Modelling live cannon fire

[Bessiere]

Hi all, I'm here to seek any advice you may have on how to model a cannon firing cannister in to a line of attacking men. I have an idea for a diorama where a line of Bavarians are almost upon some Austrian guns when they manage to fire off a final round. This will be a very gruesome scene with dismembered parts flying through the air, the fiery discharge of the gun itself and men in every position imaginable.

Fibre optics inside some sort of pulled cotton came to mind as one possibility. In addition I need to figure out how to make things appear suspended in air so any ideas on how to render this are also necessary. Thanks for any advice! - Bessiere

[Fire at Will]

A bunch of fibre optics with small balls on one end leading back to the cannon shrouded in thin cotton wool. I can envision it but it is difficult to describe.

[C M Dodson]

Suspension of items can be done with fine stretched ‘sprue’ or fine wire.

I personally feel with cotton wool that less is more.

If you warm the wool with a hair dryer or even your breath it will tease out more thinly.

Nothing replaces real smoke in my opinion.

Best wishes,

Chris

[Bessiere]

A bunch of fibre optics with small balls on one end leading back to the cannon shrouded in thin cotton wool. I can envision it but it is difficult to describe.

I can envision that Will. Thank you very much for the idea!
Regards, Bessiere

[Bessiere]

Suspension of items can be done with fine stretched ‘sprue’ or fine wire.

I personally feel with cotton wool that less is more.

If you warm the wool with a hair dryer or even your breath it will tease out more thinly.

Nothing replaces real smoke in my opinion.

Best wishes,

Chris

What is cotton wool? I'm not familiar with it. Good tip on the hair dryer, i don't have one but the wife does! Real smoke would be best for photos but I want to make a diorama you can view from all angles. For pics I will take your advice, you have a great touch for making scenes come to life. To be honest I got the idea from looking over your work. Thanks for the inspiration and tips Mr. D!
Regards, Bessiere

[Ben Bob]

"Cotton wool" is "cotton balls" here in the US
Here is a tutorial from a different forum showing an approach similar to what Will has described.

http://www.thewargamersforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3124&p=32537&hilit=optic#p30709

[Bessiere]

"Cotton wool" is "cotton balls" here in the US
Here is a tutorial from a different forum showing an approach similar to what Will has described.

http://www.thewargamersforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=3124&p=32537&hilit=optic#p30709

Thank you Ben Bob! I was scratching my head over was it cotton or was it some type of wool. I didn't need to go there. Will check that link, much appreciated.
Regards, Bessiere

[C M Dodson]

Fascinating article that I recall seeing before.

The fibre optics are lovely especially in the dark.

However, I would suggest that these effects are more appropriate to white phosphorus or ammunition cooking off rather than explosions per se.

The modern explosion using high explosive is a different beast to low explosives of the past.

Best wishes,

Chris

[Bessiere]

I found a video online where they were shooting off civil war era cannons where there's even some slo-mo footage. The first thing you get is a cone of smoke from the vent followed by a big red -orange blast at the muzzle which doesn't last very long or travel very far. The smoke cloud is immense maybe 10ft tall and going out 20 -30 ft. This is great because it actually reaches the ground enabling me to hide wires tying the cloud to the ground and giving me a way to run lights up in to it.

I did find a great resource for LED lights here: https://evandesigns.com/collections/hob ... re-led-kit

I intend to exaggerate reality a bit by making the colorful part extend further than it actually would. There are several options and one i'm considering is to use a clear acrylic or glass rod in the center to distribute the light along it's length then covering that in cotton. I can either do glazes on the rod, color the cotton or use colored bulbs. i was also thinking a few short bits of fiber optic might give the look of sparks being thrown off so I might include that as well. The strelets Bavarian set includes casualties so it seems perfect for this. I just ordered a couple of wounded figures from Spiera to give me a few more options in poses for men which should be in 2 lines so having 7 or 8 getting hit sounds about the right number for grapeshot up close.
I almost forgot to add that I also ordered the 16 and 24lb gribeauval guns from Spiera since I have yet to see a diorama of a siege train with 16 oxen teams pulling them. Yet another diorama in my head, it's getting to be a habit for which you may be partially responsible Mr D! Thanks again for all the helpful tips. Cheers, Bessiere

[steve_pickstock]

Hi all, I'm here to seek any advice you may have on how to model a cannon firing cannister in to a line of attacking men. I have an idea for a diorama where a line of Bavarians are almost upon some Austrian guns when they manage to fire off a final round. This will be a very gruesome scene with dismembered parts flying through the air, the fiery discharge of the gun itself and men in every position imaginable.

Fibre optics inside some sort of pulled cotton came to mind as one possibility. In addition I need to figure out how to make things appear suspended in air so any ideas on how to render this are also necessary. Thanks for any advice! - Bessiere

I'm not a big fan of using cotton wool, it can look good, but more often it looks too whispy. Initially a blast is quite dense.



The flash is quite quick but the smoke is the most noticeable feature.

I saw someone use a technique for smoke once which I have copied several times which I think is quite useful.
These are 'water splashes' for naval warfare.


They're made by glueing clump foliage to a rod - like a paper clip or similar, and then dripping super-glue all over it. The superglue hardens the clump foliage, and you can then paint it. In this case a light grey and then white with a faint touch of blue to simulate thrown up spray.

The first time I saw this it was done as coloured smoke - orange and blue etc, I have also seen it done with LEDs built in as well to simulatevehicles burning.

It strikes me that if you did this without a base, and then stuck the rod into the end of the gun's barrel it would look quite good. You could, I suppose, also add a cannon ball at the end of the blast, but generally I would say that the ball would leave the area way too quickly,

Because a cannon ball bounces (and bounces and bounces) the same technique could be used to simulate the dirt thrown up, but it's important to avoid too big an effect to avoid smoothbore cannons firing HE rounds such as in the awful film Cromwell.

[Bessiere]

Thanks very much Steve! Those are really good pictures you posted as well and very helpful - they show some things the ones I have don't. That technique sounds very intriguing and I will definitely give it a try, i suspect I will end up using several techniques in the end. This is certainly new to me and I'm most grateful for the advice. Cheers, Bessiere.

[T. Dürrschmidt]

In my opinion it is very difficult to reach a realistic special effect in 1/72.....I mean less is more here. I like the foliage-blasts Steve posted here. If you would attach one to your cannon, this would look quite good I think….showing single canister bullets would look quite unrealistic. The viewer of your work could imagine the grape shot effect by looking at the figures that are hit by the bullets. You could also show small impacts on the ground by using iron powder, super glue and a magnet. Shape the iron powder with a magnet (looks like a very fine explosion blast) and soak it in super glue. Then you could paint it in brown color tones to have an effect of bullets hitting dusty ground.

[Bessiere]

Very interesting idea Herr Durrschmidt. I agree at 1/72 certain things would not look right. I plan on using the figures to show the real energy of the blast. Arranging them in a chaotic but believable fashion will take some care. One of the handy bits about this idea is the smoke cloud reaches the Bavarian line but will touch the ground in places allowing me to hide wires to place things "in air". Should be a lot of fun. That last picture Steve posted is giving me some great inspiration.

[steve_pickstock]

I think it is a technique with so many possibilities.

If the blast is just emerging from the barrel, it should be short and thick, possibly with some orange colouring to represent the muzzle flash. Flashes are at least the length of the barrel, but fleeting. There is also a small puff of smoke from the touch hole of the cannon.

If the blast is reaching further out, the end of the blast away from the barrel should be bigger and taper back towards the muzzle.