Absolutionis wrote:I once recall a tutorial on how to make flames using white glue, but can't find it anymore.
White glue? You sure you don't mean hot glue? I can't imagine PVA being particularly sculptable - it's simply not viscous enough and it shrinks as it dries.
As for charring the heck out of things, I can't recommend a soot weathering powders enough (although, it's really just black pigment, so grinding your own from artist's pastel chalk is just as good, if you get it fine enough). Yes, you can find black static grass, but it looks like black static grass, not like green grass that was charred. Static grass washed with black pigment, however, looks significantly more realistic and allows for localized effects, like a fire demon leaving scorched footprints in an otherwise pristine field of grass. That same pigment can also be used for soot on stone, charring of wood, etc. For painting embers, look at lava tutorials - it's the same idea (layers are reverse of standard procedure - bright white-yellow in the deepest recesses, moving to oranges, then reds, and eventually to a charred black outer surface, possibly with a dusting of gray-white ash).
Honestly, I'd probably avoid adding open flames, partly because it's rather tricky to make them look good and partly because I think they'd detract from the model. If
everything is on fire, the fact that the little imp is spewing flame becomes a lot less impressive. Scorch the area around him, though, and it enhances the sense of his fire's effect without distracting from the very fact that he
is on fire, in the first place.
