 Hello everybody and welcome to another hobby cheating video today. It's time to talk all about water effects Let's get into it. Let's strict techno man sir that is Vinci V. Let us get to the technique and learn it Vinci V style That's right today. We're gonna get wet and wild and we're gonna talk about adding water effects to bases Now this is something I've covered in sort of individual basing videos before but today I really just want to talk about water effects as a whole the different ways that they are the different products that are out There are the different ways you can use them strengths and weaknesses of each and Hopefully give you some ideas for your bases and your projects and your display models in the future Let's start at the beginning first things first. Why are we even talking about this? Well because water effects are pretty cool Let's be honest they look neat whether on an individual base or Whether as part of a display plinth or something similar it can often add a lot of environmental impact to your miniature Whether it's sort of slimy dripping gross pools on things like skaven or nergal models or stuff like that Or whether it's beautiful flowing still pools in forest scenes With elves and other similar creatures the forest The reality is having those cool clear shiny water effects often just makes a model look neat In general water effects are really just clear resin Now there are Primarily, and I'm being a bit simplified here, but I don't want to make this overwhelming There are primarily three different types of products You can use for this on the market for the primary sort of resin pour as it were The first and most common is a one-part resin This is usually something like still water or something like that This sort of this still water or this resin water is just one thing you open it up You pipe head it out you put it into your base or into your display and you let it dry That's more or less all there is to it or at least theoretically We'll talk about actual things you want to do later in the tips and tricks for usage section. The second Thing that you often run into is two-part water effects now. This is often Something like magic water, but there's a lot of other brands on the market two-part resin clear resin Epoxy's you have to mix equal parts of usually a and b they chemically react Once they're mixed and slowly harden and become pretty rock solid while also being crystal clear The third is actually something that has come into a lot of attention much more recently in our space the miniature painting world but has been around for quite a while in the jewelry making world and that is UV or light reactive resin and so that is usually again a single part, but it specifically reacts and to UV light usually a little UV flashlight that you're going to utilize that Will then harden it quite quickly And so those are sort of your three options. Let's talk about the strengths and weaknesses of each All right strengths and weaknesses of these three products first off with the single Part resin so still water and things like that They shrink a lot What I mean by that is all water effects when you pour them There will fill to a certain amount and then over time as they dry It will shrink down and so often what you'll get is this sort of concave effect in your water What this usually means is that you have to do multiple pours Pouring less and less and less each time so that the shrinkage is also Commensurately reduced and you eventually get a nice flat area Other than that this stuff's pretty simple My recommendation for this is if you're doing like small puddles and pools on bases This is actually your simple go-to easy product. Those are small Very flat very thin pools that usually will pour in quite easily you can just pipe head it in and no drama very simple to utilize and To make look good two part Resins are going to be much more useful if you're trying to do any kind of significant pour Significant pour here means anything where you have more than a quarter-inch of depth in the overall resin So once you get more than a quarter-inch or a half an inch You start that the single part resins will get pretty sketchy and the shrinkage will become actually highly problematic however, when you're dealing with a Two-part epoxy you can often get a much better larger pour just the nature of these chemicals is they're much more stable They have a lower amount of shrinkage and will generally fill the space Of whatever you're trying to fill a lot better So if you're trying to do like a display piece or something similar like that This can be a great choice these do often take a long time to cure though because they are two-part and they are relying on a Chemical reaction effectively to happen in harden Not only do you need to make sure that they are really really effectively mixed before you pour them You also will run into the case that you will have to let it sit there and if you're talking if you're doing a deep pour So now like an inch plus You're gonna have to let that sit for several days before it's really completely hardened UV or light reactive resin has actually become my go-to favor recently now there are Gaming brands you can buy of this, but you actually don't need to you can get big very large bottles of this quite cheaply online through Outlets like Amazon or your local hobby and craft store because as I said this is used to make paste or costume jewelry and So