Found this link via pF.... all credit goes to Gary Dombrowski for finding this...

Mad Water Science

Rudi

Hey Rudi, thanks for sharing this! it is pretty funny in places - from the "effects" the test show, it more or less confirms what i always thought -some famous brands kinda recycle usual cheap acrylic gels you can find in any regular art shop to sell its as "water something" :-)

Rudi, thanks for the link. It really answered some questions.

Thanks Rudi. Very useful review.



Jean-Bernard: Have you tried those cheap acrylics gels, form the arts store? Ever since I saw these gels, at an arts and craft store, I wondered if they could be used as water.

Jesper - If i have ever used those gels?! Jeeeeeeesus, i am using them for the last 10 years at least! their primary function is in fact to embed bits of stuff in paintings, and then to create a 3 dimension artwork, but they are in fact absolutely very useful to create all kind of ripples and waves on water surfaces!
they usually come in 3 styles:
-gel "structure" in pots : very good for embedding stuff -not what we are interesting in
-matt and gloss gels, those ones are useful BUT you have to check that "very transparent" is written on the paper that comes with it!

Don't try to apply too big coats in one time, because the inner stuff will never really dry and stay white.

Remember these DO NOT replace normal polyester resin to create the bulk of water or deepness, i am using the gels ABOVE the resin.

The only thing those Valejo or Woodland scenics water products may add to the cheap ones is that they may *flow* from the bottle to create some dephts easier, but then if you need small dephts, future works rather well too. Now i didn't checked in some time, but i would be surprised if something of the style didn't emerge in normal crafts shops.

usually the trick is to put depths of something like 3 mm, let it dry and then again etc.. the stuff reduces a lot while drying too.

another thing that makes me say these are one and the same products is the apparent difficulty of the stuff to dry completely in a transparent way if the coats applied are too thick

Finally, i hate to do this, but here are some of my dios with the techniques I told about:
here all the ripples and waves and general structure of the sea is done with acrylic gels
same thing here!

hope it helps!

Thank you very much Jean-Bernard, you have been most helpful.
The water in the Lovecraft meets Norway looks awesome.

Hey Jesper,

As you've seen, my friend Jean-Bernard is a master when it comes to all things diorama :-)

JB, any chance I could convince you to write a SBS on creating water? Send me a PM

Rudi

hey thanks Jesper, the water in that one was done this way:
1/brown coloured polyester resin
2/ patches of white tinted acrylic gels to make the "under waves"
3/another semi transparent small coat of brown polyester resin
4/ waves of slightly white tinted acrylic gel
the only tricky part is how to dose the amount of tint in the gel.
Inspired by northern seas!
I forgot to tell one thing above: think about a layer of Clear Cote after those gels, because the rendering of those gels is very *plastic* and that is not what you want.