How to make an AMAZING model river: Making a Scene Vol #2

[Music] hello everyone and welcome to this my latest video tutorial it's a beautiful river and we're starting now the base for this piece was an a3 board of extruded polystyrene and then I cut thinner boards to mark out the shape of the land I just drew the river on with a felt-tip pen including an island as this was going to be a double streamed river if indeed that's what they're actually called in any case I cut along the lines making sure I used a very sharp blade [Music] and then I stuck these on another sheet of extruded polystyrene using the hot wire foam factories styrene ooh this creates a very firm bond very quickly and can be cut using the hot wire tools I then bonded this top sheet to the base sheet of styrene using the hot wire foam factory glue again a little goes a long way with this glue and you can spread it out using a long stick or a pallet knife I built the land up further using extra pieces of polystyrene [Music] the hot wire foam factory were kind enough to send me this kit which included their free hand router it uses a stiff but flexible wire which you can bend into the shape you desire I used it to cut down through the layers of polystyrene to create the river channel you can get very neat cuts with this tool but I wasn't interested in making this too neat at this stage since this was all going to get covered anyway my main focus was just upon getting the shape of the river carved out of the polystyrene as you can see I wasn't very neat at all but that was fine because the next step was to cover the river and the landscape with sculpture mold it's best to mix this to a fairly thick consistency otherwise it will take many many hours to dry possibly three or four days I always mix it into a very stiff paste [Music] then it's just a case of spatula ring it onto the landscape and working it into the shapes you desire and this consistency you've probably got about 20 minutes before it becomes unworkable I find 20 minutes for this stage is more than enough time and it remains smooth herbal with a finger for quite some time after than that and even if it has gone a bit hard you can give it a spray of water and keep smoothing it over with your fingers here I was after a very smooth texture because this was going to be the banks of the river which I imagined would have been smoothed by the water I used Mod Podge matte to go over the riverbed [Music] a fairly thick layer so that I could fix stones to the riverbed and these are just sifted from some coarse sand a thorough spray with scenic glue helped the stones adair even more to the surface then I pressed on pieces of old plaster rock castings as small boulders that will have tumbled down the river and now it was time to give the model a base coat of burnt umber any Brown will do really this is just to stop the white showing through as we add further scenic materials and I go over the whole model including the riverbed [Music] the first scenic material I use is dried soil and beige grout assisted through an old pair of tights to create a realistic dirt texture on the banks this was applied directly over the wet paint and some of it got on the riverbed but that didn't really matter and then a spray with isopropyl alcohol and then scenic glue further held the dirt texture in place and now it was time to paint the riverbed and for this I use some more burnt umber mixed with a little bit of black and I thoroughly diluted it said it would flow all around the rocks on the riverbed and then I just dabbed it on down the center of the river to create the illusion of depth however I wasn't after too much depth because this is a shallow River more of a stream room [Music] where the paint's had got onto the banks I just touched it up with some more dirt mixture and then I got on with highlighting some of the river stones I used some brighter yellows and raw numbers here and a little bit of gray and I dry brushed over the boulders with a bit of gray as well and I gave the smallest Danes a more general dry brush with several different teams to lend a realistic appearance to the riverbed further realism was achieved with the use of woodland cynics fine turf this is the green blend and it makes rather nice River moss or algae a further dusting with fine turf burnt grass and it a little bit more subtlety to the moss and it also provided nice texture and shading along the riverbanks I highlighted the edges of the riverbanks using clay dust I just sprinkled his long wear I fancied and then used a brush just to brush it onto the edges of the banks and all this required another thorough spray with isopropyl alcohol and then the scenic glue mixture which is three parts matte medium and one part water I like using pieces of 12 millimeter grass matting by gauge master I just cut pieces off it making sure to round off any corners and then I stick it down onto the landscape using Mod Podge matte although any white glue would do pressing it down firmly so that no gaps show under the edges the rest of the static grass was six millimeter NOC grass and this was a mixture of wild grass beige and green which I put into the static grasshopper and then after applying some more undiluted Mod Podge matte around the edges of the grass matting pieces I hold the hopper about two centimeters above the surface of the model and shake the grass out [Music] I could then turn the model upside down and Pat the back to get off plenty more static grass to use on a later piece and I made sure to brush any excess off the riverbed and then used some more of the fine turf to blend in the grass to the dirt texture again with the isopropyl alcohol and seeing it glue to fix all of that in place and now another trick I picked up from Luke town I'm using real roots to muddle tree roots on the eroded riverbanks and these were just weeds from my garden spot of tacky glue and they fix on quite securely I wanted to add some taller sections of beige grass but I didn't have any grass long enough so he used some jute twine cut into sections which I then pulled apart into their strands to create a fine spread which I could then glue into the static grass with a small bit of tacky glue and then to further accent the banks I used some ground-up dried fern leaves which are very good at representing actual dried up leaves and I also used some mid green knock leaves to do the same job [Music] all of this can end up looking a little bit clumpy so it's a good idea to give the land a little brush and then I added some larger bushes using coarse turf by woodland cynics this is their mid green variety and I just pressed it into