Building parking lot with melting snow 1/24
Each of us modellers we do have our bucket list:
Things, we need to accomplish before we… have children.
Melting snow was really high on my list.
Honestly, it took me some time to dare to start.
Even the fact that VW Beeltle snow plow for the diorama had been ready for few months already.
I just didn’t want to screw it up.
Anyway, shall we start?
1. I didn’t pay much attention to the base surface as I knew it will be hidden under the melting snow. I know that the effect of old tarmac road was not the best one I could have achieved. So at least I tried to break the uniformity with stripes. It also helps the viewer to understand that the situation captured is happening at quiet place, not some open road. Masking. Chipping fluid. De-masking. Water-brush-toothpick.
2. I unboxed my Deluxe snow kit. I was too lazy to watch you-tube tutorials so I started to experiment with the material on piece of paper. I poured a tiny bit of snowflakes in plastic bottle cover and mixed it with few drops of bond. That way you can precisely control the snow consistency. I let it dry overnight to see how it changes the structure. When I felt confident enough, I moved to my base. More bond helps to create bigger and heavier clods of snow. Those I put on the ground, precisely copying the lines of car body. I wanted to imitate cumulated snow after it is swept done the car. I added smaller clods next to them. I scattered light snowflakes over wet clods to achieve more realistic effect. Once it got dried I removed remains with a fine brush. Every single square centimetre I checked and fine-tuned according to my reference images.
3. I used Wet effect fluid to reproduce melting. I warn you to put some music one, as it was really long procedure. I applied liquid carefully with a toothpick, ensuring none of liquid gets too much in contact with snow, otherwise it could get soaked and whole effect would be destroyed. It was frustrating to find out that once I got to the last part I could start all over again. Most of the wet effect fluid got soaked into the tarmac and melting effect was too week. Some areas I needed to work for three times. I am quite okay to work with chemicals, but smell of open wet effect fluid was really annoying. To get more realistic feel, I imprinted drivers shoe into one clod. I poured few drops of wet fluid on it to highlight the melting effect created by pressure of shoe against the wet tarmac.
4. I also used toothpick and wet effect fluid to create thin shaky streams of water that are created after a piece of snow is melting down the car surface. It took some time, procedure had to be repeated even for 4 to 6 times. But I was quite happy with the final result.
