Yup, that works also, but when I am painting 25 telegraph poles at a time I much prefer to just stick them in a long strip of super sculpy which by the way has no oils.
This far and away is faster then drilling holes in scrap wood or holding up each pole while waiting for hot glue to cure.
Micro mark makes a nice little grabber tool for holding figures while painting them that I ordered up last night , but I can't recall the part number right now.
I'm not sure what brand of hot melt glue you're using, but mine takes about 30 seconds. And once cured, it holds firmly. Drilling a dozen holes in a block of wood also takes about 30 seconds, and once done, that block of wood can be re-used a virtually unlimited number of times.
I've used Sculpy many times. I can assure you that it does have an emulsifier in it which reduces paint adhesion, whether or not it is technically an oil.
Don't get me wrong: I'm glad you found something that works for you, and there may be any number of people who will find the suggestion useful.
It just doesn't jump out at me as being an improvement over techniques I've been using successfully for years. I'm also just pushing back on what sounds like a huge exaggeration of the drawbacks of other methods to justify this one.