the grass in random patches where I felt it look good and yes again gave it a spray with isopropyl alcohol and then a thorough soaking with scenic glue and at last it was time to pour the river and for the dam I use masking tape which are then sealed with some Mod Podge again you could use any white glue and I was careful to pull the masking tape quite taut and to make a nice sharp point so that the resin would have a nice clean edge and the resin I used was water clear epoxy from CFS I mixed it in equal parts as it says to do on the instructions and then poured each part into a separate cup which is important as you'll end up with an unequal ratio if you pour one part into the cup containing the other parts because you can never quite get all the resin out of the cup with the lolly stick actually wipe these cups out with a bit of isopropyl alcohol so I can use them again and then it was a case of stirring the resin relatively slowly so as to avoid introducing too many bubbles and I used some acrylic ink burnt umber to tint the resin just a few spots will do it's very strong stuff and if you overdo it you'll lose the opacity of the resin now after a couple of minutes the resin is ready to pour and I go down the center at the river first of all and the resin finds its level as it goes around if you're not quite sure how much resin you're gonna need it's best to mix it up in batches which is what I did here pouring on another cup of resin before the previous layer had had a chance to start drying and I gently pushed it around into all the crevices nooks crannies and corners using a lolly stick and then I realized I needed yet more resin because the river wasn't as deep as I wanted it to be we tend to get a few bubbles and the resin and you can burst these using a soldiering torch make sure you don't hold it too close to the surface and just give it a light passing with the torch and the heat will burst the bubbles and after about 12 hours the resin had cured and I could remove the masking tape the resin tends to creep up the dam and the banks and anything embedded in it but you can clear up any flashes with a very sharp blade just be very careful one of my favorite parts is adding the ripples and for this I used Mod Podge gloss I applied a relatively thin coat to a small area at a time and then blew through a straw to push the Mod Podge around which creates very realistic ripples and then I carried on this process across the entire River revisiting areas if I wasn't very happy with them until the whole river surface was covered as you can see once it's dried after a couple of hours or so it creates a very realistic look [Music] I created more pronounced ripples and further directed the flow of the river with some gloss gel this goes on white but dries perfectly transparent [Music] and I touched up the edges of the river where there was a slight lip to the resin I used Vallejo snow and foam to create whitewater around the rocks this stuff is basically a very thick acrylic and it dries very hard so be careful not to go too thick with it you can stipple it with the end of your brush [Music] I wasn't happy with the length of my long beige Tufts so I cut them down to size with some scissors and then using an old Aeropress coffee filter and green stuff world's leaf stamp I made some tiny leaves to add an extra accent in the foliage along the banks in fact I left these in green acrylic wash overnight but I forgot to film that [Music] these leaves represent the bigger leaved plants that you often get along riverbanks just go fairly sparing with them and then give them a good soaking with isopropyl alcohol and some scenic glue for the trees I'm using some seafoam by gage master I start off with a fairly big twig and then I picked bits off until I'm happy with the general shape of the tree [Music] the coating of brown spray-paint gives the but the color I want [Music] and then a quick spray with some spray adhesive now this isn't the best spray adhesive to use because it's far too powerful ideally you want one that will give it a fine mist and for the foliage I'm using knock leaves mid green again it's just a case of dusting them over the tree being as careful as possible to avoid the trunk [Music] but any bits you do get on the trunk can be picked off with a pair of tweezers [Music] and then you can touch up the trunk with the color of your choice [Music] as this was going to be a lightly wooded scene I made up quite a few of these trees then to add some variation I used one of my wireframe trees and I have a tutorial for these trees available on my youtube channel it's quite a lengthy process but the results are really worth it and then I attach some sea foam pieces we've not leaves to the ends of the armature I [Music] think this is a really nice-looking old oak tree to attach the smaller trees to the landscape I used a pin vise to make a small hole put in a small squidge of tacky glue and then just slotted each tree into place [Music] just bear in mind we've put the root sticking out of the banks so you can line the trees up accordingly [Music] the oak tree was just stuck down with a big squidge of tacky glue this of course took a little while to dry but because of the root structure on the bottom of the tree it's quite easy to stand the tree up and then leave it and that was that I was very pleased with this model I think it turned out looking very realistic and it was a great deal of fun to create I have to say thank you ever so much for joining me again I really do appreciate it if you'd like to support me please do share these videos as much as possible tell your friends tell your family I've been so pleased to hear from people on Instagram and here on YouTube who have been inspired by what I do to start creating their own things it's very satisfying and thank you ever so much for telling me please do keep writing to me ask me questions I'm happy to answer where I can I'll see you again next time until then thanks very much and cheerio

Channel: High Eye Workshop

Views: 11,759,857

Rating: 4.9055505 out of 5

Keywords: diorama, diorama tutorial, how to make amazing model river, model river, diorama river, water effects, terrain river, river terrain, model stream, stream diorama, modelling river, model ripples, modelling ripples, Mod Podge water, Mod Podge ripples, epoxy water effects, resin water effects, model waves, how to, realistic scenery, water effects tutorial, hyper-real, seafoam, epoxy resin, resin pour, tinting resin, make ripples, terrain tutorial, realistic diorama

Id: os1SA2ZpVdE

Length: 23min 30sec (1410 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 17 2019