Your city needs some water.

Unless you’re modeling a city in a barren desert most (not all) cities have some sort of water, whether it be a pond, creek, river or a larger bay or ocean scene.

You certainly don’t have to include water in your layout, but if you want to make a water scene and aren’t sure which direction to go to make the water, consider using this quick tutorial.

What you’ll need:

• Mod Podge – Gloss Finish
• Liquitex Gloss Gel Medium
• Acrylic Paint mixed to your desired water color
• Popsicle sticks

Once you know where you’re going to put your water scene you should clean the surface of any dirt (we know, you’re layout is always clean and dirt free, especially as you’re working on it) and make sure the surface is smooth. Any large bumps or ridges on the surface will show up in the finished water.

We’re not saying that you need to make the surface look like a sheet of glass, but if you’re working on a surface like plywood as we did, you’ll want to just make sure that any blemishes in the wood, joints in the wood, or things like that are smoothed over. We filled the gaps in a section that had a joint with some plaster and smoothed it over.

Okay, surface ready, let’s start out with the base color.

We mixed a combination of blues, greens, and grays to create a dark murky blue color that resembled a wharf. We didn’t want the water to look like we were in the Bahamas, this is an inlet on the eastern seaboard, so it needed to have a grayish green bay color.

Once we were happy with our paint color, we just covered the area that was going to be water and waited for it to dry. Pretty simple step. You just want to make sure the paint is 100% dry before continuing on to the Mod Podge step.

Paint’s dry and now we put down Mod Podge layers.

This step isn’t very complicated and it should only take a few minutes to apply each layer.

BUT before we started slapping down the Mod Podge we layed out the wharf, placing the buildings and pilings for docks where they were going to stay. This step might actually be the hardest part since we often find it hard to make a final decision on where a building or object will stay… forever…

But we came to a decision and placed the items on the wharf where they would stay.

Now it’s time to put down the Mod Podge.

We put down a total of seven layers of Mod Podge and we used a synthetic bristle paintbrush to cover the entire water area.

The first layer that we applied just went on top of the paint, and there were no docks, pilings or objects on the water area. This was the base coat and since this product acts as a glue, we placed all of our items into their agreed upon location before the Mod Podge dried. This cemented them into place for future coats.

The first layer (and all future layers) took about 24 hours to dry completely, so make sure you have another project ready after application to work on so you don’t have to go back inside and do other household chores.

Side note: this tactic is great for all model railroading projects as it makes your wife think you’re really busy and not just working on one thing… though she’s still liable to think you’re just wasting time in the basement…

Layers two through six take a little more time and a steady hand since you’ll be applying the Mod Podge in and around the objects and structures that are glued into the water now.

Just take your time and cover the area completely for an even and smooth look.

This is where I made a mistake, and I hope you’ll avoid this. I got impatient and poured a bunch of Mod Podge on the area and tried to smooth and spread it all out with the brush. Well the problem is that I was being impatient and it got a little more ‘ripply’ and dried a little uneven and a little bubbly. This was a problem that was corrected on later layers, but it took a little more time to fix.

So don’t do that! Unless of course you like swearing at yourself and correcting your mistakes, then by all means, follow my lead.

Adding highlight colors to your water

Now that the Mod Podge layers are all dry and smooth, you might want to add some highlights or darker areas to your water. This step was fast and simple, but it made a HUGE difference to the look of our water.

I mixed up a pallet of some algae colored paint (greens, olive and grays) and some lighter blues, and applied it with a sea sponge to areas that would either have slower moving water where algae would grow. I applied the lighter highlight blues in the center of our wharf where there would be more moving water and some current.

These were acrylic paints, and I thinned them out a little bit. They should apply thin and watery, not thick. You don’t want to completely cover up the layers below.

This will dull the Mod Podge layers a bit, but I also rubbed my finger over the paint as it was drying to remove some of it to my liking and thin it out in some areas.

Time to make some waves!

The accent paints should dry within a few minutes and you’ll be ready to apply the gel medium at this point.

This step seems like it might be hard or complicated, but I found it to be the most fun step.

All you’ll need is your gel medium and a few popsicle sticks.

We used a 16 oz Liquitex Gloss Gel Medium, but there are other brands out there that work just as well.

Hint: The gel medium isn’t the cheapest, so look for store coupons to the big box stores, or find it online to save a little bit

Take your popsicle stick and get a dollop (blob, hunk, splatter, whatever you call it) of the gel medium to spread out evenly on top of the Mod Podge. I found it easier to work this into an area about 6” x 6” at a time, but don’t worry this stuff takes forever to dry, so if you go a little rogue and mess up, you have a lot of time to play around and get your waves/current looking just right.

Once you’ve spread the gel medium out in the work area, use the tip of the popsicle stick to create patterns in the gel to resemble waves. I found it worked well to use a back and forth ‘c’ pattern to make the waves and then go over them again to remove some of the repetitiveness of the pattern.

Continue making this pattern to reflect the motion of the water and direction it might be moving until you’re happy with it.

This gel medium layer should be thick enough only to create the wave texture, but thin enough to see the paint color through it in the low-points of the waves/current. I know this isn’t a very precise measurement, but before it dries the tips of the waves should be white and you should see some paint color in the bottom of the waves where your popsicle stick moved gel out of the way.

Let the gel medium dry for 24-36 hours and it should look like waves or stream current!

You don’t have to apply all the gel medium at once.

Our wharf is larger, so we did the water in a couple sections, letting parts completely dry before making more texture. Taking breaks in between wave making sessions didn’t hurt the look of the water at all, so don’t feel like you have to pull a marathon session on this step. If you get tired or your hand cramps up, take a break. It will still look just as awesome when you resume later.

The end result = awesome looking water scenes!

This created a cool water texture that didn’t look like it was just melted and poured into place. There are faster options out there that may be suitable for other types of water bodies, but we’re creating a bay/inlet for a large part of our layout and we didn’t want a flat water surface that other model railroad scenery products create.

We hope you’ll give this a try if you’re looking for a way to create a waterway for your layout!

Let us know if you’ve tried this or if you have another neat way of creating water for model railroad layouts.