Pegasus Bridge - The Pond

A pond - with extras

In the battle for Pegasus Bridge the preliminary observations missed the vital placement of a pond near the bridge.  As the gliders came flying in to land the pilots had to quickly react to this body of water which could have killed everyone.  Luckily all 3 Horsa gliders missed the bridge (one by a whisker), so we had to create a pond for our board.

Paddle faster!

But a pond on its own is pretty boring.  So we added a couple of items for interest.

Starting with the MDF board cut into a vaguely pond shaped piece, we created a ridge and texturing with the cheap modelling clay we are using for almost everything.

Then we glued this to the MDF. When dry, we painted the pond with PVA glue to make sure the whole thing was non porous as we would be using "Realistic Water", a product from Woodland Scenics. Check out the video on top of this page to see how it can be used.

Stupid briefcase.  It should have been labelled "Lunch".

Then we sprayed a black undercoat, adding a mix of dark green through to light brown at the edges to give an impression of depth.

We then painted a shape of a shark looming in the middle of the pond.  The reeds are made from an old dustpan brush, glued onto the base with PVA glue, bending some over for where I was going place our unfortunate fellow.

Once dry, we poured on the Realistic Water.  The dead Intelligence officer was placed face down into the water, clutching his poorly named "Top Secret" briefcase.  After 24 hours or so, I placed the duck in the water and cut a hole in which to place the fin made from cardboard painted black.
Then I poured on another layer of realistic water as it tends to shrink.
Once all that was dry we added more reeds, the escaping duck's mate yelling encouragement and some grass on the side.

It all turned out pretty well.