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I'm trying to figure out the best way to physically model lightning.

My goal is to make wings made of lightning bolts for a Chaos Lord. If it works out and looks cool, I'll mod my Raptors the same way. I can also see the "wheels" of Chaos Bikes as rolling lightning votices.

The lightning should be jagged and sharp as well as durable - don't want to be re-gluing and painting broken joints. Bits of sprue would be jagged, but it'd rely on glue and lots of joints. I'm afraid that would be fragile.

Green stuff would be mold able into any form and (if not rigid) rugged.

Wire could be jagged and rugged, but how do I get it to branch? I don't have sautering gear and if I did, would it be strong? If I use multiple wires twisted together, I suspect that, to get sufficient forkiness, I'd need many, many wires.


I searched high and low for models or tutorials or even mentions and I only came up with a couple of sentences. Does anyone have experience with this? Or better - tutorials?

I'd suggest a combination of wire and putty (or even polymer clay, though it will likely prove more brittle). GS would work in a pinch, but something a bit harder that could take a sharp edge with filing/sanding would be preferable.

I'd definitely recommend keeping the wire thin - something down in the 26g-30g range should do the trick, and can be found cheaply as floral wire in craft stores. One of the most common problems with wire lightning is using overly thick stock, which looks weird to begin with and also makes sharp bends difficult, which are necessary for a properly jagged look.

Thin wire would also allow you to run several strands through the middle of a puttied "skin", giving you the ability to fork them out down the length of each bolt and still have sufficiently thin and jagged tips. Putty would also let you join several multi-strand segments end to end without forcing the "root" of the bolt to become overly fat, in order to conceal each and every wire you want to eventually fork out.

Bear in mind, though, that there's a balancing act involved, here - the thinner the bolts, the more realistic/attractive, but you sacrifice durability, proportionately. Moving the model by it's body and keeping it from toppling over from awkward placement aren't too tricky, but you might have to find a way to keep its wings isolated during transport - just sticking it in a foam coffin will likely result in bent wires, snagged foam, and various other forms of unpleasantness. Pinning the wings without gluing them may actually make your life easier (it will take a bit of finagling with design to get them to mesh seamlessly and stay put at the proper angle), since you can store the DP separately and the weight of the wings alone won't likely bend them out of shape.

Thanks oadie.

Wire supporting a putty skin is a great idea. Like rebar in concrete. I totally want to pin the wings, if only because I may not always want flying HQ. Almost all of my models are old metal dudes, so they should support the weight of wings reasonably well. I do worry about twiggy wings snagging sleeves and foam, but I guess if the pins 'break away' nicely that won't cause too much trouble.

Could I get by with greenstuff? (I have some on hand, so I wouldn't need to buy anything) Blue makes a harder set, right?

wire and greenstuff is the way im doing it for my librarians, even leave some of the wire visible and paint it the lightest highlight of the bolt to simulate velocity

Nard has made a Doom of Malan'tai with lightning made from wire, I suggest checking it out.

Squigsquasher wrote:Nard has made a Doom of Malan'tai with lightning made from wire, I suggest checking it out.

Where?

@Squigsquasher: This? http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/302187-.html

Yep.

Here's what I did: I took some very fine jewelers wire and krinkled it up. (make sure to have sharp bends) and then doubled the wire up in places then OSL'd it so it fit right. I really like it quite frankly!

That looks pretty cool, Benamint.

All right. Thanks for the ideas folks. I'm gonna give this a shot this weekend. Wish me luck.

Thanks and good luck! I really like playing with as many goofy ideas as possible with modelling

Actually, real quick, do folks have any opinion on if the wings should spring from the shoulders or from the backpack (like the batwings I see around). I'm leaning towards 'from the backpack' if only because that would be easy to integrate into the model(s). I'll probably do the backpack, but would like to hear thoughts on alternatives.


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Progress so far. I would call this a tutorial if I had any idea how it was going to turn out (and if I had better documentation of the steps).


Tools I know I'll need. The wings won't ultimately be for a Plague Marine, but he was handy.
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A simple sketch to get an idea of how branchy and how big the wings should be. I liked the one on the right better than the left. Also show are 7" lengths of 28ga wire. Added to the set of tools: wireworking pliers and snips. Backpack exhausts have been removed for when the wings are attached. Trying to figure out how to best attach them.
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The wires are twisted together to make the 'trunk' and the first couple branches. The wires were bundled tight and then the end pinched in the flat nosed pliers, while I twisted the bundle together by hand. I didn't do more than a couple twists at this point. I ended up with about 1/8" of what looks like twisted cable. The end of the trunk was pinched flat and fanned out by the pliers, so at this point I used my fingers and the pliers to twist the ends together. The bends were made by holding the wire in the jaws of the pliers and pushing the trunk against either the upper or lower jaw. At each fork I pulled one wire out of the bundle so it could branch off.
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Some twisting, splitting and cutting later. This was all just by feel and matching the growing wing to the to the sketch.
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Temporarily wired onto the model to check scale from the front.
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Okay folks, looking for feedback. I'm not totally sold on the bolt configuration right now, so I'd like feedback on that. Of note: This bolt is 2D, the branching is all in a plane. Is this okay, or should I explore a 3rd dimension? Also, if you see or suspect any trainwrecks ahead, please point them out.

Unfortunatly none of your pics seem to work for me this morning.. Anyway. I use "Florist wire" that I get from Hobby Lobby. Its used to make flower arnagments. Its also the same stuff I use for pinning my models.
Here is a pic..




Nicorex

Yeah sparky your picks are broken....

Putting the rrrrr in Flickr.

Lemme edits.

That's cool, Nicorex, would love to see that painted up. Trippy.

Here isone of y Lords http://www.warseer.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=5723&title=necron-lord-lightning&cat=534

If you want tips on this style, lmk.