Re: Old Mossy's paint log - Update 23/1: Modular River terra
Apparently I don't have enough to paint, so I've decided to make a modular river for my group. It'll eventually consist of:
- 4x long straights (including 1 bridge)
- 4x shorter straights (including 1 ford)
- 6x 45° bends (maybe 8, depending on how it all looks)
- 2x river forks (so I can make a big/small island if I like)
- 10" radius lake with waterfall (yeah, I'm dreaming big on this one
)
Pretty excited. But, I held back on buying everything, and settled for doing some testers first. Just 2 straights, 4 corners.
Using 2mm plasticard, I drew everything out and then snapped the pieces where I wanted them.
Template I traced onto plasticard with a pencil
I roughly measured some extruded polystyrene, then cut a winding path down the middle, producing both sides of the river. Then I trimmed and shaped with a hot wire cutter to get it looking a bit better (oops, just realised I forgot to sand it for some different texture. oh well, that's why they're testers).
After glueing the river banks down
Then I painted everything up; a few different shades of green, attempting to blend them together with the green wash I made. I really liked the colour, and to be honest, I was tempted to leave the 'water' as is, and not bother with any 'water effects' products. But, testers are testers, so I went ahead with my plans, starting with using a hot-glue gun to seal icecream sticks to the sides of the pieces.
It's reasonably important to make sure you've sealed everything pretty well, but I'd say it's more important to place the pieces somewhere
Ready for the 'water'
I was either going to go the budget option of a PVC glue base with a bit of varnish on top, or to use Envirotex Lite (looking around, it seems like it gives the best results: doesn't shrink, can pour a reasonable thickness without drying difficulty, moderately cheap) I went with a mixture of PVC glue to water (2/3rds glue to 1/3rd water), tinted with a little bit of stone grey, and decided to risk a deeper pour (about 1cm deep).
It took 8 days to dry, in the Queensland summer, and there was significant amounts of bubbles. Reading around other forums, it seems like PVA is pretty likely to cause bubbles at even very shallow depths. It eventually shrunk down to maybe 3mm, with a very prominent meniscus where it joined the icecream sticks. Cutting the sticks off was quite difficult. I'm not sure what the best and safest way is, but I just tried to be very careful with a knife, using a sawing action. After shaving the menisci off the pieces, and adding a bit more to the bases, it came out like this:
I'm quite happy with these, and aside from drying time, they were very quick to produce. They definitely bring life to the table, and I can't wait to make a full set.
Lessons learned:
What went right: 2mm plasticard works well. Easily cut, but sturdy. The foam was good, and a simple paint job looks good. The bubbles actually look a bit like motion, and look ok, but I would avoid them if I could.
Performance AND Price - I used A LOT of PVA glue in just these testers. Roughly $5 worth, and I got roughly 138 inch² (~1 foot²). A 236mL (8 fl. oz) packet of envirotex lite costs about $20, and gives 2 foot² coverage. I'll definitely be using the resin approach next time.
