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Author Topic: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial  (Read 8732 times)

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Offline Mortalis

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Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« on: January 4, 2009, 07:53:03 AM »
Hey guys!!

Hope you all had a great Christmas and got lots of warhammer from Santa ;P

Now I've had several requests to make a tutorial on how to create decent water effects in the same way I've made my sewerage for my Sewer Terrain.

It is extremely simple just requires a decent amount of time and a little bit of creativity.

First of all you need to set up your area where you wish your water or liquid substance to go. This could include creating raised rocks, rubble, dead guardsmen with ork knives sticking out of their back (I haven't done that before *cough cough*) or whatever. Just keep in mind that you will be obscuring the first 5ml of terrain by covering it with water.

Once that is done Give it all a good spraypaint chaos black (Or for the normal people who aren't billionaires cheap Flat Black Spraypaint from your normal Hardware Store) Then paint up all your details till finished point. All the rubble, lasguns etc. Don't worry about the actual ground beneath the water just leave that black. (The technique of painting the base fancy colours and making a clear layer of water looks crap trust me it's much better this way)

Now the important bit; the water itself. Now in essentials you're substance is made from 3 materials.
- A amphetamine parrotload of PVA
- Food Dye of whatever you want to colour your water (Green for Sewerage. Blue for ocean, Red for Demon world tainted rivers etc. etc.)
- And a bit of water to give it consistency.



Mix up your PVA estimating about how much you need and pour in a heap of food dye. Then add in a dash of more food dye that has been diluted with a dash of water.

Give this a really vigorous stir until you get an even consistency and there is no more dark blotches of food dye and it's all one even colour.

Then pour it into your desired area and let it sit for about 3-4 days dependinf upon how thick you made the layer.

Before


After


This Technique can be used to create many more liquid variants from oceans to fountains of blood ;D

Any Questions please give me a bell.

~Mortalis

PS

Oh and one more thing be careful your layers aren't too thick and you don't have too much water because you will get a layer of solid PVA on the top making a film and a watery layer underneath that will never dry and will pop and pour all over you games club floor, and you will be forced to clean it up before your president notices...*shifty eyes*

And if you want to have a look at my sewer board still WIP:

http://www.40konline.com/index.php?topic=174566.0

Offline Mr Draken

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #1 on: January 4, 2009, 08:53:55 AM »
Could this technique be used to make lava rivers? any idea how i could go about doing that?
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Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #2 on: January 4, 2009, 11:56:12 PM »
Absolutely perfect for lava rivers I would imagine. Just put in Red and Yellow food dye in stead of Blue or Green.

However make sure you do not use just red as it will be VERY drak I did this with one of my test runs, make sure that it is a light orange colour when it is first mixed.


Remember it always dries heaps darker :D

~Mortalis

Offline scarecrow260584

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #3 on: January 5, 2009, 04:51:25 AM »
thats a great way of doing it, i will definately give it a shot for some rivers i want to do.  Hopefully the blue looks pretty nice.

What would you suggest if i want to do a modular river.  should i make the river in parts and fix something to the open ends before putting in the glue, or should make one long river, and put the glue in, then once dry try and cut it up into the modular pieces?  Im thinking the former, but i havent tried this before...

Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #4 on: January 5, 2009, 03:54:31 PM »
I think the best way to make a modular ruver system would be this:

You cut up all your squares how ever large you want them (maybe about one foot square) and mark where your river is going to go but make sure that whenever the water touches an edge it is always from the 2" mark tothe 10" mark. Or how ever wide you choose. This way when it is finished you may line them up in any fashion.

Then on the sides make the banks our of putty, polystyrene sanded back or whatever you choose.

The gat a piece of laminate and run it through a laminating maching without wanything in it so it goes hard. The use the plastic and glue it to either ends of the river.

Then mix up your mixture and pour it in. 3 days later just peel off the plastic and it will be sweet :D

Once again warning people not to make it too thick cause it causes massive dramas.

I want pics of all your wondrous works of watery goodness people :D

~Mortalis

Offline scarecrow260584

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #5 on: January 5, 2009, 04:46:05 PM »
Thanks for the tips.

I think i might work on my modular river for my next lot of terrain, as i have some 16mm MDF at home which is asking to have a chisel take to it and make a river bed.  Ill get to this once i have completed my Eldar Soul Shrine, and ill post some pics when im done.  It may be a while though :P

Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #6 on: January 6, 2009, 03:10:30 AM »
That sounds sweet, MDF is a good working material just if you're going to cut it or sand it down be sure to wear a mask because I'll bet my bottom dollar that it is just as likely to cause cancer as polystyrene and aspestos.

Sonds great though I use MDF for all my bases :D

~Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #7 on: January 6, 2009, 06:28:14 PM »
What is the consistency that one would want to PVA glue/food dye to be?

If it cannot be easily described, then how much water did you add to the batch you made?

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Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #8 on: January 7, 2009, 02:25:50 AM »
It's a careful balance. You want to get it runny enough to spread well, but if there is too much water it will take much longer to dry and in some cases won't properly set at all.

*Finds measuring containers*

It's about a 3:1 ratio of PVA to Water. So for every 75ml of PVA add 25ml of Water.

How ever PVA consistency can vary between brands so don't treat this as a golden limit, feel free to adjust to what you think is appropriate and use it as a rough guide.

~Mortalis
« Last Edit: January 7, 2009, 06:58:57 PM by Mortalis »

Offline NewHeretic

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #9 on: January 7, 2009, 11:52:06 AM »
It's about a 3:1 ratio of PVA to Water. So for every 100ml of PVA add 25ml of Water.

Umm...  That's a 4:1 ratio.  ;)

Thanks for the tutorial.

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Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #10 on: January 7, 2009, 06:58:29 PM »
Hahaha whoops it's meant to be 75ml to 25ml I had 4:1 but found that 3:1 worked better.....

*Goes editing*

~Mortalis

Offline Impervious

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #11 on: January 7, 2009, 07:08:59 PM »
Just wondering, if you made up 2+ different colour batches, then lightly mixed them together (so they dont completely blend), and then used this, would that work out?

You could mix colours that way.  A red/orange/yellow for Lava, a green/blue for a deep body of water, etc...

Might be worth trying.

EDIT - ever try it with a white base instead of black to help make it brighter?
« Last Edit: January 7, 2009, 07:10:38 PM by Impervious »

Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #12 on: January 7, 2009, 07:56:44 PM »
Yes you could certainly do that, haing ar ed main scheme with lines of yellow/orange running though it. I would suggest making both colours seperate putting in the main colour then pouring the highligh colour over the top and not mixng it or aything.

Would look sweet.

And prehaps a whie under colour would make it lighter, but at least for sewerage I prefer it darker. Same for an ocean or Lava, but there may be somewhere that a lighter tone could be useful.

Nice Ideas Impervious :D

~Mortalis

Offline scarecrow260584

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #13 on: January 7, 2009, 09:09:21 PM »
i think im gonna try and make some of this up in a bottle of some sort, so ive always got some on hand laying around.  Attach some sort of nozzle or pouring spout and should have water ready to go whenever its needed.

Offline Mortalis

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Re: Making Rivers and Water Tutorial
« Reply #14 on: January 8, 2009, 10:49:28 AM »
A posible idea you would just need to make sue that you kept it airtight so it didn't dry in the bottle...

That would be a little lame :D

~Mortalis

 


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