Thursday 2 August 2012

Flaming Holidays!



First, many apologies for the shortage of posts over the last couple of weeks after our trip to Bovington 2012. Life caught up with me, my work became frantic and I went on holiday for two weeks! While I’ve tried to keep up with everyone else’s activities in the Blogosphere, I’ve been neglecting my own contribution – which I hope will be only a temporary lapse!

Following the fine examples of many of you, I took a modelling toolkit on holiday with me and a couple of dozen figures. However, the cottage we were staying in was rather smart and I was a little nervous that the owners may not take too kindly to me gouging holes in their table with a mis-deployed scalpel blade. This disincentivised me somewhat from doing much modelling. Not that I really needed an excuse, as the fantastic views over the Northumbrian coastline where we were staying and some good bottles of wine in the evening were the kiss of death for the holiday modelling project!

It was therefore good to be back home from a hobby perspective at least and I’ve something planned for the rest of the summer which I hope to post soon.





Until then, let me leave you with some shots of some flammenwerfer flames which I put together in the week before I went on holiday These are certainly not new – I’m sure you’ve seen this sort of thing before. They were a lot of fun to do and making them was very simple and inexpensive.

Simply use some “hot glue” from a hot glue gun to stick a selection of clump foliage on some wire. The length of wire can vary with the length of the flame you’re trying to recreate. You can opt for dark green foliage and then spray it black, but I wanted something a bit more fiery – flames, remember? So I opted for autumn clump foliage in a variety of yellow, orange, brown and red.



Once the “hot glue” has dried, simply dip the whole of the wire “flame” into a pot of PVA white glue. This is messy, so be warned - the glue seems to get everywhere. Don’t dilute the PVA – keep it neat. At first you think it’s a disaster and there’s too much glue and the flame is ruined. But persevere, mes braves, as the glue will dry clear and hard, making the delicate clump foliage hard and tough – ideal for clumsy fingered wargamers to use, in other words. 


You’ll see I first tried to paint on the PVA, but it’s an even messier and less successful way of doing it. So I’d advocate the dunking method and give the paintbrush a rest for the PVA stage.

When dry, I touched up the flames with some suitably coloured paints, trying to blend the different explosive colours into each other and take away some of the “clumpiness” of the flame. I also highlighted the red foliage to make it a little less, well, electric red!

Then, I sprayed the whole of each flame with a matt varnish spray (the PVA glue tends to dry to a sheen). Once done, add some black spray paint at one end and….hey presto….you’re done.


In an attempt to be dramatic, I did have visions of keeping the flames in an old black cardboard box which had been lying around the garage for a while. It seemed somehow more appropriate than a zip lock plastic bag, but that’s just me! 


It’s easy to make a few of these at the same time and no doubt the same technique can be used for a whole host of explosions. Inspired by this tremendous post by Airhead at Take The High Ground, I’ve got a burning desire to try and create some shrapnel explosions, “Jack Johnsons”, “Coalboxes” and “Woolly Bears”.

24 comments:

  1. Oh My God!! ...another likely project for my holidays, starting on Saturday... I'll be posting some details of my holidays plans in my blog tonight... in any case, very interesting addition for my incoming WWI German flamethrower team buiried somewhere in my lead pile.

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    1. Thanks Benito. Very best wishes for your well deserved holiday!

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  2. Hey, you having a break gives the rest of us chance to catch up. I did some smoke and explosion markers for games too using this technique, which does turn out really great in the end. As you say, be patient.

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    1. Absolutely Ashley. The "dip in PVA" method takes a little longer, but the explosions you can produce are worth the extra work I think.

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  3. Good to see you back :-D Life takes precedence over Modelling (I can already hear the sounds of arrows and stones coming my way...:-D) I came up with one for models and going on holiday, planning to actually do any sort of painting never works..it is a holiday after all. Just for fun..take some figs (not ones that are for keeping)with and set up a small encampment, nothing spectacular, somewhere well out of the way so no-one will just stumble over them .. ..photograph them and just leave them there.
    Cheers
    paul

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    1. Paul, that's a great idea. Your way is just enough to keep you interested, but not too much to get disillusioned with! Result = perfection and a happy holiday.

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  4. Lovely gouts of flame there :)

    dont worry about the short hiatus, we all find at least one per year .. some of mine have been criminally long, but the blogosphere seems as forgiving as a dear childhood freind.. no matter how long you are away the connection is always there..

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    1. Thanks Karitas. The connection is always there, dear friend. Always.

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  5. They look great! I can't take my paints this year as we're going to Greece but I'll certainly take some reference books to read.

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    1. Greece - you lucky chap. Have a brilliant time, Phil, in one of the loveliest places on earth.

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  6. Those look superb, Sidney! The black spray at the tip just finishes them off nicely. I agree with your PVA approach: the brush-on method just doesn't seem to get the job done - the stuff pretty much needs to be soaked to get proper coverage.

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    1. Thanks so much, Curt. Yes, the "paint on PVA" method seems like the most sensible and sane....but you need to go a bit more radical with the large clumps of foliage to "knit" the clumps together with the PVA glue.

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  7. Wow! They look superb Sidney! What a nice idea! :) I might get back to it for reference! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!

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  8. Wow! They look superb! You are a clever chap!

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    1. Clever? No,Ray, no I! I nicked all those ideas from elsewhere in the Blogosphere, so the credit lies elsewhere! But thanks anyway:)

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  9. Excellent work! Dammit, I'm crap...

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    1. Don't be crazy, Monty. Give it a go, mate, it's really , really easy! Thanks so much for dropping by.

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  10. Glad you had a good holiday Sidney, its always good to chill. Thanks for the mention/link to my blog, loving your flames.

    All the best

    Airhead

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    1. Thanks Airhead. Always brilliant to welcome you here. Thanks so much for your inspiration on the explosions. My "woolly bears" are STILL drying - so look out for those shortly!

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  11. Sydney,
    I've got a bag of suitable clump foliage on table at home. I've seen it employed in GW's Trench Wars, but couldn't quite figure out the best way to recreate it. Thanks for the tutorial. I'm suffering withdrawl symptoms at the moment, wishing I'd brought some stuff with me to paint or craft while on holiday.
    Digger

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    1. Hi Digger! Glad you enjoyed the tutorial! Holidays are wonderful, but they do get in the way of wargaming! Best of luck for when you get back to the hobby, mate!

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