GHQ Models Forums

Here is a quick tutorial describing how I make my burning tank markers:

I start with clump foliage, roofing nails and super glue.


Starting at the bottom, randomly glue pieces of clump foliage to the nail. It doesn't matter what size the clumps are but pay attention to how much you put in any particular place. You want the clumps to be irregular but you want the circumference to be fairly uniform and balanced all around, lest your fire and smoke be tippy.


Continue building up the foliage until the top of the nail is covered and there are no gaps.




At this point you can trim the foliage with scissors to get the shape you want, keeping in mind the desired effect is a column of billowing smoke.


These are standing on a polyethylene bag because superglue will run everywhere until it dries but it doesn't stick to polyethylene. There is considerable odor from the glue so plan accordingly and expect to get your fingers covered with the stuff so have some CA release agent close at hand.

At this point I glue a brad to the bottom of each smoke plume to facilitate the next stages of coating and painting.

The next step once the superglue has dried is to coat the piece in something to make it hard. I have used superglue, which is fast but odor is a problem, matt medium, PVA glue, scenic cement or modeling paste work well but take longer to dry, and with the exception of modeling paste may take two or three coats. you want these things to be rock hard when you paint them.


Once the coating is dry I airbrush them with Vallejo black primer making sure no green shows. Then start building up flames on the bottom with red, orange and yellow paint in that order. These are Tamiya acrylics. It is OK to blend the colors a bit and because the 'smoke" is irregular you can't be too particular about exact flame shapes. I can't tell you how many youtubes I watched to try to learn how to paint flames!



Once the flames are painted to your satisfaction - and don't be too OCD here, I lightly highlight the black smoke with some dark gray and them spray them with matte varnish to seal them.




Snap off the brads and they are ready to go:



I have also made these with washers and wire instead of roofing nails but the roofing nails have the benefit of skipping the step of forming the wire and gluing it to the washer, plus they have a fairly wide base.

CavDog,. OMG, that's awesome. I might have to try my hand at that. I have seen it before and wondered how it was done. Thanks for posting.

CD that's some impressive looking destruction.

I've seen folks who just turn tanks over, or put a white cotton ball on top, to indicate when a tank has been destroyed. I'm much more of a fan of showing some fire and smoke -- when I kill a Tiger, I want to see that Tiger, Tiger burning bright!

(Which also indicates that I might be inclined to put a gloss coat on the lower red-orange-yellow section of the markers if I was following your approach.... )

For my own purposes I have developed a somewhat simpler approach.

I bought some cheap yarn at the fabric store. Two shades of orange (one more yellowish than the other), and some black. Cheapest stuff I could find -- like 100% artificial fibers, no wool or cotton added. Very thready and shiny.

I then clipped the yarn into reasonably short lengths. The orange was cut into about 1/4 inch lengths, the black more like 1/2 inch lengths. I then rolled these short bits around a bit to fray them and get them to start unraveling. The orange ones then got rolled around a bit with black ones. But some more of the black ones just got left all black.

That's pretty much it. Oh, I did put a bit of white glue on some of them to stiffen them up. But that hardly seems necessary, so only some sub-set got that last step.

The approach gives me a great deal of flexibility. I can use black-only for smoke, to indicate vehicles which have been disabled but not destroyed. I put the black frayed yarn under the track to indicate a mobility kill. I "hang" some frayed yarn around the barrel and up into the sky to indicate a firepower (turret) kill. I can use orange and black, fire and smoke, to indicate vehicles that have been destroyed. If needed, I can use two or three black only smokes to indicate vehicles that have been rendered fully combat incapacitated, but have not burned.

To wit:

In this game-time pic, an Italian AT gun crew managed to disable the first Russian T-28 just as it was crossing the bridge.


These Marders have taken a bit of a beating. One is disabled (mobility kill), the other has been destroyed and is burning away.


This StuG took a disabling hit, and as so often follows with disabled tanks, it continued to take fire until it was eventually destroyed.


But for all of the flexibility (and economy) of my approach, I must say that Cav Dog's brew-up seems to be more satisfying. At least for when I hit a Tiger. I mean, when I burn a Tiger, I want to SEE a burning Tiger.



Maybe I should do a little of both....

-Mark

Nice. That's what this forum is all about! I was a cotton ball guy but I'm going to give this a shot. Thanks!

I love the burning T-72s. That kind is the best kind of Russian tank.

Just wonderful stuff - I’m going to try this out as well. It looks great!!!!!

Cav Dog

That is a great tutorial. Thanks for showing this. I may have to try my hand at making some.

Right now, For my Mein Panzer games, I just use a bit of white cotton to indicate a tank that is simply knocked out and black polyfill material to indicate a brewed up tank.

Your effects do look very nice.

Pete

Those are so awesome!

That is some good tank torching!

Nice tutorial Cav Dog. Thank you!

The ending result is great!

Cool tutorial. I just wonder how you avoid scratching the paint jobs with the underside of the nail? I like the tutorial from 6mm wargaming in New Zealand but his are a lot more work, using wire inserted into hot glue to mount the foam.