SMS "Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand"

My first attempt to copy water in a diorama had to be made to fulfil a customer order, which brought me into great time pressure.

Within two weeks the battleship had to be finished and to be put into a diorama. Therefore this led to several night labour and the problem of too short curing time in between the several pouring- and painting stages.

As the clear resin should have had a curing time of at least 24 hours, I had to heat the material with two lamps to lessen the required time for hardening.

Despite this trick the last and last but one layer mixed themselves and produced strange streaks of the different colours that I had used for them. On the other hand this unforeseen effect looks quite good if you think of the streaks that occur in real harbour basins as well.

Another problem when using clear resin is the capillary effect. The material creeps up at the egdes of the diorama and the hull of the ship. One can avoid this a bit if one pours only very thin layers at a time.

It is said (I could not try this, because the lack of time) that applying clear shoe wax prevents the resin from creeping higher.

Colouring

The base plate of plywood was sprayed with a mix of Prussian blue, dark grey and a little bit of green oil colour. Above this first layer I again airbrushed waves of a much lighter shade (more of the light green enamel) of this mixture.

Then a first thick resin layer coloured with Prussian blue and green was poured onto the plywood. A real small amount of colour is sufficient, so don´t overdo the colouring!

Attention also has to be taken, to seal the joint of the frame and the base plate of the diorama thoroughly to prevent the liquid from leaking out of the small basin. The last but one layer was shaded with green and brown and the very last one didn´t get any colour.

In this picture to the right one can see the surface after the first pouring stage and as well as a comparison with a euro-cent coin.

This last pouring stage is the key point for the surface texturing: one has to make the waves! At that time, where the last layer starts to turn sticky one has to hit the surface permanently with the backside of a teaspoon.

This has to be done till the resin begins to make threats because if one proceeds to hit, they will stay apparent.

The smaller waves near the ships hull and the smaller boats were created with a water gel that turns rock-hard and that was coloured later with dry brushing white enamel.