"Creating Smoke Effects" Topic

Interesting….

YouTube link

Amicalement
Armand

When it comes to musket smoke I personally feel less is more.

If you warm the cotton wool up and tease it you will get a far more realistic impression of smoke.

Best wishes,

Chris

Great effect. It was good that he remembered the priming pan smoke, but even though the still at the beginning shows there really was that much of it, it still somehow looks too much.

I would suggest that the picture looks denser because the men are in ranks and the camera is looking down the ranks through the smoke.

Individually the smoke would be thinner as in anything other than perfect calm it quickly moves off.

Chris

Nice! My friends mock me because I want to place bits of cotton in front of units firing. for: 1) esthetics and 2) to keep track of which units have fired in a large scale battle. We visionaries are never appreciated!

I only mark my artillery with cotton ball stands mostly as to show in my game who has fired as the turn can be broken up in real time, often the next day.

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

He's actually attached the smoke effect permanently to the musket barrels, so his technique wouldn't work as a gameplay marker.

Interesting thought though.

What does warming the cotton do?

+1, 4th Cuirassier! Great for dioramas, but not practical for tabletop gaming. Always fun to see different techniques, however. He is deploying this on 54mm figures, as well. It would not work so well on smaller scale figures. Cheers!

Warming the wool makes it thinner and fluffier.

Der Feldmarschall must take the credit for this.

Best wishes,

Chris

Not musketry but ‘warmed' cotton wool effect.

Best wishes,

Chris

For extra realism points he should dry brush the right side of the shooters' faces with black, from all the priming pan smoke going off.

Before I accidentally burn my house down – what method does one use to "warm" your cotton wool?

I make my smoke stands to elevate the cotton ball off the table, have thought to try a very light grey spray pint dusting but haven't tried it.

Thanks!

Amicalement
Armand

Nice effect. Apart from the ubiquitous modifiers, I have never seen a really effective way of accounting for smoke on the tabletop.

Maybe just get some dry ice and force the players to stay on their sides of the table.

There is a better material than cotton. Order some wool roving in dark gray. (an ounze is a lot, try ebay under wool roving which is use by handspinners). Tease it out to whisps and you have a better very realistic smoke. The wool has microcopic scales on the fibre and sort of sticks to itself. You can also use it for explosion – smoke or water tower for naval. Get a bit of red roving for the burst. You can mix watered down PVA with the wool and it will freeze into place. Attach to a painted penny and you have shell hit markers that stay in place.

You can either breathe on it or use a hairdryer.

If you want to color it, dye is best in my opinion.

Best wishes,

Chris