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I'm in the middle of creating a city battlefield for my Deathwatch, and I'm interested in adding a small water feature in the centre. My question is: how can I create a stagnated water effect to put in this fountain, WITHOUT having to go out and get something like resin, Citadel Water Effect or anything like that. I have some PVA glue and gloss varnish if any of that will help?

Gloss varnish'll do it. You just can't have 'deep water'. But very shiny brown looks like stagnant water anyway.

Thin the gloss, apply several coats allowing each to dry. You absolutely must avoid brush strokes for the effect to work.

Okay, thanks! Can you recommend any specific colours to use for the brown? (Vallejo or GW)

You mention "water feature"... I assume you mean puddles? Obviously different types of water features look different and will need to be approached differently.

Here's a sample of how to do it for puddles/shallow streams...

http://daemons40k.blogspot.com.au/2013/09/swamp-bases-and-water-effects.html

That person used some Elmer's glue to initially create the smooth water finish, I don't really think that step is necessary, you just need a nice smooth surface over which you paint the water. GW bases naturally have a texture to them, so if you sand them smooth where you want the water to be, that should be sufficient.

You just need to paint something that looks like water, have a look at google images for "puddles", "muddy puddles", etc to get an idea of what colours to use. Then paint that with a few layers of gloss varnish to give it a water-like shine.