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2014/12/23 12:54:52
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
Those Elves are terrible for that price. The paint job looks around $10 per model but it sounds like they cost more like $30 per model. At $30 a model I expect a lot better than that.
BTP's photography has been poor since day 1, I've always thought it was simply to hide inconsistencies and flaws in their models. They do blurry pics and videos, neither of which can show off the quality of a model.
BTP have always struck me as a company who targets people who...
a) Just want an army painted reasonably cheap at lower levels and don't really care about mediocre quality because they don't have the time to paint the army themselves. (and that's a valid target audience IMO).
b) People who don't know better, because anyone who knows better would see the pictures don't actually show the quality (good or bad but mostly likely bad) of the work.
One of the most reprehensible things they seem to do is treat large higher level armies as cash grabs and actually spend LESS time per model than if they'd gotten a small squad at the same level. This is totally wrong. If someone pays $30 per model, then you should be spending ~3 hours per model regardless of whether the client has ordered 5 models or 500 models. If anything you might spend MORE time on the person who is paying you for 500 models because they are a bigger client and so you should be going the extra mile to show your appreciation for them trusting you with such a large commission.
2014/12/23 16:49:10
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
Been watching this thread for a while and I feel awful for the people that have been ripped off by Blue Table Painting.
Those pictures are terrible, not something you want to be getting back from a company that you've paid lots of money to.
Sorry about posting pictures in this thread, but here's a picture I received back from a miniature painting company. You can see what you're getting much more clearly, it's not blurry, and the lighting is great. In my opinion if you're starting up a commission service, the first thing you should do is learn how to take pictures.
d-usa wrote:Orks are the GW version of R2D2. No matter how advanced the defenses may be, there is always an open serial port somewhere that can be pluged into and a firewall that was never configured.
2014/12/23 17:37:00
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
Please note the abuse of studio light. If the point of these pictures is for the client to pick up problems why have a bright light shining on the mini, obscuring the quality (or lack thereof).
4 months wait and at that price for THAT.
These are the 10 I fixed to a standard I'm happy with. And with the hair that I asked for.
OMG, I literally started laughing the kind of laugh that you laugh when you see someone get nailed in the balls with a lacrosse ball, or something like that, when i checked out the pics on the flickr page. The fuzzy webcam ones didn't look bad through the fuzz, but once i saw the crisper ones posted on flickr.... yikes. Terrible. I should get a job painting with them. I'm not much of a painter, but i could bang out their "level 3" in no time. It takes hard work to take the singularly sexy and visceral witch elf plastic models, and make it look like a meth head grandma that hasn't had a hit in a few days.
I would be unbelievably angry if i paid someone 1500 bucks and that's what i got.
I am sorry that you got such terrible quality out of them.
TBM wrote: The paint is uneven and inconsistent. Too thick in some areas and non existent in others. Make no mistake these models are almost ruined. They're at the edge of a clliff to put it mildly.
The amount of money you paid for those models along with the sloppiness of the paint job is such a rip off! This isn't tabletop by any standards this is just paint slapped on a model!
I paint models for money and I would be ashamed to present a client with such results. That thick to thin to thick inconsistent drybrushing ruins any attempt to call them descent.
My sympathies to you mate and hope you get an amount of your money back.
According to Shawn him self level 0 is primed with something really terrible done to it... Well I guess we found out at what level BTP usually paints! Its zero with added goodies!
The army in that video is a level 3, level 5. To be honest I don't believe their studio produced that army it must have come from a trade of some sort but anyway. I believe that tenebre would be really happy with any army looking something like that on a lower level than the one he paid for.
This company doesn't do such a great work when you start picking at them. A lot of people are really displeased with what they got for their money, it's just tenebre that made a really well organized approach to it through his video review.
He comes off very smug to me in that video, i don't find it hard to believe at all that this is the same guy that asked for over 10k a year to end up with a shirt and hat so they can "advance their craft". Oh and a weekend in Spanish Fork UT.
"You definitely get what you pay for." - 3:11 in the video.
That's a matter very much up for debate. Doesn't seem to be too many people on these forums that agree. In fact all i see is that there seems to be NO level of consistency in your "paint levels", or even within models selected within a single strata of paint level.
"These tanks are level 3's. If they were level 4's and i was the art director checking these out, i'd probably pick on..." -- 4:40 in the video.
You know what, then you should be the art director. The tanks aren't terrible for level 3's, but if you're going to go into how what you would do if you were art director, assuming you have more than one art director working for you, you need to goddamn retrain them to have higher standards. Because there's no way the models in this thread, or the one's that TBM is illustrating passed any kind of art direction past "get it out the door, and onto the next project". Your entire paint level scheme strata is inconsistent, and your "level of attention" to quality is hypocritical at best, and potentially fraudulent at worst.
