Got some new materials. This base was an experiment (or a bunch of experiments at once), moderately successful in some respects and rotten in others, but fun to do.
First, I got a pint of econo-bases from Gale Force Nine that should last me about forever. They're perfectly nice, some kind of pressboard, and smell pleasantly like a campfire. They need to be wiped thoroughly or they get char all over your hands, but I'm happy with them.
Second, I decided that I needed to try some kind of untextured water effect. I was interested in the Vallejo Transparent Water, and since I'm cheap and I didn't want to wait for something to arrive in the mail, went looking at Vallejo's corporate site to see if I could find out what kind of substance it actually is and buy a cheaper substitute. I was interested to see that Vallejo actually makes a full range of art supplies, not just stuff for hobbyists. I came away with the clear impression that the Transparent Water effect is very likely relabeled gloss gel medium, and headed to the local Blick (this is a U.S. art supply chain) to pick some up. I got the Liquitex brand, since I've been happy with everything else in their line. I was interested to see that it's not actually much (if any) less expensive than Vallejo Transparent Water--Vallejo doesn't seem to be doing the usual hobbyist markup with this product, at least.
Third, I got some Super Sculpey, and figured the easiest test sculpt is a tentacle.
Fourth, I kept hearing about "magic wash" and Future floor polish, and decided I had to have some.
It all came together on this base. I think it looks okay, but I'm not sure it's obvious what it's supposed to be. The idea is that it's swampy water with algae scum floating on it, and a tentacle that just rose up out of the water through a patch of algae. If that's what it looks like, great! If that's not what it looks like, let me know. I find it tough to look at something with an objective eye right after finishing it, since I know what it was supposed to look like.
Anyway, a lot of lessons here. I tried the gloss gel medium over paint (not pictured), and found that it really does seem to be the same or similar to Transparent Water--though I've only seen Transparent Water in pictures, so I can't say for sure. It dries very clear and very glossy. It also didn't seem to shrink very much. However, it's also sort of a mayonnaise texture that holds brush strokes, so while it's easy to get a rough water effect, relatively smooth water is harder. I tried it over some brown and green paint stippled in random patterns. This might have looked okay if the gel was less clear, but in practivce it looked like clear water sitting on some crappy stippling.
So I decided I should tint it. I tried to be more subdued, but I was using so little of the stuff that even a tiny amount of ink made it really dark. I thought I would do a couple of layers with decreasing tint, so over a base of brown and green stippling, did one of mixed brown and green (turned into just dark green, not the swampy look I wanted), the next of just brown, the last of just green. The only one that didn't turn out super dark was the last one, which I tinted by dipping a toothpick in a tiny drop of ink, brushing off the toothpick, and using the toothpick to stir the little dollop of gel I'd spooned only the palate. Overall, doing to this much trouble was a waste of time for the effect accomplished--one layer of brown-tinted gel would have looked the same, I think.
Since I wanted it to look relatively still, I diluted the gel heavily with water, until it became pourable. Surface tension let me pour this mix from the palate onto the base, and it looked really good at first. However...
1) While it doesn't shrink when undiluted, it shrinks a LOT when it's half water. After a day it had really shrunk away from the tentacle and to a lesser extent the rock, and where the mix was uneven there were some hollow spots. There were also weird little white inclusions under the surface where I hadn't stirred the gel and water together enough, though these faded with time.
2) It totally attacked the paint and possibly even the body of the tentacle. You can see a little crack at the bottom of the tentacle in one of the pictures--that wasn't there before I applied the gel.
3) Any bubbles in the original pour turned into little divots when it was dry. On the last pour I minimized this by stirring really slowly and popping the bubbles I could see, but it's far from perfect.
4) Leaving it a little thicker on the last pour meant that it didn't spread out as much as I expected on the final layer, and dried in little hills on one spot, which looked awful.
2) and 4) made me look for some way of covering the bad spots, and I decided to try pond scum/algae. I put some green flock (woodland scenics I think, but I poured it into a ziploc when i bought it and threw away the original packaging so I'm not sure--just normal green flock, anyway, fine-shredded rubber of some sort) over the lumpy part with Elmer's glue (this is an inexpensive U.S. brand of PVA glue) and around and on top of the tentacle, leaving a blank part that's supposed to be where the tentacle came up through the water. When it dried, I covered it with Liquitex gloss varnish in a thick layer (just the algae). This clumps it down and makes it look like wet scum rather than low grass. Finally, I covered all the algae, the water, and the tentacle with Future polsh, undiluted.
I really like the Future polish, which leaves a wonderful shine, much better than the gloss varnish. However, it seems to take off the paint (or at least the wash on the tentacle) a little bit--next time I use it I'll let the paint/wash dry for a couple of days first, and maybe dab it on rather than brushing.
Anyway, there it is. I think it looks decent for what it is, though the water still isn't what I want--too opaque--and getting it smooth is going to be a pain. Suggestions are extremely welcome. I learned a lot doing this one, and even though it's way too elaborate to base actual models, I'll definitely be using the algae here and there, and the gloss gel medium is definitely the best water effect I've tried so far. I might try painting the flock with Scorpion Green before applying the varnish, as I think it looks too much like tasty pesto as is.
I also learned that Sculpey is not good for really delicate stuff--nice to work with and easy to cure, with no time limit on working with it, but it's pretty brittle when it's hard. You can carve it but you need to be really careful and I don't think you can do more than shaving off big areas. The tip of the tentacle also broke of just being brushed with a finger, though it doesn't look too bad.
Automatically Appended Next Post: One additional thing that I can't figure out and would like advice about. The edge of the base for some reason really ruins any illusion of depth. What can I do about that? When basing models I'm probably not going to have many cases where a whole lot of water runs right to the edge, but if you're doing an all-water base, how to you make it look like something other than a tiny bit of water sitting on top of a solid mass? Would painting the edges gray or something help?
