Hobby Basics: Water/Mud Effect

There are more advanced tutorials out there to get you some splash effects or ripples or sea foam or wading pools and such, but this method embraces my simple approach to hobbying; providing me with a neat little effect for very little time, money or effort.

My hobbying experience is largely limited to wargames, so I am not familiar with a lot of things at your typical craft shop. After trying a few different clear nail polishes trying to get this effect, I ended up buying a bottle of what I suppose can be termed a "glaze" product. I ended up with Winsor & Newton's Artists' Acrylic Glazing Medium, which promised a transparent, glossy finish. And it worked well to create the muddy effect, so I'm sharing it with you.

You will need:
-A painted, finished base, with flat spots (presumably the water or mud).
-An older, flatter brush
-The glaze
-A small test base, to see how thick you need to apply the glaze

The process here aims to do one thing: make things glossy. I assume your muddy or watery spots are painted the way you want (and dry). I recommend these areas also be flat, because of gravity and realism.

Some spooky Soul Reavers traipsing through rocks and mud and blood... it helped to use a few different colors for the mud, to give it a more deeper, layered look prior to glazing.

Apply some of the glaze in varying amounts to the spare base in a few spots. Let it dry overnight. This should clue you into how thickly you need to apply it to your bases, and approximately how long it takes to dry without wasting a ton of your time. 

Out of the bottle, the glaze is a milky-white fluid. I you apply it to thin, it looks transparent from the start, and doesn't dry well. I applied it until every area I wanted glazed had a kind of milky-white look to it, and let it dry overnight. It was fine by morning.

When you are ready to work on your bases, simply apply it to the parts you want glossy, in the amounts your test determined, and let it dry When everything is done and dry, you should have a nice shiny effect without obscuring the paint job below.

You can almost hear the squelches...

In terms of "technique" this is pretty easy: just apply it. Good job. The  difficult parts are all the prep and planning stages: making sure your have enough smooth or flat terrain on your base to use this effect, and then painting the effect (along with a few brush strokes against the feet of the models to "sell" it). 

All in all though, this is still a pretty simple effect to replicate, and one that I am happy to both have in my repertoire and to share with you.