I hope the gaming community gets wise to these guys and they have to close up shop.
ALSO: Public Service Announcement. Please don't use the acronym BTP. Use Blue Table Painting fully spelled out. The more times that string of words appears, the more likely it is that someone doing research on Blue Table Painting will see threads like this.
This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2014/12/23 17:50:23
It takes hard work to take the singularly sexy and visceral witch elf plastic models, and make it look like a meth head grandma that hasn't had a hit in a few days.
And it takes even harder work to bring them back. They look like mutated zombies. And not in a good way.
Where are all the Blue Table Painting fanboys NOW? Let's see them defend THAT.
2014/12/23 18:57:08
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
It takes hard work to take the singularly sexy and visceral witch elf plastic models, and make it look like a meth head grandma that hasn't had a hit in a few days.
And it takes even harder work to bring them back. They look like mutated zombies. And not in a good way.
Where are all the Blue Table Painting fanboys NOW? Let's see them defend THAT.
Was watching another blue table painting video, I know someone has to trudge through the muck, and came across this. At the 4:15 mark Shaun is talking to his painters, then the camera is turned off. Then back on to talk about a special project as soon as he pics it up the painter, who was in the middle of an ARAM on league while he was alive mind you, jumps up to start talking about how he was talking to the customer on the phone about the scheme.
Ustrello wrote: Was watching another blue table painting video, I know someone has to trudge through the muck, and came across this. At the 4:15 mark Shaun is talking to his painters, then the camera is turned off. Then back on to talk about a special project as soon as he pics it up the painter, who was in the middle of an ARAM on league while he was alive mind you, jumps up to start talking about how he was talking to the customer on the phone about the scheme.
Does anyone have any real experience that can tell me what they charge for a level 4-5 wave serpent? No I have no intentions of using them, I just want to satisfy a comparison I was just thinking about.
Let a billion souls burn in death than for one soul to bend knee to a false Emperor.....
"I am the punishment of God, had you not committed great sin, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you"
2014/12/24 03:05:31
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
quickfuze wrote: Does anyone have any real experience that can tell me what they charge for a level 4-5 wave serpent? No I have no intentions of using them, I just want to satisfy a comparison I was just thinking about.
You can also email them and ask them, though if they are watching they may quote lower or what not.
Ustrello wrote: the painter, who was in the middle of an ARAM on league while he was alive mind you, jumps up to start talking about how he was talking to the customer on the phone about the scheme.
Ustrello wrote: the painter, who was in the middle of an ARAM on league while he was alive mind you, jumps up to start talking about how he was talking to the customer on the phone about the scheme.
Capamaru wrote: At least Blue Table Painting is getting an award for worst business practice.
If more people keep reviewing the paint jobs they received from Blue Table Painting then most probably till next year they will go out of business.
In which case people should be very cautious, because companies of dubious quality that operate abroad and don't like giving refunds are exactly the sort to fold up and disappear with people's money and models.
2014/12/24 11:49:34
Subject: My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
In which case people should be very cautious, because companies of dubious quality that operate abroad and don't like giving refunds are exactly the sort to fold up and disappear with people's money and models.
Hasn't Blue Table Painting, the miniature painting service, already had several incarnations due to previous versions accruing debt and then going out of business/bankruptcy/changing shape/moving state?
2014/12/24 12:19:31
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
I'd like to stress that this may settle the monetary dispute, but it doesnt make it OK to produce work like that.
"Level 1-6"" is self satirizing at this point, it's become a joke in the wargaming community. Blue table painting need to recognize their limitations, and completely scrap levels 4-6. Stay within and advertise what you know you can do. Low level table top standard. Medium at best. And dont paint the eldar anymore.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/12/24 12:30:26
2014/12/24 12:31:43
Subject: My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
Look at that studio update. People sitting around playing video games, sign language going on between people who have nothing to do with the delivery process, getting the boys together for a game of D&D. It's a cult of idleness. This is what they do with your money instead of working on their skills - tenebre's job probably paid for the camera. There are literally more people goofing off then there are people working on client projects.
For a place that makes all these claims about their process and innovative business practices, where are the steps they take to ensure quality? The people who are painting are getting constant praise for sub-par work. Since we're getting so intimate, how about showing us a creative review meeting where someone speaks up and offers a single idea for how to do a job better? Since these videos get published every single day, why not focus on a single project coming together and invite comments (which might be valuable, since they don't seem to know how to critique their own work)?
You go back through those videos for months and find me anything that suggests there's some thought going into all this. It's not there.
I'd like to stress that this may settle the monetary dispute, but it doesnt make it OK to produce work like that.
