"25mm cornfields, what have you used for stalks?" Topic

I am putting together some 25/28mm Civil War terrain, and I have completed just about everything except cornfields. I have the bases for them cut out, but now I am pondering the stalks.

I have seen many things used, various type of artificial floral greenery cut up into pieces, christmas wreaths cut into small pieces, etc.

I would like to achieve a realistic and satisfying look with correctly shaped corn plants. Some of the techniques I've seen are good at representing masses of "something" growing in groups, but the stalks do not very much resmemble corn at all.

Thanks,
Campaigner

There are some options from the model railroad industry out there, but they are not very durable (will not take handling). The bulk method works only becuase it is convincing at a distance, and it takes handling by gamers.

I've used christmas wreaths. Looks acceptable.

Gotta go with cutting up the mini-Christmas trees/Christmas wreaths. As said above, any of the other items available on the market don't stand up to repeated use. Once I've trimmed mine down to the right size (the biggest pain of the whole process) I painted them a very light green with a straw yellow at the tip. Anyway works for me and just about everyone else that I know.

A company used to produce individual corn stalk rows that could be painted and made into small fields. I think it was Stone Mountain Enterprises. May be worth checking Musket Miniatures to see if they have something like that (though it'd likely be in 15 mm). Otherwise you need to get a Christmas wreath made from twisted wire with green plastic strips for the needles. Cut into 1 – 2 inch lengths, paint one end of the twisted wire core as the corn ears and leave the needles as is. Then drill several rows of evenly spaced holes into a thin plywood base, paint the wood between the holes an earth color (or use earth colored flocking), and then glue the unpainted end of the twisted wire cores into the holes. Voilia! One corn field.

Scenic Express has model rairoad "O" scale corn stalks, but they are very expensive. link

Dixon also has cornstalks as well.

Something else you might want to consider, is that after 4 or 5 hundred guys marching in close formation through a field of cornstalks, is not exactly going to leave a whole lot standing.

There was a post on Terragenesis several years back where a guy had modeled cornstalks for 28mm. I just searched the site and it looks like it never made it into a formal article so it's rolled off now.

As I recall he used a vertical armature (probably wire) with paper leaves and husk-covered cobs out of air drying clay (Fimo possibly?), painted dark green and highlighted with lighter green. He did model a few open corn husks by gluing paper leaves splaying out from a clay corn cob, and painting the protruding part yellow.

It looked awesome although I think he made a relatively sparse field and he didn't mention how durable it was for wargaming.

I've seen corn silk modeled as well, although I'm not sure it was the same article. But it was done using white or goldenrod static grass (what you'd use for dead grass), glued to appropriate parts of the corncob.

<<<Something else you might want to consider, is that after 4 or 5 hundred guys marching in close formation through a field of cornstalks, is not exactly going to leave a whole lot standing.>>>

I disagree. How many cornfields have you tried to walkthrough? I have done it in formation, and it is difficult at best to knock down standing stalks of corn, let alone doing it while remaining in formation. The natural tendency is to more through the openings and rows rather than try to force them over and be cut by the corn leaves (tough on the face).

Flag Dude is now making Corn and other crops in 25mm. I picked up some corn from him at Historicon.
VR
James Mattes

If you hadn't gone to the trouble of cutting the bases already, I'd suggest buying them from Battlefield Terrain Concepts.

My ACW collection is 20mm and Doug was kind enough to make stands for me to go with 20mm figures (his 15mm ones are too small, the 25mm ones are to big for 20mm figures). They look superb, he also makes flattened stalk sections too, they look great mixed in with the standing ones.

I can't say enough good things about his attitude and service, he is a credit to the gaming industry, two thumbs WAY up IMO……….

link

Although someone had already linked to the O scale ones, I find that the HO scale ones are more useful for 25 mm (as opposed to larger heroic scales).

They are about 1" tall (1 1/16" maybe…) and you get a bunch of them. Each package covers about a 6" x 6" area.

Oh yeah – those are durable. I have had people place a hand in the middle of a field on accident and been able to simply bend the stalks back into place.

Well if your not picky, for my vietnam games I use Grizzly bear fur from Joans fabrics and I spray paint it with acrylic spray paint with the colors I want. It turns out just amazing. The same is doeable with a corn stalkish color!

Well, as far as corn and its flexibility and ability or lack thereof to be trampled, I was a participant as a federal infantryman at the 1997 Antietam event (135th Aniv.)

There was a huge cornfield scenario for which they specially grew a few acres of corn for both armies to fight over.

Both the federal forces and confederate forces marched through the corn, there was some countermarching and retreating and counterattacking.

After an hour or so of a few thousand reenactors marching and volleying and changing formations at normal speed in the corn, it was probably 85% completely down, i.e. knocked down by the normal force of bodies brushing past the stalks and hitting the stalks and by direct trampling. The rest that was still standing, much of that was bent at angles and ready to fall over or nearly so.

When you're in a Civil War infantry formation, it's so tight that not everyone can go "between" the stalks to avoid the painful pushing and abrasing. Some of the formation are simply forced to shove and walk directly over or through a stalk, pushing it down and out of the way with their arms or with the weight of their full bodies , while his mates to his left and right can side-step and avoid a stalk directly. But the main thing is that the formations are so tight, corn stalks are going to be stepped on and hit and battered by enough men that they don't stay standing long.

And bear in mind we were only recreating a battle, and probably taking it much easier and much more gently for safety purposes, than we would have had it been the actual battle!

One of my former projects was BARC in Maryland, they had a whole research department on corn. I had a chance to talk to them about the history of corn and changes since we started to engineer corn crops. The engineering of corn is very old going back centuries in fact. I was surprized to learn how puny and poorly managed it was around the time of the civil war. I wish I still had some notes from them but I did not write but about a page on it. I should go back and see if I can get some hard data. There are also some interesting reading from first hand accounts of the battle of Antietam that are insightful. Modern Corn is much higher sturdy and leafy then 100 years ago. number of stalks per yard is also greater in the rows. Output is much greater now than then as well.

VR
James Mattes

Campaigner:

Hey, I was in that mess, too! (Field surgeon, CSA)

IIRC there were large gaps in the rows once the maneuvering had taken place. We were kinda busy tending the reenactor who'd had a heart attack on the field, and running through the rows/over the rail fence to get to him was an adventure in itself!

And you forgot to mention the "walking on rolling pins" sensation of trying to maintain footing on the cobs knocked down by previous troops maneuvering in the field.

That and getting "corn grenades" lobbed into your unit's midst by playful and/or bored Yankees.

I've always liked the Christmas wreath tip look. Heck, I just bought one to make up some fields of my own.

Don't forget to texture the base. You plant corn on the top of the plowed rows, not in the furrows between. I use a cheap doormat spray painted brown for the plowed field look. I haven't tried putting in teh corn yet, but was thinking the base might need some plywood beneath to give some hold for the glue. Maybe not, though. I would hate to lose the flexibility of the thin rubber bottom.

PaperTerrain has 25mm (and 6mm, 10mm, 15mm & 20mm) cornfields. paperterrain.com