May 5th, 1864

[ct ertz]

Thanks guys, I wish the pics were clearer. We rushed a lot of the details. The Paddle wheels on the Commodore hull were well detailed with the spokes being cut out, but we just left everything printed on the Sassucas. No anchors or chains on the Albemarle. And much of the rigging is missing on both Union ships.

On the up side the water turned out acceptable. I used blue and white water colors on a light blue poster board, mixed with white glue. I found out that cotton balls soaked with white glue, then pulled apart and shaped make pretty good sea spray for the paddle wheel area.

Michael did a pretty good job on his time line although condensing all of the interesting information down into a couple of sentences was kind of tough for him. His hand written journal page was also a challenge for him, he would have much rather of used the computer and printed it out!

I hope that he retained enough info that he does a good job on the presentation part.

[ct ertz]

I do love card modeling! The cost of the diorama was 8 pieces of card stock, ink, water colors from the dollar store, black markers, duck tape, an old USPS shipping box, bamboo skewers, thread, an old broken jewelry chain, and ,a large bottle of white glue. The ship model downloads were free, we already had the printer ink, duck tape box, chain, thread, and bamboo skewers, so my out of pocket cost on this project was about three dollars!

[ct ertz]

Well, the boy got a 100 on his project, so he was pleased. Now we can finish the ships out with all of the extras and put more people on board. I do need to get my priorities together though. A model wood burning stove was some how accidentally loaded into my printer the other day while reading the "snap it" thread and my wife printed it out when she hooked up the printer. For some unknown reason, we now have a small wood burning stove made of paper sitting on the shelf. I had to build it...otherwise it would have been a waste of ink right? Anyhow, we will be making more parts for this unfinished diorama soon.

[Sakrison]

For easy water, my favorite is artist' gloss medium. Just brush it on.

[ct ertz]

Thanks Sakrison, I may try that too. For the boys school project we ended up going with blue and white water colors mixed with a healthy mix of white glue, with glue soaked cotton balls for spray under the paddle wheels. The white glue worked well enough but as it sits it dulls, so a gloss coating is in order.

I love ship models and in particular I love the waterline style in 1:250 scale. These always call for some sort of water setting though, so I will be doing a lot of experimenting. I also want to do muddier darker waters for smaller inland rivers for some of my other American Civil War ships.

[ct ertz]

Some updated pictures with my mothers cam. She came down for a visit and let me shoot some shots with hers...better then the web cam!

[cdavenport]

Crumpled aluminum foil, reflattened with all the myriad creases still visible. Paint it........BROWN or icky green! I don't believe there was any action on the deep blue sea.

If you want the boat under way, use a bit of artist's gesso to build a small wave