Paint: Grigor Ebbingtide - Inner peace

A Squid and free shipping

Gribor was a - save shopping cost - piece when I first bought something at Big child creative - link -
As I love everything related to water, the sea, fishes… it was an obvious choice.
Now the project started in 2022 and was finished 3 years later. You’ll notice the varying quality and colour temperatures of the photos. I used automatic white balance that time and so the images are sometimes cooler or warmer on the early sessions.

Water effect

I started in 2022 with a base in mind where the gnome stands on a stone at the sea - close to the box art but with 2 part resin water.

Everything started with a little test with the water on a wooden block and even created a sand base as a second test.
The base sides were covered with plastic card glued with hot glue and it worked quite well. Ok I had one fail try, where I used way too thin plastic card - it deformed from the hot glue.

Now for painting Gribor, I saw him as an old guy living on a Caribbean style island - suntanned, relaxed, happy.
With the exception of the skin, I wanted to stay in the colours of the box art. But making the skin darker makes it value-wise close to the beard - and since I wanted him to be an old guy, I chose to paint it white.

Creative pause

After I had all the colours basically in place, I put him aside for two years. I often face that situation: when the idea becomes visible, I start losing the drive.

2 years later

It took 2 years until I built and painted the base. A piece of wood and a few printed sea stars.
Now the clue should be the water ripples on the ground - that could be a great effect once the resin is hardened.

And then… I paused for another year...

Second paint run

2025 I had the required motivation to bring this piece to a finished state. The following items should be tackled before the resin water should create the super relaxed caribbean mood

• Skin rework ( age spots, more desaturated, sunburn … )
• Highlights increase on the squid ( make him glossy )
• Eyes
• Better beard (colour variations )
• Nails
• Leather
• Metals

Once that was touched, I prepared the sides for the resin pour with plastic card and hot glue and gave it a go.

Could and should

Yep, all could have been so great but after removing the cover for the resin pour, everything was full of micro bubbles so that the water appeared milky and dirty - No caribbean flair, more of a polluted ocean.

I assume something reacted with the resin, because at the time of pouring, those bubbles were not there.
That wasn't fixable. And I remember a great general advice from a friend in a different context: “If you can’t fix it, cut it off”.
And I did

Use the predictable

Off for a fresh start. When the 2 component epoxy is unpredictable, I do something with UV resin instead.
And to give it more punch, I imagined a cliff with splashing water from the waves! Why not … If you fail on the simple things, try the more complex (-:

The plinth was still usable but became a bit short for a cliff. So I raised it with cork to reach a golden ration with the cliff being factor 1.6 bigger than the mini. That should create a feeling of height. The cork was covered with milliput and some wood chips.

Ultra violett Waves

To create waves with UV resin you need something in a proper shape to put it on and harden it. I found some conic plastic cup is ideal for that. It had a varying diameter and an even surface. Then it was just pouring some resin on it and dragging it in a splashy shape with a toothpick. Since it isn’t that fluid, there is plenty of time to harden it with the light.
For the first trials I used baking paper so that the resin doesn’t stick on the cup but the waves became milky. Then poured it on the bare cup and it didn’t stick to it at all. I created plenty of them and cut the pieces in a proper shape.

But first back to the base and bring some variation in.
I glued tons of little starfish to it from the MyMinifactory user Pellinor as well as a friendly crab from Goonmaster games.
I also planned to add many of those seastars into the waves of the cliff with UV resin - as if they were splashed on the beach.

Back to the waves

With the painted base it was time to fix the waves. To keep the waves clear they were fixed with UV resin - super glue dries milky and the resin is nice and clear.

The whole bottom was filled with UV resin in small layers of 20 to 50mm. All a bit freestyle because the clashing wave is triangular wavey form that can’t be put in a frame. So I kept the whole base freehand, poured some small layer and hardened it. then the next one.
I should have covered the sides with plastic card for a clean and straight edge but even without - and a lot of care - it worked out OK.

The hole UV resin was kept clear - all my trials with coloured resin made the hardening not work that good and it turned out sticky. because the base had such a deep blue, the clear water somehow appear to be blue too.

For final touches the waves received slight torquise glazes and white edges. These were also added to the water surfaces and the timewise never ending project was finished

Final pictures

Resin and yellowing

When writing this Blogpost I took the model out of the cabinet again also to dust it of for the scale model challenge 2026. So I noticed my never-ending trouble with water effects isn’t sorted out. The water became very yellow/brown over time. I saw this often on clear plastic rubber parts like door stoppers - so it's probably a general thing. Probably it's just the best to paint the water…