Sometimes, to make a piece of terrain look the way you want it to, you have to really put in the time. Fences and Trees are this way for me. It takes me a good weekend in the garage to create about a 18 square inches of trees or 24” of fence. Crops and fields on the other hand I literally can buy by the yard. It’s embarrassing.
Because of fairly big ground scale of my game, I don’t need to see individual ears of corn on the battlefield. Ideally crops would appear relatively flat, almost like carpet. (Think of the way that farmland looks out of the window of an airplane.) To give this effect I decided to use brown corduroy as a material for creating plowed fields. This material is cheap, cuts into whatever shape I need and it does a shockingly good job of approximating tilled soil.
I need fields in patches shaped to be surrounded by my fences. Four of my fences laid out in a square create a field that is just over 2 1/4 inches squared. I happen to have 60mm square pieces lying around for just such an occasion so I use that as the basic template for cutting my fabric. As long as I want square patches of of crops I should stick with multiples of 60 mm for my cuts. Later I will create some rhombus shapes with odd angles.
I could be done at this point. I feel a little awkward not doing more so I added one of my patented extra steps of questionable value. I border the fields with grass. (For bonus points I use my handy dandy nifty neato one of kind glue applicator!)
I line the field with glue and coat it with grass flocking. (sorry for the pre-brushed off image>
This extra step makes the plowed surface appear lower than the surrounding grassy area and it helps with threads that get fraid from the cut fabric.
I am able make fields with planted crops as well by striping the cut fabric with close lines of glue and then adding grass flocking to that.
I also am able to create fields of wheat by using a different fabric. <Wait for it…> Teddy bear fur!
Somewhere in Kirkland Washington is a fabric store filled with helpful ladies that talk about the time that weird burly man shouted “yee haw” from the stuffed animal section. Teddy bear fur is the bomb! It comes in a variety of shades and plush.
Here are some action shots!
Crops have NO measurable effect on the play of McPherson and Revenge. They neither inhibit movement nor do thy provide cover. They are there merely to give the fences something to do.
Happy 4th!
McPherson and Revenge 
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