@IronDuke,
Thanks for the positive feedback!
Q1; For the waves, I used a simple, cheap 1" craft brush from a set I got at Walmart. For wider rivers you could use a 2" brush to create wider brush strokes which would make the project go faster. For the very edges of the rivers I used a smaller 1/4" brush because the bigger brush would have gotten too much Mod Podge on the river banks. The actual brush strokes are literally nothing more than a back and forth motion, almost a dabbing motion into the Mod Podge. You start to get a sense of what shapes you can create as you play with it, but all the stuff you see here that I made was done using nothing except that simple back and forth dabbing motion.
For Q2; Actually, one of the coolest things about Mod Podge is that you do NOT have to seal up the ends of your river sections the way you do with resin water effects like Woodland Scenics. Mod Podge doesn't "flow" perse…imagine applying a thin layer of Elmer's glue to a board with a small paint brush. That is the consistency of Mod Podge. What you see there in the river sections I did is a layer of Mod Podge that is no more than a quarter inch deep at the most. In some places it's not even that deep. Its glossy finish combined with the dark color of the paint underneath is what creates the illusion that some kind of water effects were "poured" into the cavity.
But what you see there, you can apply Mod Podge literally right up to the edge of the where the board ends, and it will sit right there, it doesn't flow out at all.
Here's what one of my coastal boards looked like right after applying Mod Podge. You can see that the wet Mod Podge is right up to the edge of that whole long edge of the board. It starts to set up right away, in fact after a few hours you can even take the board and set it vertical if you need to store it out of the way, the Mod Podge does not slip or flow off. No need to seal it in any way!;
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Here's another view showing how I applied the Mod Podge right up to the edge of the terrain board. There is absolutely nothing needed to seal the board while it's drying!
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Q3; As far as I know, Mod Podge only comes in two types – Matte and Gloss. I don't think there are any particular textures or grades that it comes in beyond that. They make both brush-on and spray in both versions.
This is what I used for all my water projects. It comes in a big 32 oz. container and is WAAAY cheaper than things like Liquitex Gel Medium or Woodland Scenic water. I priced it out, it's about half the price of the Liquitex Gels. With one 32 oz. container I was able to do multiple river sections and several larger coastal boards, the stuff goes a long way. And I think it actually works better than any of the other water effects products out there. Pretty cool that a product that was designed for sealing pictures and puzzles would end up making such an excellent material for creating miniature water!
