Improvements to be made

After taking a few photos of the original tactical squad a had to admit that although I like the models I realised there were some improvements to be made. After a bit of head scratching I decided to take a side by side photo with one of my post heresy Death Guard Plague Marines (I may put up some more photo's of these too in future). The model I chose was one that I had re-based a while back when experimenting with urban style bases.

There were three things which struck me as being fairly obvious flaws on my pre-heresy model.

The Base
When thinking about the 40K universe I usually envisage battle raging over ruined cities and hives. I really enjoyed making the building used in the photo and I can see myself making lots more scenery like it. In which case it was pretty dump of me to cover the original base with mud and grass without thinking about the sort of environments I will be using them in. The models look fine with mud and grass if they're on their own but as soon as you add any more scenery it only works with one type of scenery. So from now on my models will be having urban bases so they match my scenery, and if I end up playing games on nice grassy fields then I'll just have to accept they won't look right!

Symbols and Icons
I fell into this trap before with my Crimson Fists and I've only gone and done it again. The poor guy has noting to identify him at all, no Legion Icon and no tactical symbol and no squad number. This will be sorted for the next batch and I think for the legion icon its going to have to be a sculpted symbol. Ron at From The Warp has some pretty good tutorials on the topic so I think I'll give it a go.

Weathering
The plague marine on the left looks so much more alive and I think its all down to the weathering and battle damage. Whereas my pre heresy death guard on the right looks far to 2nd Edition for my liking, almost like he's just out of the showroom. I've ordered some of the Forge World weathering pigments so we'll have to see how I get on with those. I'll also be adding much more battle damage too.