The Ship Model Forum

Recently I have been experimenting with a softer, more rippling look to my seas. My Repulse and Prince of Wales builds each use the same technique. For rougher seas, I've outlined other ideas here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=155661
It is a nice alternative to plaster or epoxy for smooth, gentle ripples. Here is how I have done calm water with plaster: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=156538 Honestly, the method outlined below trumps my efforts with plaster or epoxy for neatness and ease of execution. I think the look is better as well.

These builds both use the method described below.



I start by using pink styrofoam. Of course, if you don't care about the V-shaped wake mounds going back, you could apply this technique to any flat surface. For example, you could trace your waterlined hull onto a flat piece of MDF, mask off the footprint, do the stuff described below, and slice around the mask to remove it and you're done and ready to put the ship down. Anyway I trace my waterlined hull shape onto the foam and use a sharp blade to make a slice deep into this line. I don't remove the foam where the ship will be until the sea is carved. It's just easier and less risky for wrecking the edges where the removed foam would be. Using a large tube (about 5 inches wide) covered in very coarse sandpaper, I carve the V-shaped wake that trails back and away from the ship. At this point, I'm just going for a perfectly smooth ocean with a couple of big swells moving back. No wavelets or anything like that. The waves come later. I basically sand back and forth to create 3 troughs on either side of where the ship will be with my big sanding tube. I then carve down the rest of the base so that the areas in front of the ship and behind are at the same level as the lowest part of the wake. The tube ensures perfectly straight mounds. I then sand the ocean perfectly smooth by hand with some sandpaper and refined the v-shaped mounds. This diagram shows the troughs I sand first, then the areas that need to come down. The tube makes it very even and smooth. The tube is also useful for creating deeper, undulating rough sea swells.

I finished this by coating the sea with as many as 12 layers of artist's gesso (basically white acrylic paint) which I then sanded. Always add new layers by brushing in the same directions (with the waves). Sanding this in between coats makes it better. With water, the more layers you do the better.
To create the wavelets, I used the following technique:

Artist's acrylic gloss medium has a unique viscosity and behavior to it that makes it perfect for making calm, undulating wavelets. The consistency is somewhat like white glue, but a little more runny. You don't want it running like water, but it has to hold it's bulbous form after you apply it. It self levels, but holds it's shape in a rounded way. This is what you want. I recommend using a high quality gloss medium; either Golden or Liquitex. A cheaper brand might dry with slight wrinkles or splits. Test first.

I use a flat synthetic brush that is about as wide as my finger to do this.

I load up the brush with a fair amount of medium. It has to form a blob when you put it down. The medium will shrink a fair bit once it dries. Make good, mounding blobs. Don't attempt to accelerate the drying process by using a fan or hairdryer. The blobs will split and ugly things will happen. Also, don't fiddle with the blobs once they start setting. Scabbing and other unwanted skin-like things will happen. they're hard to get rid of later.

You are now going to create a series of eye-shaped blobs onto your flat ocean surface. Each end of the eye-shape should trail off. Ensure that they are running parallel to each other. You might draft out some pencil lines to keep things more or less square before starting. At this point, the eye-shapes must not touch! keep them about a half an inch from each other.
In theory, this is all fine and perfect, but in real life, your blobs will sometimes deform over time as they sit due to gravity and flow. Monitor your blobs at all times and make little corrections to them. One thing that does happens is that a part of the blob will flatten out into a round bulbous circle in the middle or end of your eye shape making a tadpole shape. This is something to be avoided as it just doesn't look water-like in the end. It's a simple matter to just brush on either side directionally with the other waves to smear off the offending bulges.
You are not trying to cover the whole sea, just put down as many as you can without having them touch. Note that the medium will spread out a bit so allow space for this spreading. Again, they must not touch.

Once these are dry, you are going to add more eye-shapes in-between the ones you put down. It doesn't matter if these touch the dry ones.

Once these are dry, you are going to add more eyes in -between the ones from the last two sessions. Let this dry. Add more eyes, let that dry, add more eyes.... etc. Eventually the whole sea will be filled up with your eye shapes.

Once this is done, look at and see if it is perfect. By perfect, I mean ultra smooth and free of any sand-like lumps coming through from the base etc. Sand it all over if you have to, re-coat, add more eyes, just layer the hell out of it with nice water-like forms and layers of acrylic medium (applied with the direction of the waves of course) until it's a thing of beauty. You could coat the whole thing with several layers more of the acrylic medium once you're satisfied. Lots of layers really adds up to a smooth, undulating look. During the build of the ship, I just keep my sea out in the open and add a few coats every time I'm bored in the evening. Once you're satisfied, all you have to do is paint it one single color and finish it with your wake effects etc. The result is ultra perfect and smooth. It looks natural and not hand-made. I always finish my seas with many coats of Liquitex HIGH gloss acrylic varnish. Note: this is not the medium I use to do these effects. The High gloss varnish is ultra shiny and runny like water.
Here is a link to a thread where I demonstrate how I finish my seas with cotton etc. viewtopic.php?f=4&t=157503&p=637868#p637868


It is also possible to use the gloss acrylic medium to make an even gentler sea.
Simply apply the acrylic medium with your brush as one continuous field working back and forth with thick amounts of medium. You're basically applying it in a daubing motion from left to right so that there is a subtle sense of direction to the ripples.
When I do this, I'll do the sea once this way, let it dry, then do it again....check, re-coat, apply numerous layers etc.

