The Ship Model Forum

Hello gentlemen!

This water making technique has been demonstrated and photographed by

Dominique Bantonfrom Costa Rica
and is reproduced here with his kind permission in the interests of sharing modelmaking techniques worldwide

I have merely posted them here on his behalf.
Translation French-English courtesy of my chum Ute B...

Fascinating stuff!

Jim B

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Materials required:
Polystyrene sheets x 2
Wooden Pastry Rolling pin
Roll of paper Toilet tissue
Wood glue and water

...and a home-made wooden frame


Designing the diorama
On the first plate of polystyrene:
draw the cut out-line for the ship (water line)



Use a rolling-pin to form the waves by exercising a rotary pressure (the polystyrene is compressible)








After the previous 2 operations, glue the second plate with some wood glue and fix with sellotape.


Cover the upper side with a coat of diluted wood glue

Put the first layer of toilet paper on, using a brush soaked in glue, by applying soft pressure in order to make it conform to the contours .



When the first layer is dry, put a second one on vertically to the first one and create
the water wakelines at the back by "pushing” the paper back with the brush.









When the diorama is dry, put on the first coat of paint, then let dry. After that, design wave crests by pushing the paper here and there with the brush.






Measure and draw the cut-out-lines for the border/ case/ box of the diorama


After cutting out the wooden pieces assemble the box together









Put 2 coats of paint on, mixing blue and black to achieve the desired shade




Before the second coat (marine blue) dries, put a light coat of white on top of the crests to achieve the desired whitening effect.





Take off all excess paint with a soft cloth



Lead the brush softly over the crests


After everything has dried, install the model and make he connections between the sea and the hull being with the same blends of paper and glue, either with a spatula or brush.

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The finished effect with the 1/96 USS Alabama placed within




The full build up article is beyond the remit of this posting--it can be viewed here in French

http://netmarine.net/phpBB/viewtopic.ph ... c&start=15

however, a few examples of the sheer amount of work involved in the construction of this fine model-based on the venerable old Revell offering...

can ge garnered from these few images...

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

That looks great, Jim!

I'm really impressed with Dominique's making water results. I think that the non flatness of the surface on which the ships stands is one important components of its extraordinary realism.

Jorge Martinez

Hi Jim

Yes, we talked about this technique over at Telford... and I was curious about it.
The final result is very convincing and really, it's a good tool usage (kitchen rolling pin )
Perhaps i will use it in one of my bigger scale models (1/350~1/400)

This technique can be slightly modified to make big waves (bad weather/stormy seas) in 1/700
I have to try it on a Flower or something small...
So many projects, so little time!


Thank you for posting, Jim!
Cheers,

Rui

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Ship Modelers of the World UNITE

The technique is very good, and the Dominique's results are fantastic!

I am trying to use it now, training object is Flagman's 1/350 VIIC/41 submarine... The only difference is, i used putty and scrap resin blocks to form the wave profiles, not the roller (my girlfriend would kill me if I'd take her's....)

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1/350 Mare Island Navy Yard 1944 - suspended
1/700 Pre-Dreads - Lai Yuan (SS-Models)

Owner of PetrOs Modellbau
Ebay
Shop
Shapeways

Hello Jim,

Thank you for posting my work !

Have a nice day
Bye,

Dominique .

I have to say this is a very interesting method and with a little more practice could work out great.

I had a WIP of a 1/700 Russo Era Torpedo boat that already had waves, crests and what not so I thought what the heck.

Before the TP water.




Will have to try a picture of after tomorrow as teh 1st couple aren't good.

Karsten

I thought this method produced real good seas and thought I would give it a try. Unfortunately, I can't make it work at all. I obtained the polystyrene sheet OK, but however much pressure I put on the rolling pin, as soon as it has passed over it, it just swells back up to its normal thickness! I really can't make the swell stay in! Are there different classes of polystyrene sheet?
Bob

Hello Bob,

There are two kinds of polystyrene, one softer than the other (expanded and extruded). The expanded one suggested, I found it in common libraries for school kind of works.

To make the swell stay in, you just need to fix it to the second plate with sellotape and use some wood glue as shown below:



Hope this will help you

Regards,

Dominique

Welcome to Modelwarships.com Dominique!

I have always admired your water method- you will be pleased to know it was added to the compendium of water-making links right here: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=37923

Bob's models are well known-- I hope that you will enjoy his models here:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=38508


Best wishes
Jim Baumann

_________________
....I buy them at three times the speed I build 'em.... will I live long enough to empty my stash...?
http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery ... index.html

IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

Dominique
Thank you for further information. I have since been experimenting with my polystryrene foam and find that if I turn the flame on my gas torch so it is weak, like a candle flame, and run it along the top of the polystyrene, I can get the wave and swell effects very quickly without having to use a rolling pin. I tned tried putting tissue on top with glue and ended up with an awful mess. Next I tried crepe paper and that worked very well.
I am always looking for new methods of making seas, so thank you for pointing me in the right direction.
Bob

Thanks Dominique very useful tech to learn!

