Water and battle damage effect help!

[kingzerno]

Morning all. I'm hoping someone can point me in the direction of some good tutorials, provide some advice or suggest good products they have used.

First - Water effects. I'm doing a pirate themed ork army and thought that it might be cool to do some beach style bases. The idea being that half the base would be built up sand with water effect on it. (Think tide hitting the beach). This is going to be mainly on the boyz and some nobz, so it'll have to be usable on smaller areas.

I've had a look around and found lots of conflicting information. Products one person recommends rubbished by others. So if you've acvtually used a water effect material what did you use and why would you recommend it?

Second - Battle damage. As part of the ork horde I've hacked up a knight as a stompa conversion (I hate the actual stompa model). My idea is to paint it up as an imperial knight, then weather and bash the crap out of it. I want it to look like it's on it's last legs, so lots of bare metal showing, rusting around the damage, but still look like an imperial knight underneath it all.

Does anyone have any links to good, easy to follow (<<<<<this part is key) tutorials?

 

[Schwarz-Brot]

For the water effects: Most mishaps happen because something was done wrong. This is why you get so many opinions. Most water-effects are somehow resin-based and therefore a bit tricky to work with. It is key to follow the directions strictly and do some experiments first.

Most problems occur because of
- sagging: Too thick layers were done at once
- opacity: Too thick layers were done at once, wrong material, wetness (base not completely dry!), airbubbles from mixing / bad pouring
- heat: 2k-mixtures were not mixed exactly, too thick layers were done at once
- leaking: a frame was built but it couldn't contain the liquid. Now it's everywhere
- impatience: Seemed dry to the touch, but wasn't hardened enough to go forth


Most problems you'll find online will go back to one of the above points.

I haven't tried it, but the water effect by NOCH is said to be very unproblematic but expensive.

There are alternatives out there. Acrylic gels should be easier to work with. I think vallejo has some. One may model the ground and paint it to look like water. When building large dioramas, model builders often use some styrofoam which is worked into the shape of waves, then covered with wet (water + pva) tissues to model a rough, wavelike structure. After drying and painting some acrylic glue is applied to give the effect of transparency.

 

[kingzerno]

Cheers for that Schwarz. Ideally I want something reasonably priced and easy to use. I was aiming for water effects as I think it would be cool to part submerge a model, have them striding through it as it were.

Thw whole range of stuff available is one of the reasons I've thrown the question out there. I'm hoping someone has experience of using them and can give their opinion/recommend their preferred product!

 

[Zab]

easy cast 2 part resin available at micheals. check out sporkets thread for foamy waves. salt and hair spray combined with sponging for wearthering. Don't forget to highlight those chis and dings for depth. And add streaking and powders too. I do a lot of weathering on 40k stuff so check my gallery, WIP thread and blog for ideas and tutorials. Weathering will be easier than water fx - especially with orks you can't really do it wrong. Check out what the NOCF artists did this year with the ork army for the NOVA open and look at 40k hobby blog for weathering tips as john is a legend with that stuff and has some very nice and ease walkthroughs. Oils are your friend too with streaking

 

[bullfrog]

I don't have much experience with 2 part resin water bases so I will leave that to those who have but I have used the Vallejo water effects. It's easy to use and fair on price but the ones I have are coloured and often need to be tinted with inks and paints to look realistic. Needless to say they are not suitable if you want a clear underwater scene.

In another thread I recommended the Mig/Ammo Weathering Magazine. It may deal with larger scales and mainly military vehicles but all techniques and tutorials can be used for anything any size. They show step by step instructions for water and ice bases. The issues Ice and Snow as well as K.Os and wrecks deal with this. There are other issues titled Rust, Dust etc. I have used them time and time again for weathering. Anything involving battle damage, fuel stains and rusted surfaces are covered. Hairspray, salt and chipping fluids are covered as well as more obscure methods. From memory the issues are about 10 euros but I downloaded mine to my iPad for much cheaper.
If you are looking for something cheaper or free there are plenty of tutorials on military kit sites. Again, they can be applied to any scale. I have found that adopting some of their principles has improved my own miniature painting and has helped with realism. The drawback with some of them is that they are geared towards airbrush work.
You can also get pre made chipping and weathering products through military shops but I find that homemade methods using salt etc are just as good. Thought out well placed judicious battle damage is always better than slapped on everywhere.

Painting your miniature in the usual acrylics then using oil paint for streaks, grime and battle damage looks good and is so easy to do. Again, there are numerous free tutorials online. The best part of doing battle damage this way is that if you make a mistake you can always remove it with white spirits or isopropyl alcohol without damaging the acrylic layers. You are probably aware of these methods but I've listed them anyway for those who don't.