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

I vote this be stickied. Wonderful tutorial and thanks a million for posting. I'll be trying this on my current build.

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Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Glad it gets the cogs going. I see you do mostly 1/700. I think this approach would be ideal for that scale. Just smaller daubs and super smooth base to start and it'll look very good I think.
c

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

Added to the Compendium sticky - thanks again, Chris!

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De quoi s'agit-il?

Very good indeed- has a great feel.

( and thank you Timmy )

I came across( again ...(!) in the mele of my PC images ) an interesting photo from when I was building Roma

this is a really helpful view of the wake pattern created by a capital ship


hope it helps


Cheers
Jim Bauman

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....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
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IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

That's a good picture. Thanks for sharing. I have yet to try a more regular pattern. Most of my wakes of late have been inspired by a couple of picture of KGV at sea. I love it when the water pushes out to the flanks making a mini wave. Maybe on the next one I'll try a very regular banded type wake like in your picture.

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

The flanking waves only come from the bow and not from the middle of the ship, so the second swell/trough you have in your sketch are not of the flanking type (transverse versus longitudinal waves). These are the waves going directly aft but not sideways like so (Even though the V-shape is slightly present)



The waves of the batteship are a mix between the two. The pic that Jim posted shows that the divergent wave pattern does come from the bow but not so much occurs alongside the hull. You do see the air entrainment by the breaking bow waves most nicely and that see between those frothy areas is relatively waveless.

(I was sort of working on a small post on waves for modelers but the project sort of stopped; collected a few images on Ebay with magnificent wave patterns for show A close look at a photograph works best)

Note...I said pushes out TO the flanks. The bow splits the water and pushes it out and away. Sometimes it hits a swell producing a large bow wave which dissipates out and away with the rest of the spread.
They can look a number of ways from highly ordered in appearance to rather chaotic and random in appearance. You're okay as long as you respect the basic logic of what's going on; displacement starting out the bow, dissipation and regular echoing over time and distance back.
This is a picture of Howe that has the look I particularly like.

This Indiana is more similar to my REpulse.

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

Yeah, when the ship is in a seaway the regularity of a wave pattern can quickly be lost. The pic of Indiana is more or less clam water. You can see a 'train' of waves coming off the bow at the right of Indiana; note that they form small packets and not a single wave and that wave breaking occurs at the first three of them.

It's fascinating hey? The first time I saw model ships in seas, I was instantly obsessed with how to recreate the effect of real water. I'm amazed at how sensitive we are to the look of real water and can so easily detect when it's not right. The goal is to make water that presents zero evidence to the eye that it is anything but the real thing. That said, everything has to be bang on; the color, the wavelets and swells, the colors, the whitewater and patterning...everything. I've come to realize that any one of these things done incorrectly hurts the illusion. At least there is no shortage of available reference.
My Repulse is less accurate than the POWales in the above pictures. POWales has the distinct wave swells going back with breaking waves at the crest of the first few. Repulse has more or less one mound going back with multiple breaks at it's peak trailing back. I suppose the ship would have to be going extremely fast (like a speedboat) for there only to be one v-shaped swell; the others long gone behind the ship and away. I don't know.
This picture is posted on my wall. While the patterning is pure chaos, it represents what I think is a great reference for color and sub-surface churn effects.

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

In the above, when you apply the series of eye shaped acrylic wavelets, do they run parallel to the direction of the ship, perpendicular, or it doesn't matter, as long as they're all running in the same direction?

It doesn't matter. 90 degrees to the ship might look a bit uptight. I like an angle. I find that a bit of direction to a sea gives it greater realism and movement.

When I've made my seas out of oats, I've gone over it with an edged tool and made very subtle dents all in the same direction. At a glance, the sea looks like a single texture, but with that little bit of direction, it registers more effectively as ocean.
This Wisconsin is oats that I went and subtly dented in a direction. It's barely noticeable.

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

Interesting topic indeed. Reading the topic and looking photos I got an idea that may be different wave pattern for same ship/class of ship may take place due to different relation between ship course and the wind direction (probably there is a nautical term for that but I do not know it). That is when the wind is right astern or headwind so that the ship moves perpendicular to the waves and crosses the waves with its bow it is one pattern.

When you have crosswind so that the ship moves parallel to the waves so that she meets waves by her starboard or portside (depending on the wind) it is completely different pattern (I guess it is the one on Mr. Baumann photo - it is obvious that Roma moves crosswind and the waves (made by wind not by ship) hit its portside). It would be like this for KGV (photo is clickable - I hope all can see it)


Personally I like wave pattern when the ship course is perpendicular to the waves (headwind) and she meets waves by its bow - like on second photo below - it is just spectacular!


Both patterns are correct thought

Interesting....food for thought, though to be honest, it's hard enough to produce the basic effect let alone subtleties like you describe!

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.

Seeing this much effort into this topic, let me contribute by adding a reference I came across a while back. Kind of more on the scientific side, but I found it a helpful tool to keep the seascape in perspective, in term of the size of the waves vs the ship's speed
http://www.steelnavy.com/WavePatterns.htm

By the way Chris, your seascapes are being watched I have tried again and again to work the cotton like you do but I have a long way to go.
Thanks for sharing man.

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George A. Georgopoulos

THanks for that link! Very very interesting.
And thanks also for your kind words, they mean a lot.

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Every time the PE sticks to your tweezers, you lose a minute off your life.