Military Model Scene

In the past I have made good use of the pots of various 'mud' mixtures from Ammo of Mig Jiminez and now I have had a chance to make my first experiments with their Acrylic Gels. There are a good variety of textures in their range already, with things like Concrete, Vietnam Earth and for my first experiment, their Water gels. These include clear, Slow River, Pacific and Deep Ocean colours.
So, my first trial has involved the Deep Ocean coloured gel. For many years I have never been able to get a sea effect which I have been really happy with. So for this experiment I chose to use a piece of polystyrene foam as a base, and set some Cold War era Soviet ships onto a sea base.  As they were all waterline models, there was no need to cut away any of the polystyrene to make space such as needed for a full-hull model, that will be another project that this is really a precursor for. As suggested by Ammo in their new catalogue, the first thing to do was to give a base coat of light blue acrylic paint over the surface of the base. This just helps the colour of the gel that will be laid down.
The colour in the post looks like a very light blue but when dry it goes very dark blue. The trick is to trust in the colour change over the next 24 hours. I applied the gel to cover the base with an artists' pallet knife, using it to create a rough surface as a simulation of the wave surface of the sea. The gel is thick enough to stay in the pattern you create and not settle back to a level surface as a liquid would do. Then, with the gel still wet, I placed the painted ship models into place, pushing them gently forward a little bit, which created the wave pattern down the sides of the bow and hulls. Once in place I used the pallet knife again to create a different pattern behind each vessel to represent the disturbed wakes. With the pallet knife again, I created the wave effects back from the bows on each ship.
At that point it was all left to dry for 24 hours, and in this time the gel dried and changed colour. I was then able to dry brush while paint over the wave crests and along the wakes and bow waves. You can apply another layer of gel if you want to darken it even further but for this first experiment I chose to leave it as it is. I have never done a sea scape before and for my first attempt I am quite happy with the end result. I have much more confidence in using this again for my next planned project, which is for a 1/350 full hull LST, and which will involve cutting some material out of the polystyrene base to fit the hull, but that will be another story.....

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My thank to Ammo of Mig Jiminez for my example.

Robin