Hot Glue Pyro-FX Tutorial

I cooked this technique up because I was tired of Star Wars figures having the market cornered on laser-blast effects. If I had to edit it I would remove the provision that the rods should be red or yellow. Clear is fine.




Remember to keep a cup of cold water handy when using your glue gun. Cold water can't be close enough when you burn yourself.
I applied a similar technique to add flames to my Fallen custom.

And here he is further along. (I don't want to say finished, because I'm tinkering with him again.)


I hope this helps. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.

Tom Servo,
Welcome aboard. Excellent Tutorial and great first post in this section. It's kind of weird huh? it's like showing up to a party way too early. ;)

Yeah, I heard that! Thanks for the kind words. Hopefully people will be reading this at some point thinking, "I wonder what they're talking about? Sector 70 is always a party!"

what? I can't hear you. it's so loud in here.

That is AWESOME! I was thinking there must be a way to make fire with hotglue, but I didn't know how to go about it. I may use this technique for my Botcon diorama. Thanks Mr. Servo!

You're very welcome Mister Devastator. Your work has been a constant inspiration to me, so I'm extra glad to be of assistance.
(I'm expecting lots of pictures here of that fiery destruction!)

Nice work on the Fallen. One question though, with all of those flames, can he still transform?

I canna believe I missed this. That's one of the neatoest things I've ever seen. Now how about explosions?

Thanks guys. He's still fully transformable. I made the flames on his collar and wrists removable. The rest of them are all small enough to not get in the way.
Now about those explosions, I picked up a neat trick from a model making magazine. They made an awesome explosion (actually Godzilla breath) by making it out of that foaming insulation stuff that comes in the can, making a latex mold over it, and casting it in clear yellow. Clear red and black was added as needed, and they even put a light inside. This is one of those projects I'm "getting to".
Hell, I still have to finish that Fallen!

Servo, have you finished this dude yet?

I said it once, and i'm saying it again: Best damn Muzzle Flash tutorial there is.

I want to adapt this tutorial. Let me explain the plans, so you can stop me if it's not going to work.

My wife bought a little witch tchochke (yiddish for thing, item, knick-knack) that's brewing at a cauldron. There's a little bulb in there, and some rubbery, gluey, kinda thing coming off the bulb that is meant to represent the smoke.

well we bought the thing at a flea market, and lo and behold, it doesn't turn on. changed the bulb. nothing. checked the fuse. nothing. So i thought i'd replace that whole thing with an LED, and a muzzle blast.

basically i want a piece that is about the circumference of a quarter, that features a switch on one side, and an LED on the other. on top of the LED, i wanted to put the Muzzle Blast.

so it would be like this:

( [|o}(((((()>

excuse the ascii drawing, it's easier than sneaking at work to draw something in paint, send it to photobucket, and link it here.
here's the legend for that diagram:
( [|o}(((((()>

( - bottom of where the bulb used to sit
[ - switch/button
| - the piece the switch and LED are on.
o - the LED
}((((((((()> - the muzzle blast.

the idea is you would push down on the muzzle blast to make the switch depressed, which would turn on the LED. you would push down again to turn it off.

I'd need to make room for the battery as well, obviously. I have enough room that i could make the entire thing one removable piece - there would be the housing that held the circuit and battery, with a button on the bottom, the LED under the muzzle blast, and the muzzle blast on top of that. The whole thing could then fit into the cauldron.

Would pics help? I was thinking of combining lessons from the LED tutorial with lessons in this tutorial. having the whole thing push down to turn on, sounds like it might need springs too.

Any thoughts?

Yow, slow down there max! I'm no good with building switches and the like. It sounds like you want to build a little spring box switch with a "flame" attached to it. A basic switch might be easier to rig, but whatever you want to build should be available mostly intact from Radio Shack. If you're lucky, you might even be able to salvage the right parts from some other cheap toy or piece of chazarai ;)
Aside from that, all I can add would be to build the flam,e using the method above, around the LED without gobbing up the switch.
If anyone else wants to jump in here, I sure wouldn't mind.
Rhinox- Thanks. But, are there many more?
Wheeljack- One of these days...

experimented on this a while back and came up with a spin-off effect of the hot glue technique, hope you don't mind me posting it dave. :)

A hobby so dependent on creativity and free-thinking should not be pigeonholed into canon for canon's sake. 
~Maximo Prime