This article is about making low cost "plowed fields" terrain pieces for your 15 to 25 millimeter figure scales. While doing scenario research for my WWII battles, it occurred to me that I wanted to model a couple of terrain types that I did not have in my inventory. Being a modeler from boyhood, I like to try my hand at making terrain, rather than buying it, whenever it seems feasible. I decided that I did not have any terrain type to represent rough, clear terrain types or any way of representing a muddy or plowed farm field. I decided that a "plowed field" would be a solution for representing any of these and would provide a better aesthetic feel than a brown felt cloth square. To make this terrain, you will need: Black stair cover material with waves or ridges on one side. The price varies, but it's a couple of bucks for a couple of square feet. White glue (I use "Tacky" but Elmers or something similar is OK). Cutting device (scissors or razor). Brown paint (possible multiple shades of brown). Flocking material (I use Woodland Scenics green "Clump Foliage"). This was about $3 for a small bag. At the local hardware you can obtain some plastic stair covers in either pre-cut form or in variable length from a roll. My local hardware store (OSH) has it in both forms. The plastic stair cover material available where I live comes in black or clear. I picked up one stair cover in black of about 9" wide by about 24" long. It's a 1/8" thick, or so. It was less than $2.00 for this rectangle. It is wavy on one side to add traction to the soles of your feet as you climb the stairs. Avoid the products for deep carpet, which have spikes on the opposite side to hold it into the carpet. The cross section view looks something like this: If you lay the material down and look at it with the ridged (wavy) side up, it looks something like this (use your imagination!):  Cut the stair cover into whatever sizes you want to make for plowed fields. I eventually expanded my collection of these to include a number of 4" x 4" squares, some 4" x 7" rectangles and a few larger pieces. You can cut this into odd shapes or triangles, or whatever, depending on how much flavor you want to add to the terrain pieces or if you are trying to get that ad hoc look that farmland seems to have. Since it's modeling a plowed field, it needs to look like dirt or mud on the side with waves or ridges. I thinned a dark brown earth tone paint with about 1/3 water and sloppily painted the ridged side. Once that dried, I dry brushed some reddish earth tone brown across the ridges, making sure my paintbrush got both sides of the ridgelines. I let that dry before the next step, although if you just want a muddy, plowed field, you may stop now! If you want the "early spring plowed look" and don't want to put in much effort, you can just paint the top of the ridge with a very thin line of spring or leaf green paint and you're done! Or dry brush on the green paint for a less ordered look. I preferred a more 3 dimensional perspective for my plowed fields, so I paint the base color a motley swirl of browns and then add white glue in evenly spaced dabs of approximately similar size on the ridges. I have also created a couple of fields with rows of greenery on them by running the white glue along the entire length of the plowed field ridge lines then dumping Woodland Scenics green flocking material on it. I use smaller green flocking material when doing the complete ridge with a line of greenery, since the ridges are pretty small. It's Woodland's basic grass material. I suggest you eyeball the material and then decide what size flocking material you want to use to get the effect you want for your terrain. If your plowed field base is large or if you are using a fluid white glue like Elmers, I suggest you do the placing of the foliage on the ridges in multiple steps. I originally used Elmers on the first fields and switched to "Tacky" white glue, since it's much thicker and stays where you put it. The Elmers was effected by gravity more than the Tacky and tended to run down the sides of the ridges. Using my Tacky glue, I put spots of glue down every 1/3 inch or so. I then place a piece of dense Woodland Scenics "clump foliage" greenery on each dab of glue and let it dry. This clump foliage is a denser material that they use for attaching to plastic trunks for their tree products. I find it works good for green brush and bushes. Sometimes I use it for edging around fences or hedges. You can cut it using a scissors to get pieces the size you want. With this method, you can alternate the glue placement and the flocking material placement and complete the plowed field. I try to use pieces of clump foliage that are all similar in size and color. I figure that crops would have been planted at the same time (size) and would also be the same crop (same color) in the same field. The results look something like this (again, use your imagination): An expanded view of this (sideways, for space efficiency) is: I prefer relatively evenly spaced little "bushes" on my plowed fields, but you can modify this to meet your own preferences. Suggestion 1: Get some tin flashing material from your local hardware store. It's usually in the roofing materials area. I found 5" x 7" sheets. I wash it in the dishwasher to remove any oil or lubricant and after it's dried, I glue a 5" x 7" piece of the plastic stair cover to it. The tin flash sheet gives the plowed field a high rigidity and makes the whole thing more durable. I use white glue to glue this. I clamp this since the plastic will magically slide on the tin flash sheet sometimes, Also, the white glue takes longer to dry since neither the plastic or the tin sheet is porous, like wood, so it takes longer for the glue to dry out. If you clamp it, you'll get most of the extra glue out from between the pieces. It can take more than a day to completely dry sometimes. Suggestion 2: If you like to have the plowed field dirt look more 3 dimensional, you can use Woodland Scenics earth flocking material. Cover the complete ridged line side of the piece of plastic stair cover you are using with white glue. I use a 50% brown paint, 40% white glue and 10% water mix for this. While this is still very damp, dump the earth flocking on the material. I like to gently press mine down into the glue to get the flocking material to adhere better. After this dries, add your greenery along the ridges as per the instructions above. Suggestion 3: I added some "to scale" white rocks along the edges of the fields and some additional flocking materials. This is particularly easy if you have attached the plastic to the tin flash sheet and cut the plastic stair cover sheet slightly smaller than the tin sheet, giving you a border around the field. If you leave any tin showing for this border, I suggest you primer paint the tin that's still showing. I add chaotic brush and small stones to give the impression of a boundary to the field. If you use this idea, I also suggest you leave an opening in the brush and stone boundary or you will have to listen to your buddies kid you about it. Suggestion 4: I suggest that you dull coat the entire terrain piece to add longevity to your new plowed field. The plastic is malleable, so bending it will quicken the loosening of the paint and the glue. Back to MWAN # 124 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 Hal Thinglum This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com