Some Very Glasgow Warhammer Terrain

Every once in a while Glasgow can be rather pretty.  The Gallery of Modern Art at Christmas Time.

As you will know I am a native of Glasgow: most populous city of Scotland, second city of the British Empire and (depending on how you count suburbs and stuff) third largest city in the United Kingdom.  We're home to more gangs per capita than New York and, and are the epnoymous city behind the Glasgow Effect. Gallery of Modern Art.  We are famed the world over for stabbing each other over football teams.  We are No Mean City.

Despite these grim facts, though, we have a sense of humour.  Check out the above picture and you'll see our beautiful Gallery of Modern Art and, sitting outside it, a statue of British hero the Duke of Wellington;. he who won the battle of Waterloo. Look a little closely and you'll see a decidedly Glasgow addition, though: a strange red splodge. 

What could that be, non-natives may well ask?  What would be red on a bronze statue?

It's meant affectionately, honest!

Er, it's a traffic cone.  For decades we've put a traffic cone on his head.  When the council comes to take it down, we put it back up again. When they take it down again, we put it up again and give his horse one as well.   It's a strange drunken student rite of passage to clamber up the statue and crown him.

This odd ritual is even more odd for having become famous.  It's a common picture on the front of tourist guides of Glasgow; it's on T-Shirts available in the modern art gallery; we even featured it as part of our Commonwealth Games opening ceremony last month.  it says something about Glasgow's sense of humour that what at first might seem like the desecration of a hero of Empire is in fact an odd sort of welcoming him into our family. 

The highlight of the opening ceremony.  (It wouldn't take much)

For a long time I've had half a mind to do a little Warhammer nod to this Glasgow icon.  When Wellington and his cone popped up in the Commonwealth Games, I decided it was time to stop with the excuses and start with the painting.

I've even used a Glasgow paper for the occasion!  That's patriotism!

 Nothing expensive went into making this piece.  An empty cardboard box of paperclips was the body of the monument: some smaller & larger rectangles of cardboard give it a tiered top and bottom.  Below that squares of thin card, some with scratches and cuts, give the impression of a tiled bottom.  The base is just cardboard covered in PVA then sand.

On the sides of the figure, I am nowhere near good enough to do the sort of murals that real Wellington has.  Two rectangles with frames are attached to the large sides will give the impression of brass plaques with writing. Front and back are some old High Elf shields with a Phoenix motif, attached with Milliput - my mate Dave has a Space Marine chapter with a phoenix symbol so I figure this might pass as a monument to one of their heroes.

The heart of the matter is our 40K!Wellington though.  An old plastic caparisoned horse - no, not Capri-Sunned, I said Caparisoned! - was dug out my bits box, from one of my first impulse GW buys way back in the day.  An old plastic 2nd Ed Space Marine - the kind every 40K player has at least 20 of - had his base snipped off and was glued into place, though his legs had to be bent a bit to fit.  Finally a cone as made of milliput and attached to a base of cardboard.  With his head sawn in a slanted way, 40K!Wellington can wear his cone at a jaunty angle.

After base coating

A spray of black undercoat followed then base coating began.  The sand was given the usual Mephiston Red, and the cone was given that too.  My last dregs of Astronomicon Grey were painted over all the stone - I didn't sweat this too much, the streaky look adds to the stoney/marbley factor for me.


The actual statue itself I painted using hints I got from this Tabletops Minions video.  First the whole piece was drybrushed in Dwarf Bronze, always stroking downwards.  I kept this up until the statue appeared as though it was a dirty bronze.  The same was done for the shields and plaques.

Dirty Bronze

Then I mixed up a wash for the verdigris.  For my wash I used equal parts of Games Workshop's Warpstone Glow, a bright green colour, with Vallejo Paint's Sky Blue.  This made a pale green "Statue of Liberty" sort of colour which I watered down to make into a "dirty water" sort of consistency - I like my washes to, when I paint them on a solid surface, contract into themselves somewhat.

The desired hue, in need of more water.

I lathered this onto all the bronze sections.  At first it seemed a bit too thick, but oin drying the desired look was achieved - a streaky greeny blue finish with some bronze showing through.  I added a touch more bronze drybrushing where the effect was too strong but the job was a good 'un.

It was just finalising time now.  Some streaky black paint to the plaque gives the vague impression of writing.  A dark wash over the stone tiles tries to draw attention to the cracks.  A Mephiston Red/Army Painter Orange mix was added to all the cone bar the base - a little drop of pure orange at the top gave highlighting.  Add a rough white stripe on the cone and....

I can almost smell the air pollution

Bob is your Techmarine!  One 40K!Wellington statue stands before you.

Now to get a game with him as part of it.  "Protect the Cone" as an objective, anyone?