"Painting my "ocean"" Topic

For all the decades I've been a naval wargamer, I've painted the "ocean" on the bases my ships are mounted on, but I've never been totally happy with the color. I've tried many paints and many mixtures I've concocted on my own, but I'm still not satisfied. What color or mixture does everyone else use?

I don't care for a realistic sea green so I go with the dark blue highlighted with dark gray, light grey and white (on the wakes and bow waves).

I use sea blue over a flexpaste(make wakes/waves) base. I then wash lightly with deep green to add dimension and then lightly drybrush wakes and wave tops offwhite and coat with gloss varnish.

Valejo 898 dark sea blue
970 deep green
004 offwhite
510 gloss varnish

I have gone to clear bases as I have several different Mats and none match.
VR
James Mattes

I use crumpled wax paper and glue it to the base. I paint it a medium blue and then a light white drybrush. I use a satin coat.

Thanks,

John

John, those bases look great!

Excellent work John!

John, what a great idea!

For all the decades I've been a naval wargamer, I've painted the "ocean" on the bases my ships are mounted on, but I've never been totally happy with the color. I've tried many paints and many mixtures I've concocted on my own, but I'm still not satisfied. What color or mixture does everyone else use?

IMHO, it depends on whether you want to emphasize appearance of the stand-alone model, or of the game (real ships don't have bases). In the latter case, I would think you would want an unobtrusive base which is the same color as your gaming table. I personally skip bases entirely, for this very reason.

Stand-alone, my little 1/6000 ships won't look as nice as John Leahy's nicely-based ones, but they will look more an integral part of the game table than his.

MH

Hey Tim. Sorry, I must have missed your post. The cloth is a good quality vinyl. I finally broke down and used a 50% off coupon at Jo ann fabrics locally. I'm tempted to spray it a little white here and there but am worried I'd mess it up.

Yeah, my 1/700 ships have got to be based. Even my 1/2400 ones are based. Too much damage can happen to the larger ones otherwise. I still like the smaller ones and believe the coolness of how nice the wax paper actually looks (the pics don't do it justice) outweighs not basing them. Plus actually touching or storing the ships will damage the paint job over time.

I forgot to mention that I changed my shade of blue on the bases which is almost a perfect match for the cloth. Pretty unobtrusive!

Thanks,

John

I use clear plastic exclusively these days. The bases always match the sea colour! :-))

Mal! welcome back, we missed you. I got to start a poll/wager on who goes to the DH first, you, me or John.

Very Respectfully,
James Mattes

I like the theory of clear bases, but I do really need the secure magnetic storage option, so a strip of either magnet or metal paper on the bottom of the base makes a clear base useless. And I do agree with John Leahy that touching the actual model always results in damage and/or paint wear in time. I'm much happier touching up paint wear on a base.

so a strip of either magnet or metal paper on the bottom of the base makes a clear base useless.

Not if the strip is the same width as the base of the model!!!!

Crikey! You dont think I would not have thought of that do you???