The Lake, Part 1
I'm now at the point I'd expected to be about a week ago, were it not for a little distraction: ready to pour the lake. After experimenting with a number of products and techniques, I decided to use a combination of two: a base pour of Woodland Scenics EZ-Water, and a top coat of gloss medium.
Based on tests, I found that the EZ-Water product is not practical to pour; it simply cools to quickly to flow everywhere it must. So, I melted in place using a paint stripping heat gun.
This process went surprisingly well, except... it produced a minor issue of its own: the heat from the heat gun melted all of the glazing in the cabins around the lake! At this point, it was minor in the grand scheme of things.
I did the Big Melt in two layers because the pellets must melt down, which reduces the initial depth by several times. Once I'd gotten the lake to the desired final depth, I began pouring gloss medium, which will allow me to add realistically-sized waves to the surface; EZ-Water can be teased into wave shapes, but they tend to be oversize, and without any surface features, the lake looks more like a little puddle.
After having done the initial melt in a matter of minutes, the process will now slow to a matter of days as layers of gloss medium are applied, which I will poke and prod into a wave-like texture as they dry.