I'm new to this art of cake decorating and this site has been extremely helpful.

I'm going to be making a cake with what appears to be water. Now, I've noticed that some photos are simply icing with blue coloring and I've noticed some photos of the water are almost clear/gel/wet looking. How is this accomplished?

clear piping gel (you can add blue food coloring to it).

You can also used gelatin or Isomalt, which is like hard crack candy.

i frost the cake in buttercream then use the tinted piping gel for the water, kind of swirl the buttercream and piping gel or for a really wet look just do the piping gel