Hello all. Over the past ten years, I've created mostly running water effects for rivers utilizing gloss Mod Podge over a dark color paint. I also used Mod Podge for ocean coastal terrain boards.
Mod Podge is great for these types of water features because you're creating waves and ripples and a water surface that is moving.
However, Mod Podge isn't really the right thing for portraying still water or very calm water, such as you'd find like in a canal or a small pond or marsh. That being said, you can certainly portray a pond or canal with moving surface water because wind certainly moves water, so these features are never really entirely "still".
But even so, there is a distinct visual difference on the tabletop between moving water and still water, and I wanted to finally do a pond that had that calm, still water feel to it.
I didn't want to deal with resin if I didn't have to. So I turned to a water-based gel from Woodland Scenics. This is actually a product from Woodland Scenics' school project diorama range. You can find some of this stuff at places Michaels Crafts. This particular bottle gives you enough stuff to a 1/8" deep body of water that is about 5" x 7".
A few insights about the project. The gel worked very much the same as pouring clear Elmers glue into a basin. However, both do have an issue with shrinking as they dry. The gel remained tight up against the shore on one end, but drew back from the other. However visually this didn't really affect the overall look too much. Also, the gel didn't totally level and flatten, it left a bit of a "curve" at the edges of the water which takes some realism away from how water fills a basin in nature.
Ironically, the edge where the gel shrunk and drew away actually looks more realistic in terms of water being right up against the shore.
I also learned a few things about placing other terrain features in the water like rocks, grasses, and reeds.
I thought that the gel would flow around and settle flatly around these features, so I glued them into the basin first. What I discovered is that the gel tends to cling to and "rise up" around the feature, I guess because of surface tension or something. Also, the gel doesn't settle around grass tufts, but instead actually gets soaked up into them, ruining the entire effect. When it came to the rocks, it actually looks pretty realistic to have the gel around the rocks and the rocks being partially submerged. But they also have the problem of the gel rising up and clinging to the rocks and not staying level.
So after everything was dry, I went back and added another grass tuft, glued ON TOP of the water, as well as a third stack of reeds. So you can see in the photos how both versions look. I went back and painted some dirt colors around the tufts that soaked up the gel to make them look like little mounds of earth which works ok.
I finally painted in some lily pads on one corner of the water surface to add some visual variety.
Cleary, the way to go with modeling still water is to glue on all your surface features like grasses and rocks, etc AFTER the poured product is dry. That way, it look like they're actually growing out of the water and the water itself can remain flat.
