Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello guys im fairly new to this forum and i dont know if theres anything that doesnt allow me to promote my services here so if there is i apologise i did not mean to cause problems.
But down to the point ! Iv done a few commission pieces for friends around my area and one suggested me to try and make something of it so here i am ! I have a website in place with a pricing grid for a rough idea, special offers giving away certain miniatures for certain armies when you order my services ! Special offers will be constantly updated when they change, pictures of new painted models will be updated to show my work. My website is www.trollsmonpainting.com would love if you guys checked it out and tried to help me live my dream thanks for your time guys hope to hear from some of you soon

Put up pictures of your work here to give people an idea, you're trying to sell yourself to make them want to look at your site and possibly give you money.

Pretty much a worthless thread without pictures.
Actually worse than worthless.

well I wasnt going to bother putting pictures on here cause I have a gallery on my website I though that was abit pointless but thankyou for the hostility.

I can't speak for Steelmage, but I meant no hostility at all. Pictures are worth a thousand words after all.

Yeah dont worry i know you didnt you were just giving advice and i appreciate that, i agree pictures are great it just didnt occur to me to upload any on this thread cause i have a gallery on my site of the current project im working on

small example of what i can do in a short space of time, this was done in about 3 hours one night, currently working on painting examples of different army miniatures to show I can paint a wide variety of figs.

What I do is post often, have a gallery of goods for everyone else to see my level of work and make it known that I do commissions (if you live in the Philippines). That's... pretty much it. Some would-be customers would be turned off if you try to hardsell yourself. What I would advise you is to expand your folio more. This advice I should take myself, since my gallery is just full of... Space Marines of my chapter.I should take photos of my non-SM commissioned works.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, better photos! People will trust you more if you handle things professionally, and that includes presentation. Your photos in the gallery are not photographed well: they're blurry at parts and you seem to have a problem with where the lens focuses on the model. And the background for the minis... making the background your room or workspace doesn't look professional at all. I made my own lightbox really cheaply, and you should look for tutorials on good miniature photography and how to make a lightbox. You are selling something (in this case, your services), and good "packaging" can make or break you. For example, a lot of books sell just because the cover art is good, or try imagining yourself if GW would sell well if their product came in plain brown boxes. Think how your customer would think: why would I avail his/her service if he/she presents me with subpar photos?

But hey, I'm no photographer--that is why I enlist the help of my friends who are photographers when taking photos of my minis.

Best of luck!

Yeah i know i need to deal with that iv gathered loads of different minis im painting atm to show i can do alot of variety, and im making myself a light box and ill be using my friends camera, shes a photographer but this kind of costeuctive criticism is very welcome so thankyou for that

Ryoko wrote:well I wasnt going to bother putting pictures on here cause I have a gallery on my website I though that was abit pointless but thankyou for the hostility.

You wasn't going to "bother" showing some of your work in a thread about you looking for commission work? Not even one or two, with a link directly to your gallery?

I was going to point out how your gallery only contains a dozen bad pictures of 4 Tomb Kings units, how your punctuation is lacking, how a link in a sig is inadequate advertising and how all this affects your likelihood of getting a commission.....but I decided not to bother.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Ryoko wrote:well I wasnt going to bother putting pictures on here cause I have a gallery on my website I though that was abit pointless but thankyou for the hostility.

You wasn't going to "bother" showing some of your work in a thread about you looking for commission work? Not even one or two, with a link directly to your gallery?

I was going to point out how your gallery only contains a dozen bad pictures of 4 Tomb Kings units, how your punctuation is lacking, how a link in a sig is inadequate advertising and how all this affects your likelihood of getting a commission.....but I decided not to bother.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck in your future endeavours.

I liked the part where the native size of the pics in the gallery are pixelated.

I apologise to the people who have been helpful but, steelmage if all you are going to do is tell me things that have already covered in the thread i do not want to hear it. It is one thing to be constructive but that is one thing you are not being. Also i am aware there is an issue with the large versions of the images, this is something to do with a gallery application being used by my site, for some reason it is reducing the size of my picture and i need to look at this when i am in front of my computer next. Please if you are not going to be constructive I would rather not hear what you have to say. Thankyou to everyone else who has actually given me pointers rather than hostility.

