Tabletop Quality Flame Painting

This article is about how I achieve a tabletop quality flame on my miniatures, such as horrors of Tzeentch, pictured.

This first thing to notice about fire is that the hotter portions are (physically) located toward the centre of the conflagration, where the fuel is concentrated. As we observe further out from the centre, the flames tend to become more red and dark coloured. Soot may also contaminate the flame (depending on the fuel source) which results in darker specs throughout, but particularly toward the extrema.

On the basis of those observations, I painted the flame on this horror with a white undercoat -- this helps the colour stand out nicely against the darker contrast of the horror's skin. I then work through the brighter colours of the flame, starting with yellows, through oranges to reds. With each colour, I apply less and less of a coat so as to leave some of the colour from underneath showing through. Finally, I use pure chaos black to add a little touch of soot to the very tips of some of the flames, as well as dab a few small specs of soot at random as well. The result is a flame that, although it won't win any Golden Demon awards, it certainly stands up well on any tabletop.