"Creating flame effect on a sword?" Topic

My D&D character was given a magic sword with a hook on the end. I modified a figure using piano wire and green putty, but I'm not that talented, and the "hook" part looks thicker and rougher than the rest of the blade. It's the right shape and seems to be pretty solid, though.

Since my character is able to cast spells, and uses the sword as an implement, I was thinking I could cover up some of the roughness of the modified sword by putting some sort of magical special effect on it. I was thinking about taking a cotton ball and teasing it apart, then affixing strands of it using regular elmer's glue, then painting it to look like flames (well, actually blue for ice effects, but the idea is the same).

Does anyone have any experience, advice, or suggestions for what to try along these lines? I'm not at all attached to the cotton ball idea-- any sort of decent look special effect that would cover up some of the primitivity of my modified sword would be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

I'd suggest green stuff if you feel up to a little sculpting.

Another alternative is super glue-gel. It has a little bulk and you should be able to drag it into shape.

paint the sword red and drybrushed black near the hilt and yellow white at the tip. On the trailing edge use a thin line of superglue and adhere some steel wool, then let it dry for about a minute. Pull the pad away and it will leave streamers of "smoke" drybrush these black and gray, then lightly paint red and then yellow while the red is still wet.

Krod Mandoon!

I was going to recommend and epoxy, but you could possibly accomplish the effect with some clear plastic sprue heated over a candle and then shaped around the sword while still hot.

Be careful to not get it too hot, or you'll melt the sword.

Of course, the next (more obvious) choice is to find one of those D&D pre-paints with a flaming sword and just do a swap.

Wyatt

Crocodile Games makes a weapon sprue with a flaming sword if you want to do a weapon swap (although it doesn't have a hook on the end):

link

It might be a useful link for you even if you don' want to buy one – the flame effect on the sword is sculped quite well, and may be handy as a guide for you to sculpt or modify your own weapon.

-Alex

By hook on the end do you mean a Khopesh? Some of them hook back to an extreme angle:

link

I too think think Only Warlock has the right approach. I have used steel wool for torches and they look very nice as smoke without a lot of skill needed to build the conversion.