A few things ( also we'll use your Tomb King you posted as an example )

Normally people pay by figs not by hours. ( since some are fast some are slow it'll be chaotic )

By figs, your example would be level 2, average table top infantry standard, basic colors which is $3.
By hourly wages of 3 hours , you would have to be working way below minimum wage at $1 per hour. ( well a tie with Chinese sweat factory )

Atm it doesn't look efficient for you >.<

Yeah i pay by figs not hourly, and the 3 hours taken was including wash drying times, it was just something i was doing whilst watching something on tv one night I can paint relatively fast if need be and the previous commissions i have done for people in my area have worked out alright, thankyou for the pointers.

Your website is blocked at my work. The following reason is cited:

This Websense category is filtered: Potentially Damaging Content.

tdwg83 wrote:Your website is blocked at my work. The following reason is cited:

This Websense category is filtered: Potentially Damaging Content.

If it's blocked by work, there's the possibility that something in the javascript might be clashing with some rules your work network filters through. Dunno exactly what could cause that, I only see browser detection and some odd IE6 checks and stuff for the gallery.

@Ryoko : I'd suggest getting rid of that Guild Templates link down at the bottom, it links to a page that apparently no longer exists. Looks like a fishy/spam place that also could be a possible cause to tdwg83's work firewall throwing up a block.

Ryoko wrote:I apologise to the people who have been helpful but, steelmage if all you are going to do is tell me things that have already covered in the thread i do not want to hear it. It is one thing to be constructive but that is one thing you are not being. Also i am aware there is an issue with the large versions of the images, this is something to do with a gallery application being used by my site, for some reason it is reducing the size of my picture and i need to look at this when i am in front of my computer next. Please if you are not going to be constructive I would rather not hear what you have to say. Thankyou to everyone else who has actually given me pointers rather than hostility.

I have been doing commission work for quite a while, and I think the approach I take turns some clients away,but is more inviting to others. I do not do this as a primary source of income, so when someone chooses not to go with my services I am ok with that and I take no offense. I have learned through my experience that there are 3 things that are huge to potential clients;

Self Presentation
Communication
Good Pictures

The response I quoted above, as well as others that you have made in this thread, does not speak highly of your maturity level. It shows, in my opinion a lack of maturity and a willingness to be baited and reacting to insult...generally speaking in a professional setting these are things that are not looked at very well and speak to a lack of creditability. I feel that continued reaction in this manner will only further take away from your professional credibility. I would like to be very clear though, that I am not saying you are immature, I am saying your responses are immature. Increasing your awareness in this area will speak volumes toward your professional self presentation. It is not about you, put the ego aside, clients will appreciate it, and so will your wallet

In regards to communication. Take some time to proof read your entries,and try and speak like a professional. Avoid "texting" type, as generally speaking the people whom will be paying you for work are going to be professionals themselves. How you communicate with them will add to their confidence in you, in regards to them giving you their hard earned money.

Lastly, you really, really, really, need to get the picture things addressed. Clients are not going to care that you are "working" on it, they will want to see examples of what they are paying for. In fact, i would discontinue all solicitation until you have the photo thing worked out, this goes back to the idea about self presentation, not having those types of details worked out before hand says, "I am lazy, I was in a rush, and I just want to take your money."

Lastly, look at what you are offering from the clients perspective, and if you take a honest long look at what you have presented so far, you will understand, perhaps a little better, why some people have responded they way they have.

Good luck.

Ashton

I will just put this all out clearly to sum everything up once and for all and round off this thread. This was just a little idea I was keen on for me to kill off some spare time, I agree I should have waited until everything was set in stone before I advertised my services but I am new to this game and I was looking for some inspiration and criticisms. I thank you all for what you have contributed as it has helped show me a few things that need to be fixed that I probably would not have spotted myself, so again thankyou. I am already acting on every piece of advice that has been given to me, although this thread has not generated the response I wanted at least the response was truthful and will be more valuable to me than white lies. I am going to put all of this on hold until I get every crease ironed out, it is not my main source of income, more of just a nice idea if you will. I will post on this thread once I feel all of the above issues have been resolved and it really would mean alot of me to have some more feedback from you all once again. Thankyou for all of your advice, hope to talk to you more in the future when I will have grown more in a personal and professional sense.

