Tabletop smoke

I decided I needed some smoke effects to mark damaged vehicles. Or perhaps I just wanted to try to make models of smoke. I also wanted to add better smoke to one floating model.

I used cotton wool pads because that is what I had to hand. For the rocket jets, I pulled fine filaments off with tweezers.

For the smoke plumes, I tried various methods of mounting the cotton wool to try to make them more stable. The problem with all of them was hiding the base! I found either masking tape, no base or for those with a wire support, I used hot glue.

Shaping the cotton wool was a bit hit and miss. I found that hot glue was the best way to join them, although sometimes a bit messy. Once I had shapes I was happy with, I used hairspray to hold them in place.

Painting with an airbrush was surprisingly easy. I used a 50:50 mix of thinner and black paint lightly over most of the cotton wool. After that I used undiluted fluorescent orange up close in some of the creases to give a fire effect. Then a light dusting to give a glow effect.

Looking online I found that people also used cushion wadding or teddy bear stuffing. I tried it out and it was much easier to work with than the cotton wool.

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