Massive resin update :) (Patreon)

Hi guys,

Busy posting day :) I've had a lot to do to get this resin working so I've not been updating as often as I'd like - mainly because I didn't want to only post something ugly and 'in progress' 😅

The main pictures there hopefully give you an idea of where I'm headed, but the full(ish) story is below*...

*if you're wondering why I do this in a text post and not a video, videos are extremely time consuming to make to my standards, and one made quickly on a phone camera would be not only messy but exceedingly rambling, far beyond even this!

The First Tests
Bear with me, they're a mess 😂 SO, I initially planned to have the water a vivid yellow-orange and have it include floating patches of orange-brown unmentionable material, as per some source image I will spare your lunch by not posting here...

As you can see, this partially worked, but not really. the yellow orange water worked (what you dont see here is the multiple tests that led me to the right colour!), but the floating vivid orange-brown material patches didnt really work as intended. based on previous experience I expected the resin to dull down the orange pigment more, which happened somewhat on the underside, but not on top.

Part two of what went wrong, was the patches themselves were far more unstable than expected. I experimented with foam flock on the water tile experiments (for mossy plant life), and had hoped the pigment would behave similarly. it SORT of did, soaking into the resin in a semi randomised patch - but then unlike the flock, began to sink under the resin. I thought the resin would be too viscous for this to happen.

Part three of what went wrong, was I put some patches of pigment along the 'floor', the idea being they would disperse into the resin a little when poured over it, a bit like they do on top. well...not so much. the swirly disturbances you see were from pigment falling from the surface layer, and in one case, me disturbing the floor pigment with the back of an old brush in an attempt to get it to 'disperse', which somewhat worked!

I also experimented with some foaming water effects, which didn't look right here, but worked really well I think on the sewer waterfall later!

Finally, I experimented with mod podge vs water ripples for surface layer, as I didnt want it as 'choppy' as the open water tiles. despite this, water ripples still came out on top, as they just offer more 'depth' than mod podge could manage, even with a thick layer.

Overall - water colour good, pigment colour bad, pigment technique bad, water ripples good, foam good but not for here.

Moving on...

Round two (and three)

SO! This time I went back, armed with a new, browner colour mix (red-brown pigment mixed with mustard yellow pigment...exactly the colour you might expect!) and a new technique.

The aim here was to give a patchy pigment coating to the bottom layer, disturb it with a cocktail stick to get it all swirly, then do the same patchy technique over the resin for the second layer.

As you can see, the patches idea didnt work great, especially combined with the cocktail stick, as it left rather obvious scratchy markings whereever I tried to stir it up. the cstick also was too thin to catch enough pigment to minimise clumps remaining.

Clumps in pigment are almost unavoidable with the material being so fine, I've found. you could MAYBE fix it with an ultra dry environment, but that's unlikely to be available to most anyway.

What DID work here though was, again the water colour, but also how the disturbed pigment blended into the water above it! You can see this especially strongly in the final picture, which was actually round 3.

In 3, I covered the floor with pigment, smeared it on flat with my fingers, and used the back of a brush to go back and forth. I also did it in one layer and without a resin seal layer beneath, hence the more bubbles.

I initially thought the smearing reduced the dispersion of the pigment, but looking back and comparing I think it was actually pretty similar, and removed the clumping problem. 

Overall - pigment colour good, pigment technique seems to work better if I do a flat layer on the bottom. Patches look weird when scraped...

Weathering

I also took this time to get the right weathering effect, in the first photo you can see the test piece. believe it or not there's a green grime product on the right section! The left is all oil paint, cheaper, and far superior in my mind :) Further tests led me to realise gloss varnish was too much, and satin added the right damp sheen without looking like it was actually covered in water...or some kind of stick gel, given that water would run off...

The bottom pic is the result! You can also see the resin sealing process on the bottom piece, a thin layer to catch bubbles.

The Good, the Not-Bad, and the OH GOD WHY

And we come to the first pour on actual tiles and...a bunch of things went wrong, because of COURSE they did!

The pigment I tried without smearing as I thought it worked marginally better, but this time it caused problems as I put a bit too much on, and it just didn't get all mixed in. this wouldn't happen with the smearing, and I'm probably going back to it on the next attempts - but this isn't even the disaster!

As you can see, the top layer here went WAY more yellow than previously! and this was a not so bad one (same one as above)

Just look at this! The one on the right is similar to the one above. the one on the left is....a lemon tart? And a full half of the tiles came out like this. Why? I have a solid theory, and sadly its my own overenthusastic fault.

Basically, I THINK (unproven) I over-blowtorched them, some more than others. I was trying to add pigment sprinkles again, foolishly thinking if they were in lighter dustings with a brush tapping they wouldnt sink (they did). the blowtorch I used to help break surface tension to let them soak in and....yeah.

I suspect it being the blowtorch as I had a test piece turn out this way. I think the more you overheat it, the more the dye tints or decays.

Oh, and I had a massive resin spill from one because I forgot to seal one corner. always double check! 😭

Overall - I'm remaking these tiles, luckily these are some of the faster pieces to make. I'm also reverting to smearing pigment, stirring thoroughly with the brush to disturb it, and only blowtorching once, near the 'jelly' stage 45 minutes in.

The Good News!
The STL sewer waterfall seems to work! Ignore the blatant print fail in the test piece 😅 but as you can see, it clips on nicely to the open grate, will line up perfectly with the water level, and can be printed with resin dyes with the same colouring as the sewer water (albeit more of it, to 'fake' the depth!)

Water ripples helped add some texture here, I had Fabio just make the basic shape to keep the costs down as this took a lot of work to get right. it also gives you guys more creative freedom with how you want your water and splashes to look :)

This is obviously just one piece, another piece fits the other side, there's a middle piece for wider flows, and even a full left/right/middle piece to extend the waterfall a full 3" higher for taller falls! All optional of course, but they're thin and cheap to print :) and of course, they all magnetise together 😁

Finally, I added the foam effect from the first test to the waterfall flow - I'm really happy with the look! Bear in mind this is a messy test, and some areas aren't as well textured as I'd like, but even so I love how translucent the effect is! and close up it even gives the illusion of being made up of tiny bubbles due to the material :)

Lots more to do of course, but I'm happy with the direction things are going after quite a long time spent panicking about experiment failures and fixing problems 😄

Now to clean up the first batch of failures and get to work on (hopefully) the final results! I cannot wait to finish this system and put it all together in a build 😁

Sappy Bit
Finally, I really have you all to thank for making this possible. without you all I would have to rush this out, the sewer falls would be a distant dream, the resin would have come out awful, a bunch of techniques would never have been tried/found, and generally my little art soul would die a little inside 😅

You guys are what makes the final results and tutorials possible - I do it all for you and I can't wait to see people making their own horrendous sewers 😀