So I made myself a light box and painted a quick table top quality miniature, thoughts ?

Honestly as you said this is a quick table top miniature, I can say that the lightbox has greatly improved your photo quality and that the picture is clearer. The model is a good focus in the picture and its details are visible.

However this is a very quick paint job, not particularly detailed and the colours just dont really seem to pop too well for me (not sure why, either the white isnt bright or the black isnt deep enough, everything seems off and grey. This would likely attract those who do not want to paint for themselves and merely want to play but for a serious gamer it'll take alot more to get them to part with their cash.

That said I am by no means the greatest painter in the world, and as with all my posts its just my opinion

Well the model was supposed to be an off grey colour but as I said it just a quick level 2 table top painted model to test my light box out mainly, so your thoughts about the miniatures paint job is exactly what I was going for.

If I were to take this model further it would get a glaze and some more hilighting but this model has only seen 1 layer of highligting.

I recommend you move the camera further away from the model, use as high resolution as possible and then crop the image after.

Also get a cheap tripod or rest the camera on something (perhaps using the timer to take the picture). It will help as well.

Okay so I splashed some cash, got to work and I have to say things are coming along great. I made a light box as I mentioned above, bought some cheap lamps to light the box from various angles. Bought adobe photoshop and lightroom to edit the lighting on each one of my models and here is the end result (big thankyou to SteelMage99).

TBH, you say you have done commissions before for friends, have you actually done them for paid customers? If was looking for a commission painter i would want to hear from your previous customers. I would want to see and hear referalls as these would add weight to my decision to choose your service.

Hastily painted (as you say) desktop quality models dont really sell your service very well IMO. I guess if your selling that a service then i think you should be showing your best not your fastest work.

This is not an attack on you or in anyway personal. Just a few thoughts i am sharing with you.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Ryoko wrote:Okay so I splashed some cash, got to work and I have to say things are coming along great. I made a light box as I mentioned above, bought some cheap lamps to light the box from various angles. Bought adobe photoshop and lightroom to edit the lighting on each one of my models and here is the end result (big thankyou to SteelMage99).

Your image of a night goblin shaman, looks rather blurred. Do you have a tripod? or a way of supporting the camera to remove shake induced blurring?

brainscan wrote:TBH, you say you have done commissions before for friends, have you actually done them for paid customers?

I have done them for friends on a customer basis but this is my first attempt at doing them for mutual customers.

brainscan wrote:Your image of a night goblin shaman, looks rather blurred. Do you have a tripod? or a way of supporting the camera to remove shake induced blurring?

The camera is supported the issue is simply becuase this is taken using an iphone camera, I am waiting for my new camera to be delivered so that will clear up soon, the picture was mainly to show the lighting etc...

I know this is not a personal attack I am very appreciative of your thoughts.

I agree with the suggestion that you should show your best work. No one is going to be enticed with tabletop quality works.

I am aware of that, however following the sale of my last army I am currently starting my portfolio from scratch, It will just take time for me but I will get there, now that my photography is fixed I am going to close this thread. When my portfolio is worth showing I will attempt to get my name out there but until then I will just be putting the hard work in !

Minor suggestions based on your pricing suggestions, I am taking note you suggested they are flexible.

"Standard painting" ~ basecoats, wash, a highlight OR two.
My army is on here. There is a massive difference in 1 or 2 step highlighting. Also you make no reference to basing work, or details like eyes, grenades, buckles, belts, etc. You may want to kick around adding some things to that, or such. I'm assuming your referencing per model?

Your prices per model you have 2? Kinda odd. There can be just as much detail required on a space marine, ork boy, or imperial guard model to achieve a nice, cohesive army effect.

Possibly add some examples on what you define a small vehicles vs monster is. As an example, a Imperial Guard Sentinal... not really a large model, but might need just as much attention as a dreadnaught, where would that fall... again just examples so you can give a good quality ball park.

You make no reference to basing on a model. That's really important. People might assume its lumped into your per model cost. Might want to put that out there on your website.

Turnaround time: i'd give yourself a bigger window. Knocking out an army in 2-6 weeks?

Lastly, army shots. Get a entire army shot of some models, along with individual models out of that army in your gallery. People will want to see that. Have it on a display board you did if possible. That can only help you out.

Best of luck moving forward, happy painting!