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Whats up guys Omniscience Miniatures here. And due to the new rules of Dakka I will be keeping up with a completed works blog here. We have been painting as a group for around 3 months, and have some things to show for it. Feel free to ask any questions. I will be posting newly completed works here, as I don't really want to flood the board with our other things. But I will post a few as examples.

About Us
Hello, our names are Matthew and Colt, we are both students in college however we end up having a lot of free time for most of the year. We have been doing commission painting for around the last year and have a lot of stuff to show for it. Linked below! Collectively we have been painting for a total of 12 years, and each have won various FLGS painting competitions. We are definitely new to the scene, and are just trying to accomplish some honest work out of our hobby, and passion.

Links
Completed Works Dakka Thread
Email: omniscienceminiatures@gmail.com
Facebook
Album of our completed works: http://imgur.com/a/i1M9x

Eldar Cobra


Dreadknight


We are also currently working on some Dark Age minis, and I am personally starting a star phantoms army, although depend on time it may take a while to get it going and painted.

Very nice work!

Thank you, I have some other things to post soon including more grey knights and some Dark Eldar!

Few things that disturb me.
Paint bubbles on grey Knight shield, the Edge highlighting is not very accurate and has lots of misplaced spots,
The Cobra should have needed some more cleaning and Realy, Start using airbrush for such large models, brush strokes visible
And monocolour(Red) are not what you expect from a Commission painter.

Edit just saw the gaps and mold Lines, just NO
Edit 2, ok... Paint splatted over the dreadknight.. Will stop here

Sorry, have to agree with the poster above, seeing lots of 'unfinished/untidy' parts on the dread knight. Don't get me wrong, I'm no expert painter, but I instantly saw alot of things on the dread knight especially. I wouldn't be happy if I was the customer receiving it.. just my 2 pennies worth.

I have to agree with the above 2 posters.

On the DK there are very noticeable spots where the wash has "pooled" and where the wash was applied sloppily (ex: looking at the 'mortis' on the model's left leg ).
Some paint thinning could be used as well.

Agreed that large models like these two need the airbrush treatment for consistent application of paint; it's something that a brush has a hard time doing.

There's some value here; the basing is okay. But since this is commission work, the expectation is higher.

.

I understand your complaints. These are some older models that we did, they are just what we had that we thought looked good and could take pictures of. I see a little bit of what you mean with the wash pooling, and I agree it could be better in some ways, but also it was painted without an airbrush, which will change now as we have started using them, it just took a little bit of time to get there.

I never said that I am an award winning painter, or anything of the sort. I am doing the best I can, and it is reflected in my prices for painting.

The only place left for us to go is up! And taking in new models that we personally wouldn't normally paint is a great way to do it, while also making some money on the side. I strive to be one of the more affordable painters. If you want something that is award winning quality then there are others I can suggest for you, but I can guarantee their prices will reflect it.

Thank you for your comments.

Ok, I'll be blunt. I'm not good at subtle, unless its OSL.

If you're not charging enough to cover your time (for whatever reason), you're going to fail as a business, and fail hard.

In a particularly bad situation, this could mean clients being out money, models or both.

What you're doing with this thread is advertising a number of things:
1) You're inexperienced.
2) You're probably young, and do not rely on the commission business to survive.
3) You'll make excuses. Stating something is older or that something 'will change' without showing that change or improvement means nothing.

The standard of paintwork I'm seeing is fine for low-mid tabletop work, though the freehand gold-on-black pattern on the Cobra is very nice, let down a bit (somewhat confusingly) by the rest of the piece. Certainly, I see potential. Photography is also very good, so you have a definite advantage over a lot of other commission business startups I see. The danger is you fall into the 'we'll do an army for cheap and run out of time before other demands crop up' trap. I'd consider that a serious danger as a client- if you're too young to be working, then sooner or later you're back at school which will eat your time, if you're old enough to be working, you're old enough to be paying rent etc, which means you need to be charging appropriately or taking on an unrealistic volume of work.

