WarFactory - Oasis

Oasis

Three Foundry natives stalk some HLBSCo zebras.

As well as forming an obstacle, pools can make useful objectives for a battle.
It is difficult to see in this picture, but the pool's surface has been coated with a thick glossy transparent layer of acrylic medium. The plants are a mixture of plastic aquarium plants, as well as other standard small plants used throughout my 'arid' range.

Materials

Plastic card or the plastic from the lid of a large ice-cream or margarine tub.
Casting plaster
Arid style base

Construction

Cut base to shape
Cut the surround before the centre with a sharp scalpel. Make sure you don't cut the initial hole too big because it will tend to grow as you chamfer the edge.

Cut pool surface
Cut a piece of plastic card slightly larger than the hole, and glue it to the underside of the surround with epoxy resin or superglue. Plastic card is used because it does not warp and will stay flatter than card or mounting board.

Texture surround with sand
This was applied as Stage 3.1 of the arid basing method.

Add pebbles
A scenic scatter material called talus (the geological name for rock debris) which came from Woodland Scenics was used for the edge of the pool. This was stuck down with PVA. Note the particles nearest the pool are darker as they are coated with acrylic medium, which made them appear wet. They were also not drybrushed.

Painting

Paint Edge
The edge was painted as Stage 3 of the arid basing method.

Blue Fade
Two colours were used for the pool water. One was a turquoise acrylic, and the other was the ubiquituous Beige Sandtex masonry paint. These were mixed together, along with a little retarder to give the effect. Whatever type of water you are painting, it will usually look more realistic if you make it paler and browner towards the edges.

Gloss surface to water
The final stage was to cover the surface of the pond in gloss acrylic medium. This has a very thick texture, so it is very difficult to make it flat. If it is diluted sufficiently to make it runny, it is almost all water. Instead I put on a layer a few mm thick and then smoothed it off by making small circles with the end of my finger. This results in small large ripples rather than the choppy stippled effect that I was getting smoothing it in any other way. This surface texture, however, could be a definite advantage when making a river where the water would look more natural if rippled.

One alternative material would be high gloss varnish, athough to get a thick enough layer would require a lot of coats. Another would be clear epoxy resin, but this is unpleasant stuff to handle.