Modeling Ships Underway: Water and Presentation Experiments

When I first began getting into ship modeling, I built my ships with full hulls and displayed them on the fiddly plastic stands that came each kit. But I wanted to display my ships in their element: underway and slicing through a hopefully realistic sea. I was intimidated by the beautiful dioramas I read about but I had to try in order to improve.
Scores of kits and experiments later, I have finally found a reasonably accurate, realistic and moderately priced alternative for displaying waterline ship models at sea. In this article, I will show you my progression in terms of materials used, results of early experiments, and then wrap it up with my current method of presentation.

EARLY REASONING AND EXPERIMENTS

Once I attained a moderate level of skill in actually building a decent ship model, I began trying to display the ships at sea using various materials. I read as much as I could on other modeler’s techniques and proceeded to try some of them and to create a few on my own. 
The first part of your diorama is the base. A suitable hardwood should be used and you can find boards at Home Depot, Loews, or your local lumberyard. My early attempts were simple ¼ or ½ inch pine boards cut to the proper size to fit my current project. 
Creating water was the more difficult challenge. I have read of so many different techniques on creating water, I am continually amazed at the ingenuity and sheer imagination of my fellow modelers. Almost all techniques can be made to look presentable if you have the patience to practice. In my early enthusiasm, I tried using Elmer’s white glue to try and replicate a smooth glassy sea. Here is an Italeri 1/720 HMS Hood resting on an overly thick pine board using Elmer’s for water:

Although hard to see, there are distinctive textures and depth to the water. Again, you can see that the coloring of the water is lacking and more shading needs to be applied.
Here is a USS Ticonderoga in 1/350 scale completed last year:

I experimented further with placing the ship diagonally, creating a narrower swatch of sea and adding more depth and texture to the water. Since it is 1/350 scale, I had to make the water more “choppy” than in the smaller scale. Still however, the water coloration is flat and does not please the eye. It needs a better blend of blue and green and better accents of white for detail.

CURRENT METHOD

Here are the materials I currently use for creating water in 1/700 and 1/350 scale:

1. Sign Boards: These are found at craft stores or woodworker’s supply stores. They are hard pine, cost under $10 each, come in a great variety of sizes, shapes and lengths, and have beautiful routed edges that give the finished creation a polished look. They are bare wood as well allowing you the choice of stain to match the wood in your model room!
2. Liquitex Acrylic Gel Medium: Expensive but manageable and easy to shape. Other methods I have read about but not tried are:
A. Using aluminum foil crinkled and shaped using glue to attach to a base. Not sure of the technique but some I have seen look great.
B. Sculpey Clay: This stuff requires you to bake it in order to harden. I’m not patient enough to go this route!
C. Modeling Paste: Very similar to gel medium but cheaper. Also the paste tends to crack in places when dried. I have used paste to good effect and used old reliable Elmer’s to fill in the cracks that appear. 
3. Liquitex Acrylic Paints: These are water soluble and very thick. I mix in just a little water to start. The colors are Pthaocanine Blue, Pthaocanine Green, and Titanium White. Base mixture depends on where your ship is sailing. For Atlantic waters, use 3 parts blue and about 1 part green. For Pacific use a bit more green.
4. Future Floor Finish: I learned of this stuff from reading the reviews here on Modeling Madness! I have yet to try it on aircraft canopies but for water it works great. Two coats of this brushed very slowly on your water provides a wonderful sheen.

CONSTRUCTION PROCESS

I usually complete the ship first before placing it on the base. I found it much harder to glue the ship and then sculpt the water around it. The gel is quite sticky and is very hard to scrape off your ship if it gets somewhere you don’t want it. 
Trace the outline of your ship’s hull with a pencil on the base. Use a few strips of cardboard to scoop out some gel and proceed to smooth the gel around the general outline of your ship. If your ship is a flat-bottomed waterline kit, avoid getting the gel inside the outline because when you slide your ship into the gel at the moment of truth, the gel in the middle will be pushed outward and will not look right. If your ship’s hull has been cut off and is hollow, you don’t have to worry as much.
Using fresh strips of cardboard, carefully mold wakes and outward moving bow waves, etc. This depends on how fast your ship is going. Your most important reference is finding as many pictures of your ship or class of ship underway as you can. This will give you an idea of the distinctive wave pattern made by your ship. Once you have the general wave pattern shaped, stipple the gel by gently touching the cardboard farther outboard of the ship to simulate how rough of a sea you want. The same method applies for creating the wake aft of your ship. Again, pictures are a must.
Carefully place your mostly completed ship slightly behind the point where you want the ship to rest and slowly push it forward an inch or two until you reach the tip of your outline. Observe the look of your water—it is difficult because the gel is all white but use more cardboard to touch up your water as needed. The gel takes a few hours to dry depending on how thick your waves are. Let it stand overnight to be safe. Some of the gel may not ever fully harden and you can push or mold it a bit more if needed.

PAINTING

Mix your base paint by mixing 3 parts blue and slowly add in green to get the color you think fits your location. Use an old thick brush to slap on the base coat. Be extra careful to not get too much on the hull! While the paint is drying, you can dab touches of blue or green on your brush and blend it into the base blue in areas where foam appears. Check your color photos to find these areas. You can also do the same for white but it is easy to overdue the white in this way. What you are doing is mixing the paint on the base and if you go to far you just turn the base blue paint into a pale green. Dab the white mostly in the wake area and up by the bow wave.
After this is totally dry, use a finer brush to add the white details. You can dry brush the outer waves and crests. I also use fresh white sparingly to accent the water nearest the hull and the tips of certain waves emanating from the ship. Once more, pictures of ships underway are essential. It is easy to overdue it—you can always add more white but nearly impossible to take it away.
After your water is completely dry, you add a glossy sheen to your water using Future Floor Finish. Pour some into a paint cup and using another old brush, carefully and slowly brush it on. The reason I emphasize that you do it slowly is because air bubbles will appear if you go to fast that will ruin your hard work. I normally put on two coats waiting a few hours between each coat but sometimes one coat may be enough.
Here are two examples of the method described above. The first is my 1/350 USS Winston Churchill recently reviewed and then a pair of 1/700 Tamiya Japanese subs in a little diorama.

I tried to portray the subs in a rough and moving sea but I think I overdid the blending a bit too much. It just goes to show that practice and experimentation is the key to creating a realistic scene of your ship on the water.
I hope this article has been helpful for those wanting to give it a try. Learning from mistakes is the best way to progress as far as I am concerned. Good luck and drop me an email if you have any questions.

Len Roberto