"Man up and go to the craft store floral section!" Topic

I know that many of my fellow gamers are already well familiar with the gaming treasures to be found at the craft store. However, for those who may not have ventured into a Michaels or Hobby Lobby or whatever store is close to you…I highly advise you check it out!

Michaels is a gamers paradise. I had been agonizing over making cornfields for my historical wargames, seeing wonderful techniques but that looked horribly labor intensive. And the ones available commercially were far too expensive, by the time you bought enough of the stalks to make a decent-sized field, you'd be out about $50 USD or $60. USD

In the floral section where all the plastic flowers and leaves are found, I came across this! I swear it looks exactly like 25/28mm scale corn stalks! And they come already attached to a grid underneath. All I had to do was glue it down to a piece of plywood, add some filler to hide the more obvious grid that was showing, now all that's left is to paint and texture the base and DONE!

There are also all kinds of other plastic leaves that would work for Warhammer 40K, any kind of WWII jungle settings, etc.

Best of all? This piece is about 12" square, and was $7.50 USD! Originally priced at $14.00 USD per square, they had a special going on for nearly half price!

I'm going back to grab a few more of these. I'll have four 12" square fields for about $30 USD:

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Nice--though I'm mad with Michaels for cutting way back on their paint section,apparently to make room for even more plastic flowers! The Liquitex section has really suffered at the stores near me

If you happen to be in Bangkok, go to the famous giant market called Jatujak or Chatuchak (in Thai, it's จตุจักร -- transliteration is not particularly consistent).

There you can find the same thing for about USD $4. USD I thought that was very expensive for Thailand, but it is still much less than the price in the USA.

I bought a few different ones several years ago, and they have appeared as fields of crops in a number of StarGrunt games.

Try Pets at Home in the UK – similar things available in the aquatic section (plus they have a special offer on fish tank ornaments, some of which make great oriental or fantasy buildings in a variety of scales)

@Oberlindes – last time I was home I wandered through and picked up an amazing selection of plastic vegetation being sold for use in fish tanks. My best buy from there is still the 2M tall Godzilla I've got out by the main gate…

I'm not a farmer, but I am from a mainly rural area -- those pictures don't look like corn to me, but they do look like mature tobacco plants. Doing any American Civil War gaming…?

A lot of times you can find the floral 12inX12in squares in the 99 cent store. usually 3 varieties.

@tshryock,

Well fair enough….however if you view this at tabletop height when it's on the board it really is convincing as corn. It's green and the stalks stick straight up. The leaves aren't exactly right for corn, but when you have it on the table with other 28mm features, I think it makes for pretty convincing corn!

A second for tobacco especially if you give it a light dusting of yellow ochre. It looks a little too tropical for corn. No yellow corn silks. Still it's the eye of the beholder. Are you planning to thin it out any by taking out every other row?

Naah, I'm just leaving it generic, that way I can use for like a "crop" of any kind for any kind of game.

You guys are right, it is too thick for corn and the shape isn't quite right. However I have seen corn at the peak of its growth, and the fields do get pretty crowded like that.

Really can't obsess at this point that it looks too tropical, or looks more like tobacco. I appreciate the feedback though!

I mean I don't know, but I think these photos of corn fields look pretty close to what my plastic plant looks like, at least somewhat? I don't think it's too far off!

Granted I'm representing corn at the height of the lush, green phase. But corn, when it's really green does look very bright and almost tropical in color.

Well,if we want to get really nit-picky, we have to take time period into account. Farmers up until the 20th century planted corn rows up to 40 inches apart,to allow for the passage of horses. Now it's much closer-30 inches,down to 20. And silage corn (around 45% of US production) is as close or closer--some are experimenting with 12 inch spacing.

But I wouldn't worry about it myself. Heck, I have some squares of astroturf!