This review isn't so much a tutorial as it is a collection of my notes and observations on creating an "ocean" like effect using a 2' x 4' textured acrylic fluorescent light cover mounted to a sheet of plywood.
I came across this technique while searching for inspiration to build my city wharf terrain board. The problem is, I couldn't find a proper tutorial on how to do this effectively and efficiently. The most details I read were, "That's just an acrylic light cover spray painted in two tone." That was enough for me to get the gears spinning in the old thought machine.
This is a bit long but if it helps even one single person, I'll feel happy. Hopefully it will save that person a lot of time and research!
PICKING THE RIGHT MATERIALS
I went to my local Home Depot store and looked at the products they offered in this category. I wound up going with a style called "cracked ice" as I really liked the texture.
HD offers two types of this sheet: Acrylic, and Polystyrene. I went (obviously by this review) with the acrylic. The sheets run about $2.96 in store (their web site lists them for $8.97 per sheet!).
WORD OF CAUTION: These sheets will break if you breathe on them too heavily, so handle them carefully. The lovely woman at the checkout counter was very careful about moving it around, as was I, but sure enough, as soon as I (carefully) set it in the back of my truck, snap! Broke off an 8" section off of one corner. She was kind enough to let me exchange it without having to pay for a new sheet.
Here are two shots of a cut piece of the sheet (more on how to cut it later). These were taken with the macro lens function on my camera so you can see the texture closely. The first shot is with the textured side up. The second is with the smooth side up.
PAINTING THE ACRYLIC
Being as it is winter, and having a wife who has a super-sensitive nose, I cannot spray paint in my house so I had to conduct my experiments by hand-painting the material.
I found absolutely no advice online about what side should be painted but naturally assumed the smooth side should be painted as that would seem like the best side to adhere to a board (mounting it on the textured side would raise it up a bit, making it difficult to get a firm grip on the board).
Still, I had an idea that I would try painting each side of the acrylic, and as a second experiment, I would try painting the surface of a piece of wood like the one the finished piece would be mounted on. I figured that I may as well try out several different approaches to see which one I liked the best and which one yielded the best results (yes, those can be two independent things in my head).
The following images illustrate how the effects change with different painting techniques. The painting technique itself was a quick and dirty wet "blending" technique. I was more focused on what the end results would look like with the mounted materials than I was with the paint job.
This first image shows an unpainted piece of the material adhered to a painted piece of wood (texture side up). Two blues were used to paint the board (GW Regal Blue and a blue test color from Vallejo). The acrylic was mounted using 3M Super 77.
This image shows the acrylic painted on the textured side (texture side up). Very dull finish and easily scratched up. I didn't try a gloss coat on this but may do that in future.
This next image shows the material with the smooth side painted, and the texture side up. So far this seemed to yield the nicest, most pleasant look. My overhead lights are really picked up in this closeup but when you stand back, the highlights picked up by ambient lighting make the sheet look like rippled water without being too tacky.
This last image shows the textured side but the smooth side facing up. The overall effect is really cool and gives a much "calmer" looking ripple, but as you can see in this close up, you have to make sure you're getting good paint coverage, otherwise all of the flaws show up. This probably isn't a problem if one is using spray paints. The other major drawback (for me, at least) is that when the smooth side is up, you really harsh reflections of any overhead lighting as a result of the super glossy smooth surface. Additionally, I don't know how safe it would be to apply a matte varnish to this material. It could end up melting the plastic. Lastly, getting the textured side stick to the wood with the Super 77 was tricky because of the bumpiness of the texture.
FLOATING YOUR BOAT
These last images show what a small painted boat looks like sitting atop each finish.
Hope this was helpful. Now go out and build something! ;-}~
