachment=0]HOWE03.jpg[/attachment]
[color=#800040]As an alternative to sanding and sawing your sea sculpt, I discovered that you can make very natural ocean swells and undulations by holding your sea inverted over your head (before attaching the ship of course) and simply using a lighter at about 8-10 inches away. The heat causes the foam to recede in very predictable and controllable ways. Passing the lighter back and forth directionally produces very convincing swells and ocean rhythms. The sea in these photos was created entirely and only with a lighter and a bit of light sanding. As per the tutorial above, I I finished this sea by coating it with paper towel (not regular paper on this one to consolidate the overall texture. Had there been a ship in there, the paper towel would have solved the small gaps along the waterline as well; The lighter thing works great for extremely rough and turbulent seas. It's a much neater approach as well.[/color]
[attachment=1]melt.jpg[/attachment]