Just to clarify why I added a card strip along the back edge of display. As I painted the water surface, I would also paint the card strip. This strip gets transposed onto the bottom edge of the canvas. It will be a water colour reference for the background of the diorama. The canvas painting will be in oil paints, my preferred painting medium.

The painting will only look, in perspective, from the console operator’s point of view.
Below, is an idea of what the background will look like. As you can see, it will be mostly sky.

Fabulous, Peter. My mind’s eye still prefers your buoy Kraken, but this is quite brilliant. And the water is looking superb. Model of the year for my money.

Thanks David for your kind words. I too prefer the implied kraken. It’s perceived implication becomes the observers co-authorship. Hope you’re able to rescue your small mishap. Looking forward to seeing it all put together as a display.

Jeff, glad you are enjoying the build log. Thanks for your support.
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Sorry to show similar images.
Spent the whole day dry-brushing the water surafce with lighter shades for the water crests. When it dried I was glad that it went darker, as previously explained. Now it’s not so noticeable. Yet the whole water surface became slightly lighter shade

Still lots of little touch-ups required. Then a three day drying period is needed before applying the varnish. Each coat requires 24 hrs drying time. Looking forward to see how it will look then.

Really amazing Peter! Beautifully made water effects produced by the movement of the ships & boats…
Every single detail is, as I said before, like a small diorama within the larger one!
The addition of those jellyfish, and that school of fish, is again another great detail (how did you do that, btw?) .

Cheers!

Dolf

Dolf, Thanks for kind words. The fish were painted in before I dry-brushed the water crests.

Well, Peter. I love the jellyfish, the fish have a lovely fluid sense of movement, and that transition from the deeper water to the mucky banks is expertly done. All you need is Thunderchild steaming toward a few Martian fighting machines and you are good to go.

I visited our Missingham bridge to study the footings. It had some barnacles on it. Also studied the reflections of the pier on the water.

Decided to follow this example. I avoid using a flood brown colour on the footings, for it had a strong colour contrast with the bluish waters. So I used various shades of grey to neutralize colour comparisons. Exagerated the barnacles to make it look like barnacles at such a small scale.

Cleaned up the wharf. Added another submerged tentacle to the kraken (near side). With the gangway in place, the kraken will be partly hidden (a sneaky fellow). Painted the fish and jellyfish swimming away from the kraken.

Enjoying this more with every post, Peter. I’d say this must be your Magnus Opus but I have a sense that is probably always going to be your next project. That scene with the buoy alone is just brilliant.