This is a modification of a technique for creating flat water effects which was first seen in the magazine MODEL RAILRAODER. The technique was used there to create the effects on a waterfront scene and gave very realistic water from the photos included. After looking at the article, I thought the technique could be easily modified to give us some reasonably good looking rivers on the tabletop. The basic requirements were that the river seem to have depth and that it be easily portable for use at conventions and games at other locations than home. I think the system fills both requirements completely. I therefore put it forward for your use. Tools and Equipment The basic equipment you will need is: (1) a flat base material; (2) earth tone water based paints; (3) brushes; (4) water based paints in the colors black, blue and white (optional); and (5) acrylic gloss medium. I use X-ray film for my bases. This can be obtained from any hospital. Just ask the Radiology Department for some used film they never use. I have been using Floquils earth shades for the base coloring. You may also want to add a little grass or ground foam along the banks. The River Itself The first step in creating a river is to paint the base material with the earth color you wish. I have found Floquil's red earth to be the most appropriate for dirt, while the yellow earth makes a nice standy soil. Allow this to dry and then go back and start darkening the color towards the center of the river. This is accomplished by mixing in more and more of a darker shade and painting stripes down the river. When you are through with this step the river should have edges of the basic color with darker channels toward the middle. Do not worry about blending the edges of the stripes. The basic idea of this step is to mark out the deeper parts of the bottom and any fords you want. If you want to, you can also paint on some rocks or whatever you want to show on the bottom. At this point, the river will look terrible, but now we will add the water effects. The water is added with the clear gloos medium. This is like a water based varnish, but you can color it with water paints. Keep in mind that you do not want to introduce air bubbles into the paint and excessive brushing will also cause problems. The first layer is tinted with black. This tint should be on the light side for two reasons. First, you can always go back and add more layers, but second, you will add more layers of tinted medium anyway. The second reason will cause the bottom to be darker. When applying this, it should go over the darkest layers, but not follow the edges. I follow this with two layers of brown tinted medium, this should basically cover all but the lightest part of the river bottom. Once again, try to mess up the edges of the stripes. This is followed by two to three layers of blue tinted medium over the entire river bottom. At this point you should start getting a feeling of depth. Finally finish off with two or three layers of clear medium. You can whip some of the medium and create white foam effects. (Editor's Note: This method is very effective for creating functional rivers. Rich used this system with some of my Bellona rivers and they turned out well.) Back to MWAN # 20 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1986 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com