You're preaching to the choir, 2 people I've talked to in real life and articles I've read claim that the artists figured out ways to make crop circles that scientists can't replicate. In my eyes that means the "artists" are more than just artists or they're admitting that scientists can't figure out shit

This works both ways, you know. If aliens or fairies or Mother Nature did it, they have to obey the same rules of physics and botany everyone else does. I expect any explanation at all to be reproduceable with those rules and not fall back on jargon or "aliens know stuff we don't." Doom de Dooom Doom goes nowhere with me. If they know it, we can too. Also, as crop circles have been around a long time, I'll concede that our thought experiments should use minimal tools and chemicals instead of luxuries like lasers and precision mowers. Therefore, it becomes a matter of trying things, just like every other mystery.

I don't know what you mean by "artist" nodes vs. "unexplained" ones. To me nodes are the marking points of a design, whether natural or not, the vertices and intersections. They are only unexplained if they aren't there. The art in these circles is very human, starting with the circle, which is the easiest shape to mark out perfectly, just find a center point and use a rope as a compass. Squares would be much harder to make evenly on a large flat area. Then there are well-known mathematical ways to use the radius to cut up the circle into angles or chords to make your design. Since most of these new ones in Aylesbury follow a six sided motif I suspect that they make use of triangles, which can also be made easily and accurately with only a rope, although the feature one today is so intricate I think a laser was there. The fact that many designs suggest known and familiar motifs makes it all the more likely that they are done by people, and not organic: natural designs may have symmetry but also usually a spiral or a fractal evolution. See Fibonnaci. And not done by aliens unless we want to think that they share the same graphic styles. Which they could, after all these geometric shapes are also universal and there are only so many ways to arrange them. But these crop circle elements are arranged in a way pleasing to humans, so now we have to say the aliens share the same aesthetic in geometry. This is getting to be a real stretch, no? This marking out can all be done quickly and in a relatively hidden manner before the last step where you make the grass look different. You could also prepare your ground for a dramatic reveal in advance by many means, such as applying fertilizer to make parts thicker and greener, or an herbicide, like salt, to thin or brown it. Or actually, leaving boards around so the grass fades under them, then the grass would wilt immediately in the hot sun when the shade is removed, and appear burned. You can apply a light oil or salt for a burned effect too. The change in grass would not take place immediately. I think it would be quite possible to work in steps, then trigger a big reveal by mowing, raking, watering.

A natural way that some circles occur is from microbursts, little intense downdrafts or teeny little tornado, and they can be quite damaging but fortunately they last only moments. That would be instant enough, but not at all artistic. Another way interesting circles appear in grass is from ants and termites, as they spread out from a central nest. These will have that fractal look though. Fungus is so obvious on a close look, I would put that low on the explanation list even though some fungus is quite startling.