Friday 15 February 2019

Resin Water Test Piece

Previously when doing water features I've been using Woodland Scenics Realistic Water. Despite being a nice air-drying acrylic medium this is a pain to use. There is always a lot of shrinkage and it takes an age to dry. It would be better to use an epoxy resin, but it's always scared me a bit.

As you know, I've been watching the Lukes Aps Youtube channel and Luke recommends a Multi-Purpose Water Clear Epoxy resin from CFS. In his videos made it look very, easy to use with amazing results so I thought it was worth a try. Luke also has a 10% discount code on his videos...

Anyway, before using it straight on my new skirmish boards I thought I better do a test piece. This is a small pond using the same techniques as the skirmish boards and trying a few things out.

The water itself has come out brilliantly. I added a few drops of Woodland Scenics Murky Water Tint to the resin and poured in the same way Luke does in his videos. Initially it went in with a fair amount of bubbles. This I had expected as Luke had the same issue. He solved it with a blowtorch, but I didn't fancy that so just used my heat gun. Well that was a wonderful move the bubbles vanished almost immediately and the resin settled brilliantly. Within a few hours it had solidified quite a bit and in the morning it's now nice and solid, with a smooth glassy finish. Far more resilient than the old Realistic Water.

Being a test piece I also tried a few other things out with varying results.

  • Static grass on top of the foam - it didn't work as well I liked. I won't be doing this on my boards, but probably will add static grass on any terrain pieces that will sit on the boards, like walls, hedges, etc. It also didn't blend well with the water...
  • Tall grass in the water - again I won't be doing this, it made a mess, which it did with the realistic water as well. 
  • Twigs in the water - a definite success, I'll be doing this for sure
  • Leaves on the water - another success, but it's something I've done before. However doing this has left me unable to add water effects, which means I need to have a re-think there.
  • Bird grit as a base for the water - this already is in place on the terrain boards with a dark brown wash. It looks amazing on the test piece which is great!
So, I plan to do the first pour into one of the terrain boards tonight...






Finally my very small Frenchmen arrived from Heroics and Ros, so I can get on with my 6mm Grande Armée! 



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