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I'm working on a Thousand Sons themed army and would like some advice on modelling spells being cast to represent certain heavy weapons. It's a very risky idea as it could look aweful if not done right.

So can anyone offer me any advice or point me to a tutorial about modelling effects like magical projectiles such as fire and lightning?

Armorcast do a range of battlefield cinematics, loads of stuff from plasma blasts, spell blasts etc to rocket propelled gerbils, check them out, you might find something suitable. I've seen a few of the plasma blasts mounted backwards that make a convincing spell

Heroclix also has some figs with lightning/energy effects in a sort of clear flexible vinyl/plastic that you can cannibalize.

For my chaos "counts as" space wolves army I have tzeentch sorcerers as my combi weapon wolf guard. For the different combi weapons I use an extra base with a wire a skull glued to the end(drill hole first). Then I add a small amount of cotton swab/ball to hide the wire in "flame" and paint it to look like magical flame.

Melta gun = 1 skull with red flames
Flamer = 1 skull with yellow flames
Plasma = 2 skulls with purple flames

This lets me pull the counter when the combi weapon is used and helps add the thematic display that they are sorcerers shooting off spells. It doesnt take very long to explain pre game and is simple and consistant.