Tutorial - Water with 2 component water gel

posted by roman, jarhead, kong

After Raffa also has shown me some other stuff about water effects i have to write another tutorial - you see all my pseudoknowledge comes from others, so thanks to them for all the inspiration :)

Again, this is just one way you can do it. There are sure other ways to be explored. This is a good example from two of Raffa's work...

First with clear water:

Second with blood coloured water:

Please take these for good examples as my try went somehow wrong and i show you the way on how doing this wrong to do it right :)

What you need?

- Water Effect 2K, i did use the one from Ziterdes 
- A painted base which is build to have a place for water and is completly plain at the edges, nothing standing over the edges
- clear tape

- Reading the Instructions and "Attention! Danger!" - rules...

How to? 

Preparing a 50/50 mix of both components. I guess what you all now think :)

Mixing them in one of the jars. All in. Mixing with an woodstick i did forget to mention above. Everything had been fine until i have mixed in a drop of valljos Grey Blue. I wanted to change the water colour a bit. That works as Raffa shows at his Leogante above. Don't ask me why, but i did bring it up to the base, why not i thought at this moment, yeah, f$%!, yeah, why not?

Ok, now i i show you the reason why this what not a good idea. First it looked cum all in all. And it dried that way. Damm hell yeah! Shit! I got cum on my base! Ok... focus, brain focus... 


I took the clear tape to bring it around the base edges. Height has been not much as the instruction says it should not be done over 5 mm. So i did. Making the clear tape clean at the edges using my fingertips to get it straight plain there.


Next i carefully brought the cum upon the base, never knowing it would dry that way. Take care while it dries to control the edges. While drying the 2K water sometimes sinks and makes not so nice edges. You can avoid this by having a control view and in case refill these areas with 2K.

So now: What went wrong? Sure i have the option to wait and hope, but i don't guess this will change a lot. Cum. At my base. From the Snipertowerthing. Cum. Yeah i feel lost.


No words for that...


I guess the drop of colour i have added was the bad moment. The pigments of the Grey blue made it all to cum. I am thinking how to rescue this piece. Sure i will find an idea for that... someday :) - i guess this will dry some days...

Conclusion & Addition



Sure it seems stupid showing a thing that went wrong in an article, but i often learn from my mistakes, i mostly do of them. So i am thankful for always learning something for conclusion.


My conclusion of this topic is: Take your time, if something looks not perfect don't go further, start again. This needs time and patience, if you not want to mess up your creations.

The addition quote comes from Grumbler commented far below this article:

"Hey guys,

some further remarks using the 2k water from Ziterdes. The Ziterdes water doesn't grow warm as typical 2k gel. Therefore you are not forced to apply the 2k water in layers which is a huge advantage in my opinion that justifies the price of the Ziterdes water.

If you apply a large amount of water to your base the tape won't hold the water in place. You can build a frame of plastic card instead. The major disadvantage may be the reaction between the plastic card and the 2k water. My water became dull. If this happens to you then just wait until the water is completely hard then sand the water with some sanding paper und seal it with hairspray or another gloss varnish. The water will be transparent after this step.

Many people make the mistake that they don't fill enough water into the frame. Due to the shrinkage and the surface tension of the 2k gel you often see this ugly elevation of the water at the borders. Just add enough water at the beginning so that you "overfill" the frame up to the maximum surface tension holding the water in place. Due to the shrinkage the water it will be flat at the end.

I presented some mistakes and tips at 

http://www.das-bemalforum.de/viewtopic.php?t=5529&highlight=hortak 

unfortunately in german :-(. Maybe at least the images are helpful to someone!

Grumbler" 

Thanks, Markus for your quote!

So far, even learning by failures in here, damm, haha.
Keep on happy painting!

Regards
Roman




PS: HERE YOU CAN FIND THE SOLUTION - an article where this technique worked well - click it!