"Cornfield stubble" Topic

I want to depict some harvested cornfields, can anyone suggest a suitable material? Thanks, Simon

Doormats cut down!

Hi Jim, yes… doormats are just a little coarse, though. I wonder whether there might be any alternatives; maybe savagely-trimmed teddy bear fur?

Savagely-trimmed teddy bear fur – worth a try!

Barring that you could try making a flock comprised of chopped and trimmed broom bristles.

Look for the heavier doormats, the ones with the stiff bristles geared for outside. Cut to shape and trim them down, a lot of the straw from them can actually then be glued right back down to look somewhat loose around it as fallen and harvested stalks. If you want to break it up even more, flip it upside down on your driveway and drive over it to tromp it down.

@JimDuncanUK
Unless you're using it for the smallest scales, teddy bear fur isn't that useful for cornfields, it does, however, work perfectly for wheat fields.

@Borathan

Gotcha!

Mind you I would have thought that a harvested cornfield and a harvested wheatfield would look pretty similar i.e. bare earth and some stubble.

Also, keep in mind that in the UK a 'cornfield' and a 'wheatfield' are pretty synonymous as wheat is corn and corn is wheat. What you call corn we call maize or is that an oversimplification?

Either way a cut-down doormat with additional 'straw' or a flock glued down should do the job.

Having said that the last time I was at the battlefield of Waterloo some of the fields were full of 6 foot high maize or corn. I wonder where our Belgian and French friends stand on the 'corn/maize/wheat' question?

I don't know about Belgium and France, but when I was stationed in Germany several decades ago, they did call wheat and corn by those name (in German, of course). And to most of the Germans to whom I spoke, corn was a crop that was only fed to animals, mainly pigs. While to Americans it was a dietary staple – yum – fresh cornbread cooked in a cast iron skillet and plenty of butter.

Jim

Yes I meant wheatfield, rather than US corn. I'm going to have to buy some more teddybear fur, and hack it about.