Light Cruiser "Hr.Ms. de Ruyter" 1936-1942 waterline, camouflage

[Beachead]

You have a wonderful build there, Sim. Good updates too.

[Simplyred]

Thank you very much! Always nice to hear.
At the moment the build is at pause. My supplier backordered the clay, but I heard it's coming in within a few days now. So as soon as it's there, the build continues!

[Simplyred]

Yes, I'm back!
After several years where A LOT passed, I am continuing with the build of my model. So, in short, I encountered severe health issues, followed by a divorce. Both hits sort of took me by surprise, and threw me quite off balance, and it took several years to regain that balance, and re-acquire that certain peace of mind that you need in order to build on a model.

But, here I am, feeling great, the sun still comes up in the morning, and not too long ago I felt the need to pick up where I left, and continue and finish the build of the light cruiser "De Ruyter". And, of course, I will be reporting about that here in this thread.

Now, I am not an expert by any means. This is my first card model, as I may have stated in the first posts of this thread, years and years ago. So, I might not be an expert, but I ain't no quitter either. I will pick this up, and finish it.

The model in itself is already finished, I just had to create the diorama around it. Which is also my first time ever to do. So some research went into this, in how to do it, and what to expect.

First, I created the ship's wake alongside the hull, and in the back of the ship from DAS ready-to-go clay. It's easy to work with, and I found out that with just a touch of water the clay could be easily modelled into what I wanted for the wake. However, the clay would not just stick on the build-board, so I had to put some glue under it to make it work. The first pic shows that stage.

[Simplyred]

Next thing was covering the clay wake elements with aluminium foil. Wrinkled slightly it will produce the feeling of the ocean, where nothing ever is just flat. There I encountered a problem, because in all examples to be found in the internet, they just glue the aluminium foil to the building board, and afterwards glue the model itself on top of it.
However, in my case, the model was already glued to the building board, so I couldn't do that. I had to build and glue my aluminium foil around it. But it had to be hand-wrinkled first, so that gave me an extra challenge.

After failing to mold the foil just out-of-hand, I had to make some kind of "mold" from card that exactly fitted the hull of The Ruyter. You can see that in the first pic. Then I just folded the aluminium foil lengthwise in half, and applied the mold by cutting the space for the ship out with a pair of scissors. Next, I was able to glue the foil to the building board, covering the clay and thus providing for a first even layer of the sea-diorama. You can see that on the second picture.

[Simplyred]

With this all done and dried up, it was time to give the diorama the first paint layer. I used an acrylic "all materials" primer, which I used without thinning it. It was thin enough of itself, and it covered the aluminium foil just fine. You have to be careful not to apply too much of it, the layer has to be a really thin one. I think I got that one right. The result after that is shown in the pic.

[Simplyred]

Now, it was time to bring up the first layer of color. In order to do that, I thought it would be best to start with the dark tones of blue.
I used acrylic paint from the Dutch brand "Talens" from it's Amsterdam Series. Great paint, I must really say they make excellent stuff. It was a pleasure to work with, even for me as a complete rookie.
Of course, you can't just take a standard color package and apply it. It has to be mixed to get to the right color, and I sought for a darker kind of blue, so I mixed it with a bit of dark brown. I had to try that quite a few times before I found the color I wanted as an ocean base. In the pics, you can see that stage halfways and ready.

That's where I am now. The model is drying, and tomorrow I will pick this up again.

The plan is to apply several shades of blue in the curves of the wake, so that the waves are a bit lighter. As you would expect as the sunlight touches it. I will probably mix in some greens as well in the color combination. Not at once, but as a separate layer, and only ever so slightly in the curve of the wake. Next, I will paint the tops of the waves with a white color, and dry-brush it with a white color all over the board very very slightly.

When all this is done, I plan to top it off with a layer of varnish to give it a real water-like effect. I hope to be able to apply a few extra layers of varnish in the lower parts of the wake waves, as to give it a bit more "depth" there.

But that is for the next post !

[scon10]

That's a geat idea, to use alu foil to simulate sea. I'll have to try that for myself. Where do you get acrylic "all materials primer"? From the arts supply shop?

[Simplyred]

Hi Scon10 !
Well, the idea to use alu foil isn't mine, I think in origine it was an idea of the German modeller mr. Guido Hopp, I took the idea and changed the products in the layering a bit.
Guido Hopp has a regular wall paint as his first layer. So, I'd rather have a normal primer for that, so I looked at primers for wall paint, and found one that is meant to be used for both indoors and outdoors on all materials where wall paint would be used. So I think that's where you can look. Also, I wanted it to be acryllic based, so I had less chance of the primer rejecting the acryllic layers on top of it.
I would give you brand and type, but since those are Dutch, they'd probably not help you.

[Simplyred]

The various layers of colors are applied. Tomorrow I will start applying the layers of varnish, to acquire a sense of depth in the diorama.

[meece]

Originally Posted by Simplyred

The various layers of colors are applied. Tomorrow I will start applying the layers of varnish, to acquire a sense of depth in the diorama.

I used the tin foil method on my Thunderchild Diorama a year or so ago, to get a more frothy wake around the front of the ship I dissolved some cheap toilet paper in white glue and sculptured it around where I wanted it. I do have plans to seal it in several layers of clear varnish at some stage to get a bit of wet look to the water like you are planing, but overall I quite like the foil water effect, certainly quicker and cheaper that some of the effects plastic modellers go to lol