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Post by bruce on Apr 18, 2015 18:18:51 GMT
As some may have seen in the “Roads” thread, I use acrylic caulk based on aluminum foil to make roads. The foil ensures that the caulk roads hold their shape. They can be made to lay flat or conform to slopes or hills. I am trying sections of thin craft foam glued to aluminum foil to make my rivers, streams, ponds. I paint the foam a water color, then brush on clear Liquitex Super Gloss gel, which creates the wet look and can be brushed to look like moving water before it dries. Will try Paper Clay with some flock to form banks.
Except in the West Indies, I never see real water as blue as it is on many war games tables. I suppose it is a sure way to know you are looking at a water feature. I am wondering what color or combination do people think looks the most like actual water for rivers? Or are you happy with blue? Looking for opinions, suggestions. Bruce
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Post by tim on Apr 18, 2015 22:18:08 GMT
I have travelled a fair chunk of the planet and never seen a blue river in my life. Seas and the occasional lake but no rivers. To do my rivers I just looked at the average river colour on google maps (satelite view) and re-created that at B&Q with a 200ml sample pot. A dark green grey. I put a very thin gloss varnish over the top for some shine. Tim
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Post by bruce on Apr 19, 2015 2:41:16 GMT
Excellent idea for surveying actual river colors and getting a matching paint. Yours looks really good, Tim. Love your work. Thanks for this, very helpful. Bruce
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Post by mike1956 on Apr 20, 2015 0:26:07 GMT
Tim
Great looking river / bridge.
Mike
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Post by tim on Apr 20, 2015 8:07:26 GMT
Cheers guys. The river, bridge and roads are all from Timecast's new range.
Tim
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Post by keithabarker on Apr 20, 2015 14:52:19 GMT
I paint my rivers with a mixture of green, grey and white (which seems to agree with Tim's Google Maps research), then a brownish wash along the edges and finally cover with Liquitex Gloss Heavy Gel.
Built to use with Kallista hex terrain. I like the way the rivers are sunken into the terrain rather than rising above it in the traditional wargames way!
You can see how I did them here: www.littlewars.se/candc/rivers.html
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Post by Richard on Apr 20, 2015 15:07:10 GMT
Those hex rivers look really nice great job
Richard
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Post by bruce on Apr 20, 2015 17:07:37 GMT
Very nice indeed, and I see you are a Liquitex fan as well. I am trying to keep the sections as low as possible so the banks don't look too obvious. I am thinking that one way to mitigate the raised river look is to spread the Paper Clay banks out a bit wider so the bank slope is more gradual, less obvious. Also adding features like hedges. Thanks for the link with the details. Nifty concept! Bruce
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Post by tim on Apr 20, 2015 17:20:40 GMT
Great work Keith!, never thought of turning them upside down. I nearly went with Kallistra when deciding what to do with my setup but the price of trying to cover a 10X5 foot table plus hill contours etc. was a bit on the expensive side. I still use a lot of their stand alone stuff like hills and even some mountains (not painted yet). The other reason was I just don't like the hex pattern on the table but thats just me. Shame they never made the hexes flush fitting but I guess that defeats the object for those playing with hex based rules.
Tim
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Post by keithabarker on Apr 21, 2015 18:06:01 GMT
We are playing a modified version of the Command and Colors rules so the Kallistra hexes work great for us. We have changed the command control and added facing.
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Post by captainchook on May 9, 2015 22:53:02 GMT
I'm looking at making a wargames table and much of my terrain from scratch, so the ideas here are a big help. I would have thought aluminium foil would be too thin or fragile for scenery. As far as colour for rivers, I wonder whether the colour depends on what your vantage point is. Up close, rivers are brown, green, grey. From the air or from an elevated height rivers can look blue (or they do in New Zealand) - I often think for 28mm we are down at ground level, for 6mm we are up high looking down. Time of year, depth, flow of water, recent rain etc will also affect colour. The last rivers I made were a grey/blue with greenish/brownish edges. These looked good close up, but came out bright blue in photographs. I think I will use more grey in the future.
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Post by bruce on May 10, 2015 15:01:55 GMT
I'm looking at making a wargames table and much of my terrain from scratch, so the ideas here are a big help. I would have thought aluminium foil would be too thin or fragile for scenery. As far as colour for rivers, I wonder whether the colour depends on what your vantage point is. Up close, rivers are brown, green, grey. From the air or from an elevated height rivers can look blue (or they do in New Zealand) - I often think for 28mm we are down at ground level, for 6mm we are up high looking down. Time of year, depth, flow of water, recent rain etc will also affect colour. The last rivers I made were a grey/blue with greenish/brownish edges. These looked good close up, but came out bright blue in photographs. I think I will use more grey in the future. Hello Captain: You are certainly right about the various colors, conditions, locations, vantage points, etc. for water features. I posted to see how others did it and get some ideas myself. I am going to go with grey/green as Tim does for my next try. But there is a lot of personal preference here - I knew I wanted a change from blue.
The aluminum foil thing is really not meant to support roads or rivers, it just helps restore them to their original shape - both the acrylic caulk for roads and Liquitex for water turn out like a sort of tough, rubbery plastic when they dry, and sometime they may curl or warp. The foil forces them to lie flat, and the roads can go over hilly terrain nicely as the foil makes then conform. I make the roads by shaping the caulk directly on the foil, for the rivers I glue the foil to thin craft foam, which I paint my water color, then layer on the Liquitex. This stuff dries clear and glossy wet, your colors show through, and its especially good for making water that looks like it is moving, waves, ripples etc. I use Paper Clay to add banks. Bruce
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Post by grizzlymc on Aug 2, 2015 23:34:58 GMT
I am definitely swimming against the tide here, but I like my rivers the same colour as they are on the map. Not up to the modeling standard of some of the stuff above but I can finally replace my blue masking tape with some real streams. Basically the same construction as my roads, same shirt too. grizzstoysoldiers.wordpress.com/2015/08/02/streams/
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Post by bruce on Aug 4, 2015 3:32:02 GMT
Grizz - You know your part of the world and it's history, and you know what you like. There's no right or wrong, and we all know that blue means water in any game we have ever played. I am mr aluminum foil, it doesn't role up but the caulk always lays flat and roads can bend to conform to terrain. Sounds like the taut shirt method also keeps things under control and your banks are looking good! Bruce
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Post by ooiittee on Aug 5, 2015 4:03:04 GMT
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Post by grizzlymc on Aug 5, 2015 17:08:49 GMT
That looks spectacular, how do you erase the river and the road for a new game?
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Post by ooiittee on Aug 5, 2015 21:41:56 GMT
That looks spectacular, how do you erase the river and the road for a new game? The table design currently has 6 boards like the one shown and over 12 permutations of layout for a 2m by 1.5m table. When you also factor 4 deployment edges (avenues of attack) i never play the same battle. I also find that changing for fords and bridges has a dramatic effect on how a battle is played. So i dont fear I'll running out of options any time soon.
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Post by ooiittee on Aug 5, 2015 21:44:36 GMT
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