Coral reef

This tutorial is really simple and really short. I'm just gonna describe materials I used to create my version of something you can call reef. I deliberately  did that this way, as a sort of shore during the outflow, to alow my Walter to run thorugh shallow water (the water is not there yet, because I'm s till working on that mini).
But you can use the same method and materials to create proper reef with deep water.

But first few reference pictures:

As you can see reef is full of vibrant colours and various shapes.

To recreate  this I used:

1. Caribou moss (wiki)
Some of you might think that it's the last thing  you would use on your base (and in any other case I'd probably  agree) but in this case it defends itself pretty good.

2. Xanthoria parietina -  leafy type of lichen  (wiki)
My favourite  thingy I use for basing. You can find it growing on the roofs, bricks and trees. You can use both, middle and edges to create different effects.

3. Drop of superglue. To create this kind of shape, you'll need deep bowl filled with water and superglue. Just drip a glue into the water and wait a while for the glue to cure. You need deep bowl and a lot of water to prevent drops of glue from reaching the bottom and sticking to it;]
Smaller drops will stay on the surface, creating flat shapes you can use as a shelf coral, bigger will drown, creating round-ish shapes of brain coral.

And when it comes to painting all those weird things, it's an easy and quite pleasant process. Paints stick to the surface of lichen without any problems.  Well they soaks slightly in the caribou moss, but it's not a problem anyway.
Just remember to use more contrast than normal if you're planning to cover it with a thick layer of water.


And I think that's all
Ways, how you can use those materials, types of reef you can create, are limited only by your imagination.

cheers
m