Some years agao I decided to go to town with an old kit of the Airfix Short sunderland. This was a kit I had enjoyed originally bulding back in the 70's at least twice beforehand - the moving turrets and sliding bomb racks were one of those early airfix features that added an edge to building a kit when I was just 10 or so - and then at about 40, I decided to have another crack at the kit and invested in about £100 of additional resin and photoetch bits along with 2 new kits of the sunderland. I built the first kit with no real knowledge of the finer detail of a Sunderland 5, so ignore my errors please. Once the kit was nearly completed, I decided that it would be safer if set into a plinth base to avoid getting knocked, particulalry as the sundeland does not have a study land based set of footings - after all, these birs laid to rest in water not on land. So I started on the base which was supposed to reflect a stormy winter air/sea rescue somewher in the Atlantic during WWII. Having lareayd almost completed the main kit, I used the hull of the second kit to establish the displacment in the water which was made using Vallejo Water Effects (lots and lots of it). I did not bother fidling around and testing other optional materials for the water - I am aware of many water products but stuck to my first and only choice.
Using scrap timber and my mates front door gloss paint, I set about producing the base as per the following illustrations
Then a styrene base - my wife loves shopping on amazon and there is never a shortage of packaging materials in my recycling boxes - the shett used here just felt into my hands from the rubbish box.
now some bits of foam were added to raise the sea waves
then a laid a coating a plaster of paris of the base, using stips of bandages that had been soaked in the wet plaster - this would provide a solid and non porous base to start to build up the main water surface
now i sealed the base with black gloss paint
Now the fun and hard work started - using lots and lots of Vallejo Water Effects, I starte to sculpt the sea waves having set the sunderland into the base (using the hull of the spare kit) along with the dinghy and some strays lost at sea
Now i simply started painting the base and adding details
The base took about 2 weeks to set hard, in this time I continually tweeked the waves and added some slip where the wing floats would have skimmed the crest of the waves - enjoy please
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Topic: Making waves - wet and windy Short Sunderland diarama (Read 7445 times)