as a result this you can buy very very large bottles of this at quite a low price because it's meant to sort of make big jewelry pieces and stuff like that and You can also get the flashlight there relatively cheap at any intense UV light will work even and including The big giant one that sits in the sun of the sky every day the Sun that will also cure this so these are really nice because it's the liquid as it were in the UV resin is much less viscous So it it sort of flows much more slowly. It's more gloopy to make it as simple as possible and Because it's so much more gloopy you can kind of shape it and fit it and squid it around A lot easier and then if you just let it settle a little bit before you hit it with a light It will it will then cure out completely flat still because you're hitting it with the light and you know really intensely and quickly Drying it it will cure quite quickly now For the very deep pores however if you have a lot of space you're trying to do like you're doing a big diorama in Water you would not want to use this UV resin Let's talk about tips and tricks for usage of this Alright, so tip number one make sure you've effectively Degassed the resin this is usually the worst with your two-part Epoxy because you have to mix them and then stir them which will often bring more air and water or sorry air bubbles into the actual mixture But it can happen with single part It can happen with the UV resin it can happen with ever all of it Effectively when you put this Pour in you can have little bubbles of air that are trapped inside Oftentimes they will degas on their own they'll sort of float to the top and pop out of there But not always and when they don't then you get these little divots that are in there or weird bubbles that are trapped And it does not look appropriate for if you're trying to get nice clear water So what can you do you want to make sure that whatever you're if what you're using requires mixing make sure It's very well and thoroughly mixed and then you want to do that nice pour And then you can actually work and pop and work out the bubbles So make sure it's flat you can take a large sort of skewer or pokey stick And you know basically something you'd used to grill a shish kebab you know a little wooden Bamboo stick and you can kind of work those out you can also very carefully use like a popsicle stick Work through the resin and just kind of push the bubbles out and up and make sure that they are All clean and clear and out of there There are other ways to degas like there are actually professional tools to suck all of those out Those are more than what we need to use for sort of professional level effects. There are degassing sort of Toolboxes and stuff you can put these things in that will do that That's really sort of heavy-duty and beyond what we generally would need to use Tip number two if you're doing a pour where there is some Verticality to it i.e. you're smashing against the edge of your base or the edge of a display plinth or something similar Then you'll want to make sure it is incredibly properly sealed and there are layers to this based on how deep the pour you're doing is So if you're doing a fairly shallow pour a quarter inch or less Then traditional blue painters tape or something similar tightly wrapped around the plinth Multiple layers you want to do at least three layers of that painters tape all the way around to the surface Then but tightly applied at least three full layers That will generally Contain any kind of leakage or spill in that event If you go deeper than say and it can then a half inch or more You're gonna want to buttress that tape It's still good to start with the tape But then you want to do something like put a piece of plastic card against the plinth and actually clamp it so this is using like a traditional hardware clamp like you might use to Attach two pieces of wood that are glued together or something similar You want to get a nice pressure-based clamp on that with the plastic So you're going tape and then plastic and then the clamp Holding that whole thing there that way you don't get any leakage Because there it nothing will ruin a water effect faster and your entire plinth Then if you have Leakage you can't see where it's run under the tape you go to pull the tape off And you have all of this liquid that is now squished out and dried and ruined your plinth and messed up your whole poor tip number three mix inks and other things like that Into your resin that you can do this with any of the resins that I mentioned so single part two part or the light hearing and You can mix in various highly transparent inks or glazes or even contrast paints speed paints similar You need less than you think so that is my number one piece of advice if you're going for Blue tinted water or sickly green pools or muddy brown water Whatever it might be Okay You only need a drop or two of the ink in quite a large amount of the resin to have an effect And in fact if you're just doing small little a small little area on a base You probably don't even want that take an old brush get a tiny bit of that ink in it and then swish it around in the resin because you do not want to over Like over a do the opacity and the color intensity of the water in the end certainly you can have like You know Caribbean blue oceans and vile gross Green nergal slime and all of those kinds of things But they're still Transparent to a degree and it