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I had this idea to try lightning effects with clear resin and then thought about hot glue. When looking into it I quickly found out this has been done before. How many of you have done this with success? Opinions on it?

Are you talking about painting or modeling lightning effects? Have any examples to show us what you're talking about?

I am talking about modelling lightning. Here is an example of a heroclix miniature by wizkids that does this. I would hope to do it a bit better and paint/highlight it to look more realistic.

http://herominis.com/maelstrom-ca049-marvel-captainamerica-049.html

Ive used hot glue for various things (mostly LED work) and let me tell ya... its a bitch to work with. I think that if you were going for that sort of effect, your best bet would be sculpting something and then casting in clear tinted resin.

ive seen it done with like pieces of wire and stuff. my god does it ever look terrible IMO. Even worse than GW sculpted flames, so ya... really bad.

FaceofChaos wrote:
Ive used hot glue for various things (mostly LED work) and let me tell ya... its a bitch to work with. I think that if you were going for that sort of effect, your best bet would be sculpting something and then casting in clear tinted resin.

I would think this is your best bet. Creating it straight from hot glue would take some considerable practice before you achieved the level of detail/satisfaction with the work.

Thanks for the reply's everyone. I did see some interesting effects when putting hot glue on wrinked aluminum foil to create a lightning effect. But I agree there is the chance of it going badly. One thing that I think is good is tha tif you already have a gun trying it out is dirt cheap. Where do people get the clear resin. I may need to go that route as suggested.