"Has Anyone Made Terrain With Crop Circles?" Topic

If so, how difficult is it to do?

Thanks.

CC
PS. My goal is to eventually give this a shot for my 28mm figures.

Of course, I am not looking to make very intricate patterns:

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CC

Interesting idea. Maybe get a type of carpet & press down/glue the appropriate areas?

Aren't there some types of doormats with britles that may be of suitable size? You may have to separate the backing if possible…just throwing it out for what it's worth.

Maybe cutting a simple hole in the midde of the doormat, and then setting it atop something that looks like collapsed straw?

CC

Never tried it, but you could do it with fake fur, I guess. I've read a couple of articles about using fabric store fake fur as wheatfields or prairie grass in model railroad publications. Apparently it's fairly easy to use a hair trimmer to trim it to the appropriate height, so I imagine you could do the same to make the circles.

Doug

I guess the problem is room to allow figures to move between the rows of stalks . . . or has someone already figured this out?

CC

This is too tiny:
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CC

Part of the problem is the size of even a small crop circle. In 28mm, a small circle would still have to be about 3 feet on a side to be "believable" (hah!). 6mm or 1/300 is about the largest size I'd want to do it in, or I think the effect would be lost.

Along those lines, though, I have created a "beautifully manicured lawn" in HO scale. Green velveteen, sprayed "grass" color, then I used tape to mask off straight lines the width of an HO scale lawn mower, and sprayed a slightly lighter green shade. When I removed the tape, I had a nice, short lawn that looked like it had been freshly mown, like a golf course green.

One final statement: Even though it has been shown time and time again how (relatively) easy it is for humans to make even extremely elaborate crop circles (just look at some of the ones in CC's links), I still encounter people who say, "Yes, people could have made *some* of the circles, but others are *obviously* alien in origin." They have eyes yet refuse to see.

I might just do the rim of a plain circle, so as not to make it the center piece, simply a starting point or objective on the table.

I wonder if anyone has done anything like that for 25-28mm?

CC

Regarding cornfields in general, the most realistic technique I've seen is to make many small stands of corn, and remove individual stands as characters move through the field. In practice, though, it's *very* tedious to do something like that, and it slows down the game considerably.

If you want the *feel* of a crop circle, use the velveteen trick. Paint it a very light green or golden "stomped corn" color, mask your circle or design, then spray a darker shade. remove the mask, and there's your circle. In the game, minis only have line of sight in the lighter "circle" areas, and can't see through the darker "corn" areas.

I forgot to add: Because when most people tink of a crop circle, they think of an aerieal view (films like "Signs" notwithstanding). So the velveteen would give you the "aerial view" effect without impeding gameplay like a real 28mm cornfield would.

I've always wanted to make a terrain piece featuring a crop circle, and one of those chalk outlines too, like the Rude Man or maybe the White Horse at Effington Castle.

I have several crop circles on my terrain that turned out to be "cup circles" made from coffee cups being placed where they shouldn't.

"Cup circles!" LOL.

CC

I've never made terrain with crop circles – they just mysteriously appeared in it….

I guess I will build a field and wait for them to come!

CC

Unfortunately the man behind many of the UK's crop circles recently committed suicide (or possibly died due to the aliens mishandling of the neural probe) so there has been a dearth of crop circles in the UK recently.

Nigel

The aliens did it, and made it look like suicide!

CC

From looking at it for possible use for making lengths of hedges, I am thinking the foam rubber lengths that is used to seal to tops of windows that have airconditioners in them might be the way to go for this project. Make a large circle of cardboard. Then build the pattern from the center out, gluing strips down to the cardboard. Then spray paint green. Then dry brush some lighter green.

Best crop circle I ever saw was in a field next to the M1 on my way up to yorkshire – I think it was near Sheffield I saw it. It was the Bravo channel's logo. It looked great – very big too. Wonder if it was a weird advertising gimic?

If only I had the space and time to do these:

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CC