Corn fields

It's too hot to paint miniatures over here so time to make some terrain. 

For the American Civil War games I've got planned, corn fields are needed. I read several "how to make your own corn field" blog and forum posts. One of those used plastic plants from IKEA (Fejka:; actually this mean "fake" in Swedish. It is the fake Rosemerry plant; Thanks CommissarMoody for finding the right name). I couldn't remember where I read that so after buying two pots of Fejka, I tried to reconstruct the steps from memory.

First I cut off all the individual stalks and straightened the bent ones out by putting them in very hot water (use tweezers!). The hot water causes the plastic stalks to straighten. Then I drilled holes in strips of MDF (strips make storage easier and miniatures could be placed in the field by leaving room between 2 strips), glued the stalks in the holes and covered the MDF with woodglue and sand.

In addition to the strips of corn, I decided to make one small rectangular corn field. Just in time I realised that if I put all the stalks in, I wouldn't be able to reach the base to paint it.

All MDF parts painted.

After drybrushing with a light sand colour, I glued a bit of mixed Italian herbs between the stalks and some static grass at the edges.

Insert the remainder of the stalks and the corn field is ready for a game.

Of course I remembered the blog with the Fejka tutorial after finishing the corn field:

John Bond's corn field.

After again admiring Mr Bond's superior detailing and scratchbuilding skills, the one thing I wished I'd remembered is allowing sufficient space between the stalks for miniatures.  

And possibly to make the stalks shorter. They are now quite tall.

I can't do anything about the rectangular field, but the corn strips were designed to solve this problem.

Two Fejka plants worth of corn fields: