can anybody give me some simple and easy tips on making puddles,im doing a diorama for my tiger tank ,i dont want a snow scean,i just want some tracks with some puddles,iv been told you can use varnish,but where do you get it from ,what is called,or is there a easy way of making them 1. 35 scale cheers bonezone

Ola Bonezone

I know what you mean. Basically you want a ripped up roadsurface that shows signs of heavy traffic. I Too have experimented with this. And I wanted for a dio a roadsurface that was pretty ripped up
Here is a pic of the result

Ok What you see here is a thick layer of wallspackle with Bird cage sand sprinkled over it while it was still wet. Also while it was still wet I pressed feet of several figures into it. and ran over it with some Jeep wheels and other vehicle wheels I had in my sparebox. Then when everything was cured I painted all Brown. Only needed a thick black wash. Then when you want puddles it is quite easy. You simply put a couple of layers of Gloss coat in the footsteps and other holes till you have a good flat layer. Another thing is cutting a piece of styrene in the shape of the puddle and press that into the mud. Take it out paint the print and glosscoat it afterwarths.

I hope this is a bit clear to you. If you have questions about my explanation above let me know and I will answer

cheers for your help faust it looks real what is gloss coat ,is that some kind of varnish,and what is wallspackle

Ola Bonezone

Wall spackle is the stuff you use to fill holes in the wall. can be found in any DIY shop, Is very cheap and it comes in a big tube. Great stuff. When you buy it make sure you buy the Acrylbased one because when you use foam as underground as I do and you smear the Non Acrylic version on it you will see your dio melting for your eyes. ( I know that from experience.)
Gloss coat is actually just Gloss Varnish. Try to limit it only to the spots where you have water as mud and clay usually is not glossy.

You can also substitute Future Floor covering for varnish and you can tint it mud color also.
Cheers!

Here's another way. The ground cover is Permascene (found mostly in the railroad section-yellow box), The ditch water is casting resin tinted with paint. The "sloppy" mud is baking soda mixed with paint. The whole thing was oversprayed with Polyurethane. Hope this helps,

Art
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Hi the gloss varnish can be baught at B&Q or Hombase dont use model varnish it will cost far to much I use homebase own brand acrylic varnish you get a tin that will last for yrs for £3.oo . Spackle is what we call polyfilla I use it too for ground work I also get some cheap earth colour acrylics from the local art shop and squirt some into the polyfilla mix save on a lot of painting later. hope this helps.