I want you to interpret this in any way you see fit, but I will be impressed by any interesting, unusual and original interpretation thereof. The main idea is liquid, I want to see flowing liquid. In the last round I experimented with this a little, and I think it is something everyone should try. Bonus goes to unusual material use, but you can use water effect products if you want to. It does not have to be water, any "liquid" will do.

https://www.quora.com/Can-liquids-be-turned-into-plasma There's a fundamental difference between the phase transitions from a liquid to a gas (i.e. vaporization) and from a gas to a plasma (i.e. ionization).

Vaporization is an example of what's knows as a first-order phase transition. This means that there's a discontinuous jump in the properties of the material once a certain amount of heat has been put into it; when a liquid boils or evaporates, the density abruptly changes despite the temperature and pressure remaining nearly constant.

Ionization can be classified as a second-order phase transition. There's no sudden change in the properties of the material; instead, it becomes gradually more strongly ionized as the temperature increases.

In order to jump straight from a liquid to a plasma, you need to supply sufficient energy to remove the electrons from the atoms over a large enough volume that the material can be classified as a plasma (see my answer to this question for more details on what constitutes a plasma). The easiest way of doing this is with an extremely powerful, intense laser pulse. Some of the world's most powerful short-pulse lasers are capable of producing power densities of a billion trillion (1021) watts per square centimetre. The electric fields generated by these lasers are strong enough to rip electrons from the atoms in any material, be it solid, liquid or gas, in much less than a trillionth of a second. The material doesn't even get a chance to go through the normal solid-liquid-gas phase transitions; it's completely vaporized and ionized almost as soon as the laser pulse hits it.

So in answer to your question about converting a liquid straight to a plasma, it's possible as long as you have a big enough laser!

 Dr H wrote:

And so, minus the boats and a painted harbour, this is how it was done:

This is for small scale water, really small, you may think that your miniature gaming pieces are small, but that's just peanuts to this...

The scale you are working at is important for the colour of the water.
At very small scales, such as this*, the water will appear quite blue.
At smaller and smaller scales (that is 1:a smaller number, e.g. 1:56, 1:48, 1:12...), the water will be more and more colourless.

*I've not yet worked out the scale of this model, but when a car is only just over a millimetre you know it's small.

1. The base area, modelled with tissue/PVA, was painted with a dark blue then highlighted with a light blue.
This is just a base coat which lends it's colour to the finished water (as it will be transparent), and the highlighting is just to give a little variation in tone.


2. This is all that I used to create the water:
A glaze medium, this is the bulk of what will become the water. A gloss finish would be ideal, but I only had a matt variety to hand. Therefore the finished water needed a gloss varnish.
You want something that will cure with very little shrinkage (unlike paint) and will be transparent. Look for mediums rather than varnishes.

Acrylic paint, as the medium was acrylic these needed to match so that they could be mixed. Both green and blue (see later).

Something to mix in, and my universal poking device (a blunt scalpel).

These last photos show the relative quantities of medium to paint (see the tiny dot on the tip of the blade), and the final colour of the mixture; a very slight tint to an otherwise white medium.

3. The mixture was spread over the water area.
The first pass was with a green mixture to give the final water a slight greenness; adding to the variety in tone.

You will also notice that it’s applied unevenly, this helps to give swirls in the finished water.

Once dry you have a slightly green, transparent coat over the blue base.


It’s important to make each layer reasonably thin as they will dry quicker.
And it’s important to let each layer fully cure before adding the next, or you may end up with a cloudy lower layer.

4. Three progressively smoother coats of blue-tinted medium were then spread over the water area.
Each time I made sure to keep the edges where the “water” met the land, neat.
Removing excess “water” after it has cured leads to unsightly differences in the surface of the water.

I continued to tidy the edges as the medium cured, as it was often too “wet” at first.
A wet brush did help initially to smooth out the parts that didn't behave when poked with my poking device.

Areas that were further out to “sea” were modelled with waves, while inside the harbour it was kept relatively smooth.


5. The final touches was to add patches of larger waves outside the harbour and at the beach.
The ripples and waves stand out much more once coated with a gloss varnish (as seen here).


6. The last thing to do was add some white highlights, via dry-brushing, to the peaks of the largest waves, and one last gloss varnish.

Getting the translucency to show up in photos is tricky, and I've not found a particularly good way to do this yet.

Hope that proves interesting and/or useful to someone.

 Tek Thornison wrote:
Strange situlation. What happen with all others, who join competition?