craftgrrl | dealing with wire ends

Hello! I have a wire-working question! I looked through the "wire" section in the FAQ, but nothing addressed this specifically.

I am making a sculpture for a school assignment, and I am planning to work partially in wire. ..hm, turns out this is hard to explain without describing exactly what I'm doing, so: the sculpture is inspired by/based on the structure of a millipede, and I am using many short lengths of wire to represent the legs.

I'm trying to figure out what to do with the ends of the "legs" to make them feel more finished and smooth than they would if I just left them as sharp, roughly cut ends.

I kind of want to avoid resorting to simply curving the ends under or doubling the wire back on itself and twisting.

I'm using 20 and 26 gauge craft wire from Joann's. (I'm probably not going to worry about the ends of the 26 gauge; it being so tiny, it wouldn't make much difference). I think it's copper but I can't be certain, as the label doesn't say what exactly it is. I was thinking the best thing to do would be to melt the ends of the wires just to round them off, but I don't know how possible that would be. Would a soldering iron (or something similar?) work for this?

Any suggestions?