Very nice matey 
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Great job on this Don looks excellent!
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Alright, while I wait for Krampus to release my new airbrush I’ve moved onto some groundwork.
My Google Fu reveals the Japanese favoured beach defences constructed of palm logs backed and/or filled with sand. Makes sense, palm logs are tough as nails and islands have sand a plenty.
Here we obviously have a vehicle breaching one of those log palisades. I’m keeping the earth works to a minimum on this as I’m still figuring out this whole vignette thing and trying to do it on the cheap.
I had thoughts of showing this right on the tide line, but size constraints have prevailed, so perhaps I’ll have a puddle forming in the crater due to low water table.
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The beginnings of a nice little scene. How are you going to do the water effect ? AK do a still water ? Similar to the puddle effect I’ve use on my Panther G scene but I think the still water is clear so you can tint it ?
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TBD.
I watched the whole series AK has on their YouTube channel last night for making a beach. I came very close to just going out and dropping a bunch of cash, but I’m trying to do this with stuff I have on the shelf.
Because I’m only going for a puddle, and not a very deep one, I think I’m going to experiment with some layers of Future and/or Liquitex gel mixed with some sand.
I have a couple test tubes coagulating at the moment, so we’ll see what happens.
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Liquitex is supposedly very good for shallow water
I have seen a few mentions of that in various threads and it seems to get glowing reports in all of them. I did find some on Amz and it was about 12 quid for a decent sized pot.
I just got 8oz for $20, so about par but I had a coupon today so walked out for $15.
Only sort of negative I’ve read is that it takes ages to dry if it’s in any significant depth.
This mess I just tossed in a cup to see what it’ll do. It’s Liquitex with a couple drops of blue.
This is the future and sand. Right now it looks exactly like what I want, but we’ll see what happens in the morning if/when it dries.
In the mean time, I’ve started very tediously hand laying some grass that I think looks vaguely tropical/bamboo like at this scale.
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The liquitex looks nice in how it appears you can leave movement on its surface for small waves or ripples etc, and you can colour tone it how you like.
The future looks good as well as it gives you the more clear finish hopefully so you can see down into it. Scope for having something placed in the bottom or half in/ half out ?
The grass effect looks good with how it’s going … What did you use ?
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Grass
Fancy grass specifically. Real tall stuff. Found some growing in a planter box outside a retirement centre while I was walking the dog this morning. Same with the “palm” logs. Salvaged those out of my front garden. They’ve got a weird matrix inside, almost foam like rather than what you’d think of as wood fibres, but I think they’ll work ok once I dress them up a little. The vertical support posts are toothpicks.
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You got the basis for a great little vignette there… It’s all looking great Don.
The breach looks good in between the palm trunks and the crater hole behind will tie it all in nicely
Ok, so I’ve realized with not a little frustration and annoyance that I failed to account for the shrinkage of the clay I used for the base. As such, great gaps have opened around the edges of the display.
Given that I may end up scrapping the base entirely I decided to forge ahead with ground work as a test to see what I can pull off.
Oh well, yet another set of experiences I can file away for next time.
Problems as I see them:
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My sand is too coarse. It would probably be ok for 1:35 but it’s just too grainy for 1/72. I think I need to switch to a silica type sand, but I can only find it in 60lb bags so the hunt shall continue. Or I may just skip the sand altogether.
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I’m not sure I like the sudden stop my crater comes to.
Things that have worked:
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My slowly flooding puddle idea seems to look like I intended it to
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I’m digging my concrete tank obstacle that I hacked out of some more foam
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My weird foam filled log things are growing on me.
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To be honest, the rough gapped edge looks kinda cool in my opinion!
Thanks buddy, but it’s jacked. I also realized I forgot to glue the clay to the foam so the whole thing is actually peeling away.
It also occurs to me that the way I set the wall in place goes completely against the physics of being smotted (that’s a word right? To smote?) with 30 odd pounds of C2.
I shall however persevere and rebuild anew.
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Ok, so the base is now but a frustrating memory, but a bright spot has emerged in all of this. I think I’ve figured out an easy enough way to make water.
Sorry for the less than stelar photo, my lighting is a bit of a mess down here.
So, this is a chunk of scrap foam. I gave it a quick lick of future and then while it was still wet, marbled in some blues and greys.
One they set I dabbed on some of the Liquitex with a popsicle stick. I wasn’t really aiming for a realistic wave pattern, I just wanted to see what it would do.
Some of the taller peaks sort of self levelled, but the end result was quite pleasing! I then went over some of the wave tops with some thin white paint and tried to feather out the windward sides.
I’m not sure how well it would work with anything involving the need for depth, but as a surface texture (like the edge of a beach) I think this would work quite well.
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Looks really good for a first attempt. Lots of scope for Dios with this … impressive
So I think I’ve given up on using physical sand. It would really add to the effect I think, but I just can’t find anything fine enough to look convincing at this scale, and as it’s not something I’m likely to work with in the future, I’m loathe to invest too much.
I did manage this with black pepper from the cupboard
Thoughts? I think it looks ok, but I’m hesitant to go full Monty and cover the entire base.
Edit:
Stop this presses kids! I may be onto something.
I put the pepper into a mortar and pestle and bam… super fine, non water soluble powder in a kind of sandy colour!
Now to see if I can get the stuff to adhere properly without losing the effect.
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Nice workaround Don… The ground down stuff certainly looks good to me…
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Pepper didn’t work. Turns to gloop when wet and then dries just a coarse as the stuff from the bag. Still gives a nice effect, but not what I’m looking for.
But lo and behold what did I find in my paint rack? An ancient bottle of Mig Beach Sand pigment that I don’t think I’ve ever used for anything.
We’ll see how it looks once the glue dries I guess. I’m happy with it though.
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