A Fist Full of El'Cheapo Budget Vapor Snakes

I'm still looking at solo Frostgrave and I've been looking at the various scenarios and mini campaigns. I found that I'm going to need Vapor Snakes. 

Questions: What are vapor snakes? Where do I get 'em? How much will they cost? How many will I need? What else can I use?

Answers: 1) I don't know. 2) From an online store. 3) Not cheap. 4) Quite a few - which will make them expensive. 5) Hmmm... I have an idea...

Yes, I decided to make my own Vapor Snakes. I figured I could make them very cheap and very easy and very quickly.

I took some pipe cleaners (it amazes me that they still make pipe cleaners despite there being very few people who still smoke a pipe).

For the vapor snakes, I needed normal size ones and large ones. For the normal size I cut a pipe cleaner in half and folded it. I then twisted it into one piece. For the large ones I folded one pipe cleaner three times and then twisted it into a single piece.

I then glued one end onto an mdf base (25mm base for the regular and 30mm for the large).

When the glue was set I bent them into shape (this one, by the way is one of the large ones).

I then gave them a solid coating of impasto meduim. Basing texture gunk or tacky pvc/wood glue might also work.

When dry I gave them a good coat of Vallejo pale blue grey (but any pale grey should work). 

When dry again, I gave them a heavy dry brushing of white.

Here they are. I did 6 regular size and 3 large (only 2 in the pic). When I painted the bases I gave each base a dry brush of white to make them look a little bit vaporish.

They're certainly not the best looking figures that you could use but they give the effect of writhing columns of sentient vapour. For the cost of 6 pipe cleaners and a handful of bases these little guys came out all right. Most of the time spent was waiting for the impasto medium to cure. But when it was fully cured it gave them a fair bit of solidity with flexibility so that they can be re-pose if needs be.