Making the candle body itself from a cylinder wasn't anything special, but creating a wick from a cube and then adding a circle mesh at the wick's base and getting it to emit the flame special effect was . . . was . . . well, it was an experience.
Oh, and here's the resulting animation sequence:
I don't have a great feel just yet for the special effects process and -- wouldn't you know it -- this was the area where the Tufts University lesson unit four 'A' tutorial and I parted ways, because their earlier Blender build had the FX effects arranged and accessible just a little differently than mine does and it took me two runs through the special effects part of the tutorial before I could get on the same page with them. Even then my end result did not quite look like theirs.
Actually, all in all it took me three tries to produce an acceptable animation sequence because the first time there was a towering inferno of flame and the second time there were just a few scattered sparks drifting upwards from the wick. Unfortunately I discovered too late that I was saving over my previous animation sequences and so I don't have those first two to study; and Lord only knows how I managed to get them to look that way in the first place.
To wind up a long story I was finally reduced to getting my special effects setting as close to the tutorial as I could and then experimenting with the Blender options until I got something vaguely resembling a candle emitting a flame.
