Hope this is the right forum for this topic as it is for a fantasy dio. How would you go about forming air bubbles? The context is a stinking, slimy-looking swamp. I want to have suspicious-looking bubbles rising from a mysterious origin. Swamp “water” will only be a millimeter or so in depth, being a painted surface coated with several layers of acrylic varnish. Bubbles will only consist of hemispheres floating on the surface as bubbles which have just risen, but not yet burst. I’ve already tried transparent Elmer’s Glue - they started out promising, but the next morning they were nothing more than clear shiny spots. Then I tried the old hot glue gun, but the results resembled tiny clear Hershey’s Kisses. I’ve a mind to try my first thought which was to roll epoxy putty into various sized balls (from 1 mm to 5 mm) and slice them in half when they were completely cured. That way I would end up with twice the number of “bubbles”. They would not be clear, but I could paint them the same color as the swamp water. I would rather hand-make the bubbles as I want them various sizes…too many uniform sized hemispheres wouldn’t look realistic, or natural.
Anyone have any suggestions?
BTW; scale (if it matters) is 75 mm.
You don’t even need Mattel’s Vacu-Form machine -
Just heat from clear plastic packing over a suitable round object and slice off. You can instantly vary the size of the bubble by choosing different “forms.” The rounded ends of chopsticks or wooden dowels comes to mind.
You know the plastic I mean - usually found on notoriously hard to open packages.
have you thought if micro balloons? They’re tiny clear spheres used as filler in epoxy.
You could just take a cocktail stick or better still, a fine piece of wire, dip it in white pva or similar type glue that dries clear and allow small drops to drip onto the surface you want the bubbles on. Providing the drops are small enough, and i must emphasise that, you’ll have the tops of your bubbles which is all thats visible of bubbles in water.
If you stir clear epoxy resin vigorously, it will produce many bubbles with various sizes, which will stay once the resin dries. Usually we try to avoid bubbles in resin, but in your case they are desirable. There are resins that produces more bubbles than others, mainly the thicker, fast drying ones.
You need to experiment a bit though.
Regards!
I tried that as mentioned above. Elmer’s Clear glue is just transparent PVA (white glue) glue, and PVA glue, as it dries, shrinks down as the moisture evaporates and leaves a barely noticeable spot. I’ve realized that when trying to form turnbuckles, etc., on 1/700 ships’ rigging. It takes several applications to accumulate enough to be noticeable.
That would probably work with some trial-and-error, and it seems pretty random, but, as mentioned, my “water” is not deep enough to use a pouring resin. The “water” will only be 1 - 3 mm’s deep, with the illusion of depth.
Ok, understood, probably microbaloons will work.
Again, my “water” is not deep (a couple of mm’s), and I only wish to have hemispheres on the surface, as air bubbles appear when they arrive at the surface.
Thank you. Your solution seems to be the most do-able, although a little tedious. I’ve got tons of this kind of clear packaging plastic. I shall try this!
I would try another run of the mill white pva.
