I am wanting to add a beck or small stream on my layout.
I dont want it crystal clear as it is a urban area with factories surounding
it.
What is the best way to get a good result, there is the deluxe materials,
Woodland Scenics, Noch, or Varnish so I dont know where to start, and with
money being tight at the moment I dont want to try too many products
Any Ideas apresiated
Simon G
Model your stream without water. Put all your junk, pollutants and
weeds in the "stream". Use a piece of clear plastic packaging (such
as may be used to pack soft fruit) cut to shape as your "water". Go
over with a couple of coats of brownish varnish and things to
represent weeds, rubbish, etc.
Hope this helps.
PhilD
--
<><
I would build a very small diarama to test the techniques.
The Black Beck in leeds was just that - almost black - in the
industrial era. You could model that as a flat surface painted with
black enamel , to give the right sort of reflectivity, then take some
of the colour off with a couple of thin washes og brownish and
greenish varnish in streaks,
Fast flowing sreams fed from loamy areas are brown and not at all
transparent - again I would not expect to be able to see through the
surface.
I am not at all convinced by clear water on models. Go and look at a
few real-like ponds and streams from up a hill (scaling the eyeheight
your model is seen from). You won't be able to see into them at all.
I agree. Modelling water is made more complex than needed by our
tendency to model what we think it should look like than what it
actually looks like.
This tendency also shows up in modelling trees (most tree bark is not
brown), roads (which weather to surprisingly light greys in a very short
time), lawns (which are not billiard-table green), brick walls (mortar
is almost never white), concrete (which usually has a yellowish cast),
and so on.
The best guide to modelling the scene is a good collection of
photographs, taken under the lighting/weather conditions you imagine for
your layout. Some of these can be used in the backscene, which helps
achieve that consistency of colouring that produces realism.
Time of day and weather affect the perception of colour. Achieving a
colour scheme that looks realistic is not easy. I've tried a number of
techniques, and have come to the conclusion that consistency in overall
tone or mood is more important than precise prototypical accuracy. So
I'm (very slowly) puttering at (re-)painting models, including the
rolling stock.
HTH
Wolf K.
On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 10:58:53AM -0400, Wolf K wrote:
However, the *perception* of the model is also affected by our tendency
to compare it to what we would *expect* to see.
Small bodies of water, including moving water, of the order of a few cm
wide and deep are generally transparent to a certain degree*. Therefore,
given that the model of the water is a few cm wide/deep we expect it to
be partially transparent even if we "know" that it's representing
something tens of feet wide and deep which, when we come across it in
real life, we're not at all surprised to find is opaque.
As does distance.
* when they're opaque, we call them mud or foam, not water :-)
--
David Cantrell | Nth greatest programmer in the world
Please stop rolling your Jargon Dice and explain the problem
Bu**er, replied to the sender instead of the group, again, never used to. Is
it me or has outlook changed ? Maybe time to switch ....
Not sure what you are trying to say in your reply, could you try again ?
Agree with Wolf, the overall impression is far more important than the
detail. Too often when building a model we focus on the detail of the
current activity instead of its part in creating the overall picture - wood
and trees perhaps.
Cheers,
Simon
You mean Outlook Express I presume. I believe it has now be
re-incarnated as Windows Live Mail. From what I have heard on many
other groups you are not alone in replying to sender rather than the
group. Seems Microsoft have yet again tried fixing something that was
not broken.
Thats it then, it will follow Office out of the door. Am fairly tolerant of
software quirks and often slow to change but found Office unusable in the
latest versions so it got replaced - not just on cost grounds - now its bye
bye Live Mail.
Thanks,
Simon
On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 07:16:52PM -0400, MartinS wrote:
If you look at my headers you'll see that combining the two works Just
Fine. In fact, I find that it works far better than using two separate
programs. It's combining them *incompetently* that screws things up.
--
David Cantrell | Reality Engineer, Ministry of Information
If I could read only one thing it would be the future, in the
I agree. I use Turnpike, which combines a mail client and a newsreader
quite seamlessly, and has done since the first version I used in the
early 90s.
David
Exactly what happened to live mail. Used it and or outlook for many years
without problem, but theyve moved the Reply Group tab off right click drop
down menu. My fingers knew about that tab, now brain needs to - thats the
incompetence in this instance.
With office they made it snazzy and in doing so used lots more of the screen
for menus and it took me ages to find what were frequently used functions -
some of which never did locate. Thats why gone to open version and staying
there.
My latest pet hate is programs that go and find things for you at start up.
Trouble is they all run as though theyre the only program on the system.
Once did network trace to see why everything so slow at start. Seems HP is
searching the world for printers. Bet they thought it was great that they
could locate a printer half way round the world. However, like most people I
have one a few feet away that changes parametetrs once in a blue moon.
As for updates, do I need everything to check every time system starts up in
case theres a latest binary with another obscure feature....
rant...rant.
Cheers,
Simon
On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 09:14:04PM +0100, simon wrote:
Your model of a river is only a few cm wide and a few cm deep. People
expect it to be just as transparent or opaque as real water a few cm
wide and deep - ie, to be transparent. That they "know" that it's a
model representing something much bigger doesn't seem to matter. If
it's opaque like the big river it represents is opaque, then it'll look
like mud, not water.
--
David Cantrell | Nth greatest programmer in the world
What about them being a cruel race (according to Mr Bean) theyre operas can
be 6 hours long and they have no word for fluffy !
Not sure can agree with that, some streams and certainly most rivers look
opaque from quite a short distance away. If its deep then perhaps clear to
opaque via translucent is what you want. So to give an impression of depth
use clear varnish at the top but becoming a dark dirty green or ... lower
down. With streams the type of bottom is very important - do that first.
Would try thin layers of satin so get some reflection and some not -
something to experiment with. Also depends on the viewing angle as well as
the amount of light. If it was a night scene then how about the effect shown
by those cards where tilt and gives a different picture. One angle for the
moon, another for starts or cloudy sky ....
Cheers,
Simon
Are you getting your units mixed up. Talking about real rivers - rare are
those that are a few cm wide or deep. Streams can be of that depth though.
However with the shallow part of rivers and shallow streams then as
previously said it depends on the bottom. If its a muddy bottom then it
depends on the light .... Plus if theres nothing to see (no reeds, fish,
stones etc) then clear water can appear opaque/translucent - depends on the
bottom and the light.
Cheers,
Simon
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