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Giving your unpainted armies a ray of hope.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Realistic Water for Blood and Profit


One of the greatest, sloth-enabling products I've found is  Realistic Water by Woodland Scenics. A lot of people, including myself, will use things like Envirotex Lite for bigger water projects because it's about half the price when things are all said and done. However, Envirotex can be a very wasteful process if you don't know exactly how much you need because it requires you to mix two different liquids to create the resin. Not to mention the potentially ruined projects if you get your ratios off and parts of it remain sticky. For water features like lakes I don't mind wasting a little extra, but when I'm doing a very small job I like to bust out the Realistic Water, dye it, and not have to worry about getting my measurements exactly even.


After acquiring some more Doom Reavers in a trade I found myself wanting to finally finish my eButcher that I started back in January. I got him painted up and sealed, but he didn't feel finished. He was standing on a mound of bodies, and they might as well have been mannequins. After looking at it for about 3 seconds, I knew how to fix it!



Since the Realistic Water is sort of a pre-mixed version of Envirotex Lite, all I needed to do was get my colors right. I did a 6:1 ration of red ink:brown ink, but in hindsight I could have added more brown to get a grittier look. Paint or P3 inks can also work, but I have fancy inks so I use those.

It took me a few projects to figure out a good, accurate way to apply this stuff, but I've found a toothpick to be ideal. It only applies 1-2 drops at a time, but it gives me a lot of control over where the "water" goes.



I may go back and put some blood on the Butcher to tie it all together, but I've never tried it on a surface as sloped as his ax or armor so I'm hesitant to mess him up. But I'm happy with how he turned out, and I think I could safely leave the blood as-is and still have a complete model.



Realistic Water opens up a lot of options for people wanting a simple liquid effect. I've used it for glowing green goo on Cryx models, I will dye it brown for some swamp bases, I will use it as oil when I make some oil drum terrain/objectives... it's surprisingly flexible, and it's a product I recommend to anyone that appreciates great effects with minimal work.


See you tomorrow!

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