"Suggestions for magical effects in miniature" Topic

I was thinking that it might be fun to put together a lot of the simpler ones for miniatures gaming. Some are, of course fairly obvious. Note that the list below references D&D spells, but the effects should be pretty universal:

Mirror image: Have multiples of the same wizard figure, or make paper flats of the wizard to represent the mirror images.

Polymorph: Want to turn somebody into a frog? Ya need a frog mini.

Darkness: Black cotton wool.

Various clouds, fogs and mists: Cotton wool dyed in various colors, depending on the effect.

Wall of force, antimagic shell, etc.: Plastic bubbles from toy vending machines work well.

Others that I do not have anything good for:

Fire based spells: Oddly enough, I never found anything that I thought looked all that great for fireballs, walls of fire, etc. I toyed with the idea of using the fire pieces made by Galeforce 9, but ultimately decided they were a little too abstract.

Prismatic Wall/Spray: Seems like this would be an interesting modelling project, maybe with a little transulcent paint and plastic, but I've yet to figure out how.

Dimensional gates: Perhaps something flat and silvery stading upright, with half a monster poking out of one side?

Also, what about more abstract effects, like mind control? Would there be an interesting way to represent that on the table?

Anyway, you get the idea. I'd love to hear different ways people have done various magical effects on the tabletop.

For fire based spells, I've made flashpots for stage use, and I'm sure miniature ones could be made for the tabletop!

A tiny metal container, a twist of flash paper and an Estes rocket ignition inside it, two wire leads going from the ignitor to a battery. At the right Kodak moment, touch the leads to the battery posts ^,^

There's also a lot of fire lighting techniques from Model Railroading:
link

I use many or most of the above ideas, but have also gone heavily into old D&D minis for spell effect markers. They have a number of translucent minis for various fire or ice or water elementals, vortexes, smokey translucent for shadow creatures (dragons, panthers, etc.) Most are a $buck or two and can be bought individually from various dealers.

Many of the Armorcast Cinematic Effects would work as fireballs, lightning bolts, ice blasts, and so on: link

Valiant Enterprises/Magnificent Egos does a number of spell effects. Many of these could be used for spells other than those named:

Greater Helping Hand: veltd.net/32mm/vel3002.htm

Lesser Helping Hand (2): veltd.net/32mm/vel3003.htm

Flaming Sphere: veltd.net/32mm/vel3004.htm

Wall of Fog: veltd.net/32mm/vel3008.htm

Ghost Weapons (3): veltd.net/32mm/vel3009.htm

Dancing Sword and Winged Shield: veltd.net/32mm/vel3010.htm

Wall of Fire: veltd.net/32mm/vel3011.htm

Wall of Ice: veltd.net/32mm/vel3012.htm

Wall of Iron: veltd.net/32mm/vel3013.htm

Wall of Stone: veltd.net/32mm/vel3014.htm

Wall of Thorns: veltd.net/32mm/vel3015.htm

Vortex: veltd.net/32mm/vel3016.htm

Ivisible Servant: veltd.net/32mm/vel3018.htm

Levitating Disk: veltd.net/32mm/vel3019.htm

Summoned Tentacles: veltd.net/32mm/vel3020.htm

Living Spell: veltd.net/32mm/vel3021.htm

Black Blade of Destruction: veltd.net/32mm/vel3022.htm

Portal to Hell: veltd.net/32mm/vel3023.htm

Hungry Trap: veltd.net/32mm/vel3024.htm

There are many D&D plastics that would work as various spell effects:

Thunderblast Cyclone: auction

Large Fire Elemental: auction

Small Fire Elemental: auction

Living Flaming Sphere: auction

Large Water Elemental: auction

Large Air Elemental: auction

Very nice pieces, and they almost make me want to go back to 28mm. However, I play 15, so i was more hoping to find tricks to home-make this stuff, than to buy pre-fab spell effects.

A lot of those would work for 15mm, too. That's why I mostly linked to non-humanoid, non-scale-specific effects.

I wasn't aware of the Valiant line; thanks. Expensive, but a couple of those look useful.

For a wall of iron, glue pieces of plastic sheet together to form a wall, and paint with iron and rust colors.

For a wall of stone, use superglue to glue small pebbles togehter, then prime and paint.

For a wall of ice, glue together a wall made of dollhouse-scale ice cubes: auction

For a wall of thorns, use model railroad lichen.

For a wall of force, use clear plastic sheet. you can color it with transparent paints for a more magical effect.

For a fireball, crinkle up some shiny foil into a small ball and stain it with some orange ink & drybrush with yellow. Better yet, look for a suitably textured clear plastic globe that goes onto Christmas lights & stain that….

Litko has transparant flat fantasy figures that you can use as invisible characters.
link

White dwarf in the old days once had a miniature showing Frodo wearing the ring: just two footprints in the basing material. I always thought that was very clever.

I use a blank base with various piles of 'foliage' on it as 'Camo' markers for infinity (and a base with a cardboard box, because I have an urban-themed base).

You might be able to find some replacements for those star effects on christmas lights in the appropriate colors, too. Not sure if they're available separately or not, though.

I like this blogger's stuff:

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