As far as terrain making tips go, you aren’t going to find one that will save you more time than this.
Wet water is simply water with a bit of washing liquid added to it. The washing liquid breaks the surface tension of the water, meaning when applied to a surface it flows into every tiny gap it can find. Thereafter, anything else you apply over the top of the wet water will also flow into every gap possible. This has big implications for painting heavily textured surfaces (like bases covered in sand) and for fixing scatter material without dislodging it.
Wet water gets used a lot in this project. When you are watching the video, look out for a small pump action bottle of “sea salt matte texturising spray”. I received this for Christmas and, not liking the idea of putting salt in my hair, promptly poured it away and kept the bottle for hobby purposes. Most of the time when you see me using this bottle it’s got wet water in it. The other times you see it it has Scenic Cement in it, and that’s being sprayed on top of wet water to fix scatter material.
Wet Water For Painting Textured Surfaces
Add some washing liquid to water in a pump action bottle. Spray the surface that you need to paint with a coat of wet water, then apply your paint. Watch as like magic the paint instantly covers the surface, getting down inside all of the gaps between the grains of sand and whatnot, instead of spending ages fruitlessly dabbing with your brush to get into all the nooks.
Wet Water for Fixing Scatter Material
Do a first fix by applying PVA and sprinkling your scatter material on top. Generally this won’t fix anywhere near 100% of the material, necessitating a second coat of glue. Traditionally this would be applied watered down by brush, causing lots of material to come off on the brush. You could use a pump action bottle to spray the glue, but then the glue will not seep fully into the surface and some scatter will come off. Instead, pump a layer of wet water onto the scatter, then pump your watered down glue. The wet water allows the glue to get right into the surface and stick everything down. I use Scenic Cement because it’s got a matte finish.
I learnt this trick watching Thebige61’s Building the River Scene videos on YouTube.