"Level 1-6"" is self satirizing at this point, it's become a joke in the wargaming community. Blue table painting need to recognize their limitations, and completely scrap levels 4-6. Stay within and advertise what you know you can do. Low level table top standard. Medium at best. And dont paint the eldar anymore.
The problem is that Blue Table Painting, the miniature painting service can't really deliver at 1-3 either..
An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.
2014/12/24 13:22:26
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
I'd like to stress that this may settle the monetary dispute, but it doesnt make it OK to produce work like that.
"Level 1-6"" is self satirizing at this point, it's become a joke in the wargaming community. Blue table painting need to recognize their limitations, and completely scrap levels 4-6. Stay within and advertise what you know you can do. Low level table top standard. Medium at best. And dont paint the eldar anymore.
The problem is that Blue Table Painting, the miniature painting service can't really deliver at 1-3 either..
This! Blue Table Painting is not really a miniature painting service. wile paint is applied to a miniature they work produced does not meet even the lowest of standards.
TBM wrote: "Level 1-6"" is self satirizing at this point, it's become a joke in the wargaming community. Blue table painting need to recognize their limitations, and completely scrap levels 4-6. Stay within and advertise what you know you can do. Low level table top standard. Medium at best. And dont paint the eldar anymore.
I do agree with this. If all they can do is knock out low quality jobs then that's all they should advertise instead of offering higher levels that are very inconsistent. At the end of the day, I think if you're paying someone $10 or less to paint a model, I don't really expect much which is why I tend to not attack BTP's low levels. I don't really expect them to paint much better than an average or slightly above average painter could do in an hour. When you start paying $20+ per model is where I start to care about the quality because then you're actually paying enough for them to actually be spending some time doing it right.
Can I ask though, TBM, the $1400 you mentioned earlier, how much of that was import taxes and did it include the models themselves?
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/12/24 13:42:54
2014/12/24 14:00:02
Subject: Re:My Blue Table Painting Experience with Chaos Dwarves
I'd like to stress that this may settle the monetary dispute, but it doesnt make it OK to produce work like that.
"Level 1-6"" is self satirizing at this point, it's become a joke in the wargaming community. Blue table painting need to recognize their limitations, and completely scrap levels 4-6. Stay within and advertise what you know you can do. Low level table top standard. Medium at best. And dont paint the eldar anymore.
The problem is that Blue Table Painting, the miniature painting service can't really deliver at 1-3 either..
But boy can Blue Table Painting, the miniature painting service deliver on level zero ! They knock that one out of the park. As in zero quality, zero expectations fulfilled, zero ethics, zero customer service.
ALso, if this is accurate, how their conversion budget system works is legal is beyond me. It seems just this side of a ponzi scheme.
Center for Sustainability Blue Table Painting, A miniature painting service video where he describes how the "buy the minis, don't get the bits, conversion budget never gets returned, uses bits from previous customers having them buy the minis, to use on the minis you give them money to convert.... etc. etc. : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlpRxOxJdK8
If that is accurate, I can't imagine why anyone in their right mind would give them a budget for conversions. It must be a gigantic profit center for them.
I'd like to stress that this may settle the monetary dispute, but it doesnt make it OK to produce work like that.
"Level 1-6"" is self satirizing at this point, it's become a joke in the wargaming community. Blue table painting need to recognize their limitations, and completely scrap levels 4-6. Stay within and advertise what you know you can do. Low level table top standard. Medium at best. And dont paint the eldar anymore.
I'm glad you got something back from a fiduciary standpoint, and your minis.
The problem is, you still ended up out of pocket 700-ish dollars for a company to ruin your miniatures, require stripping, and per your earlier posts ship them back to you in a way that made them break.
I know you realize that, but just spelling out this is the sort of customer dispute rectification that others who choose to use Blue Table Painting, a miniature painting service, can expect if they are not happy with what they get.
Put another way:
Would you give someone 1400 bucks, to have them hand you back craptacularly paintined, broken models, which you then have to nag and fight with them to get 700 bucks back. Ending up with models that still need repair, stripping, and painting.
I sure as hell wouldn't.
(Btw, my figures are probably off 100-200, due to taxes, importation brokerages, etc. etc. I'm almost positive you didn't get 700 back from Blue Table Painting, a miniature Painting service, so feel free to correct the figures if you like (and if you don't that's cool too) - i just want to acknowledge that i know that my figures are probably off here, but the relative point still stands).
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/12/24 14:07:50
Chaos Dwarfs ~9000
Slaanesh ~14700
Let a billion souls burn in death than for one soul to bend knee to a false Emperor.....
-- 9k 
-- 6k 
-- 4k 
-- 
