Koi Pond on a Base

The Oiran are now finished! I'll do a post for them as soon as I get their photos edited. In the meantime, here's a thing I did for the base of my Oiran "leader".

I decided I wanted to put her on a narrow bridge. Her pose looks like she's about to bow (martially) to an opponent. I figured putting her in a place where the enemy would have to push past her would reinforce this motif. I'd tried doing similar things before, and know that I am inspired by the incredible work done by [url=http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/riusuke-fukahori-paints-three-dimensional-goldfish-embedded-in-layers-of-resin/]Riusuke Fukahori[/url] though I have less room to do it, and am trying at a much smaller scale.

 These are my primary tools. The clear leveling gel makes decent water effects on flat surfaces, along with green and orange paint for the lilypads and koi respectively.

First, I painted where I wanted the fish to be, and put in some pads that hadn't surfaced. The orange at this point was slightly darkened with brown, to reinforce the 'depth'.

Next, a thin layer of the gel, adding a bit of height for the next few layers. The more successive thin layers you make, the more realistic the effect. For the scale, I ended up doing three, since the height difference wasn't enough to take more. If I ever re-make the base, I might cut through the base, giving me a couple more millimeters to work with. After this layer of gel, I put down a glaze of murky green-brown, to look like the pond's water wasn't crystal clear.

Next, a second layer of orange on the koi, attempting to look like scales was added. Further, some of the lily sections gained new pads, or had over-painted pads to look like the cluster building up.

After a thicker layer of gel, I did one final highlight and seal layer. If you want some of the lilypads to look surfaced, paint them after the final level of gel; they'll reflect the light differently and not appear to be wet with water.

Here, then, the final product. I'm mostly pleased with the result, though if I end up going back, I'll probably end up detailing the surface lilypads more. It does have a nice 3d quality, and it might be fun to do a second base without having her on it, just to see how it looks if that's the only part of the 'model' I'm worried about.

The rest of the Oiran will be in the next post, hopefully soon!