Waterfall Construction for the Beginner

On this webpage I'll be going over the techniques and decisions I made
to make this waterfall for the beginner.  The steps I took are very similar to all of the other waterfall construction projects on this site.

  The difference being that I made
it a lot faster with not as much attention to detail than the other
projects.  Be sure to check out the video below which has a full voice
over describing all of the steps I took to complete this indoor
waterfall. 

This tabletop waterfall can be made for a living creature, but be sure to do your research on whether your pet would appreciate having water
in it's cage or not.  A water dragon and several other lizards and
toads etc. would be able to deal with having water in their cage, but
other critters (such as a bearded dragon) could suffer because of it.
So, you might error on the side of caution and just make the waterfall
for yourself!

For inspiration I usually go to a website like morguefile to find
pictures of waterfalls or whatever you might need a picture of.  They
allow you to alter the photo or do as I do and just get ideas from the
photos.

For the design, I try and measure out how big and tall I want the
indoor waterfall to be.  I also do a basic drawing of the design before
proceeding to the waterfall construction.

Once I have a design in mind I'll start cutting up pieces of
polystyrene that I get at a hardware store and build up the structure
of the main pond.  Check out the materials list video on the FAQ page
for a detailed list of what you'll need for this waterfall
construction.

For a couple of years now I've been using some hotwires from the Hot wire foam factory to do a lot of the cutting of the foam.  I still use a knife in tandem with the hotwires as there are benefits to using both.

I use foam because it's easy to build up mass or size using foam without the unwanted weight that I would add to the structure if I used wood or some other material. After the foam design was completed I proceeded to cover the project in Foam coat -again from the Hot wire foam factory. This substance is very similar to non-sanded grout, but is specifically designed to be applied to eps polystyrene. I applied one layer, but if you are making this for a pet, I would apply more layers to strengthen the piece. Once the basic structure was covered with foam coat I did a test to see if there were any problems with the waterfall. I do this because if there are, I can fix the issue(s) before I apply the paint job. This can save you a lot of time and frustration. So, for that test I applied a water resistant sealant to all of the areas that would have water on them all the time. I determined that there were no structural problems -so I proceeded to the paint job. Be sure and watch the video above on how to build a waterfall for the beginner, as it goes into much more detail.

The painting stage is the most fun part of this process.  I use a
dollar store water bottle and mix in water and a little dark grey
paint. I'll spray this all over the structure to give it a nice dark
look, -and I do this so that it's easier to apply lighter colors to it
and have those colors show up better.  After the base coat of paint is
dry I'll do a series of dry brush treatments over the areas that I'm
trying to make look like rock.  The video above on this waterfall
construction does a much better job in showing this process of using a
dry brush. 

After the rock is painted -I painted the indication of some green
growth around the landscape which really separates the rock formations
from each other.  I followed that with painting in some cracks in the
rock just to add some detail.After the painting stage I sealed it with a non-toxic sealer that is water resistant.  You'll want to put at least four layers on if you're making this for a living creature.