The sea effects looks really good. As was noted above, letting the model heel on a non-horizontal water surface greatly adds to the dynamics of the scenery.

In my youthfull years way back in the late 1960s or so I made model railway scenery from styrofoam covered in plaster. The styrofoam was first shaped with a soldering iron and a teflon coated bit that is meant for cutting styrofoam. I believe there are now also hot modelling spatula sold.

However, model railway layouts are rather ephemeral and there it doesn't matter so much, but I would be hesitant to use styrofoam for a shipmodel, as the styrofoam tends to crumble away with time. Having it covered in something certainly helps, as UV light is one of the degrading agents.

wefalck

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wefalck

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When I made my first foam sea a few weeks ago, I glued the foam to a card base. Then the top was covered in crepe paper thickly painted with wood glue (after shaping) and then painted. The sides were covered by the wooden edging to the base, so it was completely enclosed. Although I don't know much about the life of foam or plastics, I feel it will be a long time if it is sealed up like this. We are forever hearing about how plastic and lumps of foam thrown into the sea will be the same in 1,000 years as they are now, but on the other hand, polypropolyne ropes deteriorate relatively quickly when left in the open.
I really think it all depends on expousre to UV rays and the atmosphere. 50 years ago, I rememeber photography experts saying that colour transparencies would lose theire colours after a few years. But I was scanning some 50-year-old ones yesterday and they were as bright and clear as they ever were (they had been kept in the dark). I left one out on the window ledge to see what hapenned and its colour almost disappeared aftr 9 or 10 months.
Bob

Plastics are not plastics and dyes are not dyes. The degradation is determined by the exposure to UV-light and perhaps other environmental agents, when left outdoors.

I would perhaps see the styrofoam only as a help to shape the sea and then cover it in 'gesso' with some support under it, such as cloth or paper - this is essentially one of the canvas preparation techniques the old painters used. Gesso is plaster of Paris mixed with some (wallpaper) glue to make it smoother and hold together better. Such mixtures can also be obtained readily mixed from art shops.

I also used just plaster on a wooden board to model the sea:



The wooden board had a couple of short nails driven into it before the plaster was applied to key the plaster to the wood. The plaster needs to be fairly thick in consistency so that it 'stands', but the shape still has to be built up in several sessions. When thoroughly dried, the plaster was sealed with wood filler. The sea the was spray painted, blowing dark blue into the direction of the waves and dark green against the waves. This gives a nice, lifely changing effect when you turn around the model. In this particular example above I made the mistake to use transparent dyes, rather than acrylics. They turned out not to be light-fast, so that the sea today doesn't look like the deep North Sea on a sunny day anymore, but rather has the dullish greenish colour of an overcast day. Anyway, the crest were added with acrylic gel and highlighted later with with white acrylic paint. Stippling-on gel thinly with a bristle brush imitates areas where a gust has hit the sea, while a glazing with glossy acrylic gives 'calm' areas, for instance on the inside of waves.

Off-topic: I am looking back to 40 years of taking colour slides (http://www.imago-orbis.org) and now have some bad surprises. In my early days I went for some cheap slide films that were presumably processed cheaply as well and some films have discoloured dramatically though they were stored in a closed cupboard.

wefalck

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wefalck

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I am going to try that method on some of mine .The last water dio I did was years ago and although I NO LONGER have the pics this is a verbal description .The U.S.C.G. CUTTER -ROGER B. TANEY .Somewhere in the NORTH ATLANTIC- 1942 .Force four -almost .Waves in scale 25-30 feet and rising .The TANEY rising on a crest, Bow free of the water, stern slightly under as well as part of the port side .(she,s making a turn in that mess .WHY ? down near the bottom of the dio is a miniscule raft with three flight crew in it .Date CHRISTMAS 1942 The TITLE "".Hey , Skipper there are angels ."" I haven,t done one since .NOPE , don,t know why . Going to real soon though .My water was Paper towels , plaster of paris, cotton and paint with plenty of contact cement .I used the cotton for the spume flying off the wavetops .Lot of that wouldn,t you know .All who saw loved it .I hated it .WHY .it was my first and it was way harder than I thought .Have you ever tried to get a good color shot with your camera in the NORTH ATLANTIC ? It ain,t no fun and besides the picture was forty years old when I used it .(GRANDFATHER took it ) The thing got me a gold in L.R. in 1977 though . For MARITIME DIORAMA ("in the extreme")Wish I still had it though . I sold it years ago . Now I,ll do another . commodore4