So advice: Don't screw it up by attempting to bite off more than you can chew early on. Concentrate on small jobs for locals or one-offs first. Get the experience to work smarter and faster. Absolutely do NOT take on more work than you can schedule (taking into account the school/rent demands on time/money).

You should probably be a bit more honest about who you are; in real terms. 'I'm Maz, known online as Winterdyne. I've been painting for over 25 years, I've won a silver demon and a fistful of finalist pins, look here [link] for a whole crapton of stuff I've painted, and here [link] for stuff I've done on commission.' That sort of thing. Clients tend to like putting a name / face to the work.

Moar pictures. Many more. As wide a variety of subject matter as you can do - if you have to. pick off the wall personal projects (you'll end up painting a lot of space marines, take my word for it). Stick to around 1024 pixels wide for most purposes.

You've got promise, but need to fix a few things if you want to make the business a goer.

I understand what you are saying. And I appreciate it, I think you are correct that I need to rework some of the things, and also resize the pictures as well as link to multiple ones. I have trouble with Dakka and sizing of pictures however. You are correct that was a bit blunt

I will take the words you said to heart and make some necessary revisions.

Much better! Nice and up-front, imgur's a bit crap (though it does the job), a facebook album works pretty well.

I like some of the Empire stuff, though you need to work a bit on your freehand - it's pretty thick white at the mo; try building up through thinner coats of light grey (VGC heavy blue grey makes a great base for whites).

Just so you know; if I say something's good, I mean I do think it's good. I don't pull punches when it comes to professional critique. You done good, as they say.


Good luck!

Thank you for the advice. Those were something my partner painted, and I really did mean it when I said that a lot of that was older. We went through our models to find some stuff to put into an album.

In fact the only thing I think I have in there is the space marines on the bikes, and I really should add more thank you for reminding me

Just looked and realized the reason I don't have that many is lack of a photos from a light box! Which I should fix.


But like I said I am doing my best to learn new things, and speak to a lot of the local talent, which being in Texas is quite heavy!

Recently completed a commission for some dark age minis. These miniatures were beautiful and a joy to paint, this also was my first time working with pigments and both I and the customer were incredibly happy with how they turned out! I apologize for the image quality, I was in a hurry to get the pictures taken and it was very sunny out that day.






Thanks for looking!
New in this week, we have taken up a commission for some Crypt Horrors, and also several models for a game system I am not familiar with. More to come!

Recently finished up a crypt horrors commission. I also bought a smaller more transportable light tent, so still trying to get used to it. That is my excuse for the less than stellar pictures. This was a simpler commission, on a smaller level of quality based on price. The customer seemed very happy, especially since I was able to get them finished in his time frame. Without further ado, the pictures!





Thanks for looking! Have a nice day!

Good to see that you're getting work done and have happy clients.

However, there still is a lot to be desired here when it comes to basing.
The bases are rather one-note. A little shading or throwing some patches of static grass would really bring it to life. Also, the edges need to be a little cleaner. On the Crypt Horrors there appears to be some overrun of whatever that basing material is.

Overall, I still find your work to be substandard for commission work, but if your clients are less discerning and happy with what you're producing I can't really find too much fault.

P.S.- Those light tent pictures are less than desirable. The black background pictures you've used before were much better.

Yea I think I am going to go back to the older one, although it is much harder to set up. Or just never use a white backdrop >.> but I was in a hurry, as he needed them to be shipped today. Also I agree the bases could look much better, and I was a little saddened to have to paint them to such a low standard, however that is exactly what he asked for.

nice tabletop quality

Very sorry for a lack of updates, I started working on a rather larger army for someone and in the midst of that my Mother fell ill and was in and out of the hospital with heart troubles. I am not a huge fan of posting unfinished works but I am happy to say that they are nearly done and in another week or so I should have them all completed as well as lightbox photos.

I think however that I am going to take a break from commissions after this, once all of my open ended projects become closed, and look more towards working on a chapter of Star Phantoms I have in the works.

Thanks for everyone who has followed us up to this point, I appreciate the comments and criticism, thank you all

Cheers,
Matt