Richard Herries Titanic Model: Part 2

For the sea and wake effect I obtained some acrylic water based paint test pots. I wanted to simulate deep ocean water so used a mixture of blues, greens and greys painted on to the base board. This involved a bit of trial and error, mixing, combining and overpainting until the desired deep colour was achieved. I have to admit to having some help from my teenage daughter Victoria who likes to paint. I surrounded the base board with a wooden edge which woud be varnished later and sealed any gaps to hold in the Woodland Scenics realistic water which comes in a pourable liquid form.Note the Woodlands Scenics products are made in the USA and should be available from model railroad supply shops.

Early in the construction I had cut away the lower part of the hull leaving 13 -14mm below the waterline. I made the mistake of cutting too close to the waterline near the stern and regretted this later. The idea is to pour 3mm of realistic water leaving 10 - 11mm of red hull showing, some of which will be later covered by the wake effects.
The hull sides when cut, tend to distort inwards, so this was corrected by placing balsa wood strips across the bottom, maintaining the correct beam (width) of the ship and providing a base to glue the hull onto the base board.
With the hull glued to the base board and edges sealed, the Realistic Water was poured and spread out to a depth of approx 3mm. The result 24hrs later was what Captain E J Smith might have described as a 'flat calm', perfect if you want to model the conditions on the night of April 14th 1912 ! I however was looking for a more normal sea effect that might have been encountered when Titanic was on its way from Belfast to Southampton. I used the Woodland Scenics water effects and a large paintbrush to achieve this dabbing small amounts on with the brush to form a wave look. The wake along the ships sides and at the stern was achieved in the same manner, building up the depth slowly and letting it dry between applications. I also used Atelier white modelling compound (as used by artists) where the water would have been a more pure white eg right at the stern. The finishing touch was the outflows from the ship. Positions of these were approximated from photos and Ken Marschalls paintings. A hole was drilled and a piece of thick Nylon fishing line inserted and glued in a curved form. The white modelling compound was then slowly built up on this to give the right look.

Just a warning, the realistic water never sets completely hard, so any heavy objects left on it will leave a dent. I would recommend leaving the sea effect until late in the construction, or putting some form of cover over it, but make sure that it wont stick.

Hope this may be of some help to other modellers. I will be happy to reply to any other question about my model in the Forum.

More photos here...