Burning Dioramas!

Hello everyone, just had another dio question. I was wondering if anybody knows how to model fire in a diorama? Ive never seen any dios with fire, only the aftermath of war. I wanted to do the in-combat action for once and I wanted to have a burning building or tank with germans taking cover and firing and what not. Anyway Ive never seen it before and I doubt it’s possible to model fire that looks real but I was just wondering. Thanks! [:-,]

Good luck. I think we hit on it before and there were some interesting methods employed to try and do something along those lines. Fire is an animate thing and is difficult to replicate convincingly. Too often it comes off poorly done and really detracts from the over all piece.

There was an article in FSM where the author used red leds connected to an fm radio and used frequency modulation to make the leds flicker and give the impression of coals or the light from embers of a fire. While interesting and clever, it still is not fire. Smoke is the same way. Although a little more convincing and easier replicated it still is an animate thing that is rendered static. That kind of leves me wanting to put more emphasis on other aspects of the vignette that enhance more than detract from the overall and are a little more effective at conveying my idea.

If you find the magic bullet. Please share. I have an idea book full of subjects that could benefit from it. I’m convinced that there may be something out therer that is perfect, just no one has hit upon it yet.

Mike

renarts said all i know.
if you have that article in FSM or could find it, it would help you

you could try streching outsome cotton balls and paint them gray with a little bit of yellow and orange on the bottom to give it a smoky-fire look. Never tried it but you never know. j

Thanks all. I think its probably just a lost cause. I never thought it was possible, but I wanted to try it here because I’ve learned things here that I thought before weren’t possible. But thanks, I guess that we are just stuck with dioramas of the aftermath. Thanks everyone!

Heres the thread that wsa in the armor forum not to long ago where there were some pretty good ideas even a pic of some very convincing flames.

http://www.finescale.com/fsm/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13473

For making some fairly realistic small fires have a look at the Doll & Hobby shops, there are small pre-made fires for fire-places available all you need to do is to hook them up to a power supply and away you go.

“Creative fire” by the late Lee Vande Visse in the Sept. 2003 FSM (p. 51).

Thanks everyone, the old forum’s giving me some Ideas! [:-,]

just a thought id been wanting to try, get a little xmas light that does like orange an red colors in one (ya know the kind tha like fade from red to green to blue to green to red to green… so on and so forth) then get some clear plastic thing that is shaped like fire and paint i a clear red orange color then u put the xmas light in side it and turn it on, it will do a weird orange to red to orange to red to orange to red to orange… o clears throat sorry, i got carried away make the glow of fire, then u take some smoke black painted cotton and attatch it to the top of the fire to simulate the smoke. it might work, i never seen it done (came up with it me self about 4 months ago) gl and hf. =D

Good luck on that can’t help you there.

I cant offer any help either but it seams like an interesting problem. How about making it our of sculpy or something like that and then paint it. Maybe try shards of glass of differnt colors. When you move the light around maybe the reflected light might look like fire. Good luck.

think flams are hard? try a flamthrower
it’s got me stumpt

well, I’m doing a disabled vehicle, and I am going to try lights and a smoke generator.

What about using thin Plastic film like acertate, rolling it around a pencil or something like that, sticking it together to make a cylinder then cut to look like flames then paint and then light underneath.

just a thought.

Thanks everyone for the input! I think I should master dioramas before trying fire in dioramas, but It’s giving me some new thoughts. Those are some really intresting ideas everyone! [8D]

u can try to carve out some fire,and dip it in this one thing,cant remembe rwhat it is called,i think im right,or it was in my dream,good luck

u can try to carve out some fire,and dip it in this one thing,cant remembe rwhat it is called,i think im right,or it was in my dream,good luck

i’ve heared of double posts but usally they change somthing. [:)] lol

anyway, for my diorama i am going to use flat black to panit the ground and a building to simulate the flamethower, maybe paint the ends of the bushes red to simulate still hot ambers.

a flame thrower, would b ez, just use cotton and spray paint it orange, lol never tried it but that is the aproach i would take to first try flames from a flame thrower. maybe it would work for fires that rnt shot from a gun but i doubt it