ROW CROP HEXES

  Made with GHQ TMA-5 Medium Green Vegetation

   First off, an observation -- and maybe I'm doing it "wrong" -- but these row crop hexes are very time consuming to make.  I draw my bead of Elmer's white glue, then sprinkle on some ground foam.  Then I spend several minutes with my trusty dental pick, poking and prodding the little pieces of ground foam to get them to where I want them to be.  And from experience, I've found that you need to let a row dry before you try to apply the row adjacent to it.  You might start out with three or four rows, spaced fairly evenly across the hex.  Let them dry.  Then apply a row adjacent to each of them.  Let dry... repeat until the row crop hex is finished.  But first...

   1.  After the hex surface is painted the tan "earth" color, but before applying the ground foam -- apply a wash to give the field more depth.  (I use a dark brown wash.)  This will not only add to the "3-D" look, but it will help with a visual cue as to where to draw the bead of glue when applying the ground foam "row crops".  One note -- you can stop right here if you want a row crop hex that has been freshly plowed and/or planted, but the crops have not sprouted yet.  This will add visual difference to your gaming table.  (And you can always plant a minefield in this freshly-plowed row crop hex and game a scene from the movie "Kelly's Heroes" -- one of my favorites!)

   2.  When the field is completely finished, apply a generous soaking of the water/glue mix -- to bond everything together.  After all, you've spent a lot of time on this hex -- you don't want it falling apart the first time it's gamed on!

* * * * *