doesn't take more than a few drops to suddenly make your resin pour just be pouring that color of resin Also, make sure your ink is a transparent ink So here primary color inks are going to do the best so things that are solidly in their color Don't try to buy the weird ones that are halfway between they often have Mixed pigments in them, especially white and that will mess up your whole resin pour very badly tip number four let it cure This is the hardest part, and I really can't impress this on you enough I've done a lot of resin pours I use these on a lot of my bases and display plinths, and you will get the urge to test is it dry Is it dry? Is it dry? Let it be at Minimum when you do a resin pour you should let it sit for 48 hours Base that's to start if you're doing a deep pour add on another day or two These things take a while to cure if you're using traditional single part or two-part epoxies Let those cure don't poke at them. Don't Mess with them. Let them sit there. Let them be smooth tip number five When you're using the UV resin one of the cool things you can do is work with the light to Lower the the the flow of the liquid even more So it's already as I said quite gloopy and doesn't really flow very fast but as you're moving it around if you want to form it into some shapes or Have say cool waterfall effects where it's sort of running in rivulets. You can do that by simply applying a drop Turning on the UV light hitting it for a few seconds and then turning the light off Turn it back on pour again and back and forth by working back and forth You cure it so quickly when it's in small amounts like that. You can actually create natural layers of the UV resin And then shape it when it's when you've moved it to partially solid, but not completely there It's a lot like working with green stuff that sat around for a little while. So it's more tacky and solid In the same way your your UV light can help cure your UV resin just partially So you can start having cool effects or wave build-ups or droplets or all of those sorts of neat things tip number seven Multiple pores what I mean by that is after you've let it cure completely you can keep adding more on top of it It's not a problem. You can do that with all three of the resins So if you need to build up build more volume or you get a concave if you get shrinkage Don't worry. Just do multiple pores. It takes a long time But you'll get a cool effect and you'll get the water with the flat nice even water you're after tip number eight Sanding and fixing Sometimes you will have a problem where a little tiny leak happens or something like that Or you need to sand down some of your effects and or fix them because they get scratched or chipped or You got impatient and poked at the water with your finger and now there's a fingerprint left in there And what are you gonna do about it? Okay Well the answer is simple and it's called gloss varnish if for any reason your resin pore becomes scratchy or cloudy or Messed up in general and you need to fix an error You can simply apply a thick layer of gloss varnish over the top of your resin pore Let it flow into all of those cracks and crevices and recesses and imperfections and then let it dry When it dries that thick gloss varnish will fill the space. It will re it'll make cloudy resin pores look quite clear and and clean and It will fix any imperfections in the surface and make them look good as new Gloss varnish can be an absolute lifesaver when it comes to fixing a resin pore where something went wrong. All right So there you go. That's everything for resin pores as you can see I was working on a display plant through part of this video So here is the final figure and she's mounted now on this There's also other effects you can add on top which I'll talk about here just a little bit As we as we sort of close which is there are all sorts of still water effects Really, you can use any kind of gloss gel which you can buy from your Amazon or your local craft store There are also still water effects. Those tend to be priced up for the hobby Those are just a heavy gloss gel medium You can use those to build up waves as you can see here And so or ripples or anything like that. So if you have waterfall effect you're trying to do Gloss gel medium is going to be your go-to to add those ripples waves You know any kind of like Uneven effects if you don't want to completely flat pool. This is the way to do it You just build it up again over time. It will go on white But then as it dries it will become quite clear same rules apply to the gloss gel medium You can mix in inks and colors to have colored effects up into your your your wave structure or something like that You can also paint them afterward Or you can also add in just a little bit of white or even some white pigment or even snow effects To get little crashing waves, but that will explore more in a future video There you go. I hope you enjoyed this if you've got questions about water effects I didn't answer drop them down in the comments below I always answer every question asked on my videos Hey, give it a like if you liked it subscribe for additional hobby cheating if you want to support the channel There's a patreon down below focused on review and feedback and taking your next step on your hobby journey We'd love to have you as part of the community As always, thank you so much for watching this one. I really appreciate it and we'll see you next time