I built Bob Ross's Painting, with Real Water

I handcrafted a Bob Ross's painting, The Old Mill, into a mechanical diorama with a real flowing river. This, I hope, is a humble tribute to the greatest teacher of all, Bob Ross. And the greatest deserves a diorama that is more than just 3D.

In this video, I am attempting to bring his painting "The Old Mill" (Season 3, Episode 9) to life. But this isn't just a static model—I challenged myself to engineer an actual running river with a working water wheel within the diorama.

I walk you through the entire process, from sculpting the terrain with XPS foam and clay to the engineering challenges of installing DC pumps and a reservoir to create a continuous water loop. I also try to keep this as sincere to Bob Ross's famous painting techniques—starting with dark undercoats and highlighting with layers—translated onto a 3D surface.

Whether you are a painter, a crafter, or just love watching things get built, I hope you enjoy this journey of simplicity over complexity.

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🖌️Some of the things I do in this video:
How to sculpt a landscape using XPS foam and air-drying clay.
Scratch building a miniature mill house using balsa wood planks.
Translating 2D canvas painting techniques to 3D models.
Engineering a real water system using DC pumps, tubing, and UV resin.
Creating realistic miniature trees using jewelry wire and flocking.

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🕰️ Timestamps to places that might be of fancy:
00:00 Hi There
02:00 Trying to make grass flocks vary in colour
03:30 New and simple way of making miniature houses
07:23 How do make a real flowing river diorama
12:49 How I make a running miniature water mill
17:05 Let there be trees

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🛠️ Materials & Tools Used:
Terrain materials: XPS foam, Foam-core boards, LaDoll air Drying clay, Aquarium sand and pebbles, UV resin.
Structures and vegetation: Grass flocks, PVA glue, balsa wood, Sea foam, DC Pump, Acrylic/ Polystyrene panels, Silicone Tubes.
Paint: Tamiya acrylics, Citadel acrylics.


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