The Wet Look...

[Ztrains]

Thinking about doing an "after the rain" scene on a small project now... curious if anyone here has tried some kind of wet look.

John
www.ztrains.com

[tom mann]

Have you seen that Brooklyn diorama?

[DKS]

http://carendt.us/scrapbook/page87/index.html

[Ztrains]

I have looked at the Brooklyn scene quite a bit. The scene I'm doing now is rural except for a small building, a container and a blacktop parking lot. Adding a gloss coat would likely not look right on soil, trees, etc. A better option may be just to try and darken the entire scene just a bit except for the man made items.

Maybe a spay that would give soil and tree trunks the look as if they had just been sprayed with water without giving them real shine. Spray fixative maybe?

[DKS]

I like the idea of working with darker colors for vegetation and especially tree trunks. Roads and such might benefit from a coat of spray gloss, which if applied lightly would darken the surface and perhaps give it a dull shine, as opposed to a glossy surface. Then I would use some detailing to telegraph messages to the brain that the coloration is due to rain by adding things like puddles along the side of roads, maybe some mud made with acrylic paint, which would have a semi-glossy, pudding-like texture, stuff like that. And, as John indicated, glossing up man-made items, maybe adding wet streaks to the sides of buildings. Lighting would be important, too: slightly dim, diffuse fluorescent lights, in the cool-white range, to give the feeling of it being overcast. And the backdrop would not be sky blue but pale grey, with perhaps some heavy-looking dark clouds. Sounds like fun!

[Ztrains]

Here's what I've got so far...

For a few small gullies and small low lying spots... I used gloss medium liquid cut by 25% with water. To make it pour a little more freely I boiled a cup of water then placed the small plastic cup with the cut medium in the hot water for a few seconds... kind of a double boiler. I did this because I'm trying to avoid brush marks in some areas and this slightly heated liquid medium pours and settles pretty freely. Working in thin coats.

For the soils, I've sort of flooded it with alcohol first then matte medium liquid. After a few applications of this the soil becomes saturated and looks darker and almost moist when it dries. I'm spraying a few coats of this matte medium on the trees as well. It's a late fall scene so there's not foliage. On the tree trunks / branches the matte medium soaks in a bit and gives them a darker and... not quite wet, but damp look.

Whether this succeeds or fails... I'll post photos. Hopefully from this we can improve on some small scenes.

John
www.ztrains.com

[DKS]

Whether this succeeds or fails... I'll post photos.

Excellent. Looking forward.

[Ztrains]

Very preliminary on this water idea, this is the third pour of the gloss medium. The surface tension of the gloss medium does produce a bit of a bubble effect around the edges. I can see having to go in and cover these edges later. Now I'm just concerned about how the overall look will be once dry.

John
www.ztrains.com

[DKS]

It'll be better to evaluate after it's dry--looks like patches of melting snow right now--but I think it may be headed in the right direction. The rock formation looks a bit dry--that may need something to "moisten" it...

[ztrack]

Actually, the melting snow look is not a bad one for this scene. If the wet looks is quite coming out for you, maybe a few small patches of melting snow to justify it. The scene definitely would carry it.

Rob

[Ztrains]

As it's drying this morning I'm seeing probably the biggest problem and that is... the water surface isn't dead flat. I had hoped it would have a flatter surface but it's not looking this way. This little scene may well go the melted snow route if when dry, the gloss medium doesn't have a good water look.

John
www.ztrains.com

[DKS]

Yes, puddles are tough. I did some mud puddles on the WR&N, and it took some careful planning well in advance: I used black glass. I cut pieces to encompass the puddles in convenient groups, and installed the glass parts on the scenery sub-surface before doing anything else. While I as adding the scenery, I carefully removed the Sculptamold from the glass where the puddles would appear. It's about the only way I know of to get dead flat glossy areas. Wish I had some photos of them--they worked well, but as you can imagine they were a bit of work.

I also made a puddle next to an abandoned factory, and I used black glass with a special coating that created a rainbow effect which changed as the viewing angle changed. The puddle then looked like it had some oil or whatever floating on the surface. It startled some visitors. You can see part of the puddle along the right edge of this video frame grab--of course, the rainbow effect wasn't captured from this view.

[Ztrains]

Yeah, I think a subtractive method of uncovering a dark glass would be the way to go here. Ah well, nothing ventured...

I kind of like the basic shape of my puddles though so I think I'll convert them to a few strips of remaining snow.

John
www.ztrains.com

[Ian MacMillan]

http://carendt.us/scrapbook/page87/index.html

Any high quality photos of this layout out there?