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 Thairne wrote:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluetablepainting/15426111193/in/set-72157647485459253/

There even are red slops on the havoc launchers :/

I just don't get why Moff3l used BTP.
There are studios out there that are EXTREMELY good...
Granted, this one was most likely a "bit" more expensive, but THAT is some freehand work:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/denofimagination/sets/72157649538121886/

Den of Imagination does some good work. I actually saw a Contemptor Dreadnought they did, you just could not take your eyes off it. Really stood out in comparison to every other model on the board.

At the same time, guys, comparisons like this are not fair. Moff3l started this thread to talk about the process of working with Blue Table Painting. It's apples and oranges, no matter how much we want to point to other services, the only thing that really matters is whether Moff3l is satisfied.

Moff3l - can you tell us? How satisfied are you with the models you are getting back? Has it been worth it?

The btp painting just has all these little mistakes across the board that you would think a commission painting service wouldn't make mostly.

I get that you aren't paying top dollar, but some of these are just ridiculous. Like not painting the eyes on the hellbrute's demon flesh. That's kinda a large detail to miss...

 M0ff3l wrote:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluetablepainting/sets/72157647485459253/

pictures are up

They haven't painted the eyes on the daemon flesh on the Hellbrute.. The eyes in general is horrible, just look at Typhus.. I mean I'm a really really gakky painter, like far bellow average and I sure as hell make sure to paint the entire eye.. And I sure as hell painted the eyes on the Hellbrutes daemon flesh.. This is not professional painting standard, no matter what level you paid for..

I really can't tell the difference between level 3 and level 5... I really can't. Very mediocre results on this one for the money paid.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Thairne wrote:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluetablepainting/15426111193/in/set-72157647485459253/

There even are red slops on the havoc launchers :/

I just don't get why Moff3l used BTP.
There are studios out there that are EXTREMELY good...
Granted, this one was most likely a "bit" more expensive, but THAT is some freehand work:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/denofimagination/sets/72157649538121886/

Den of Imagination does some good work. I actually saw a Contemptor Dreadnought they did, you just could not take your eyes off it. Really stood out in comparison to every other model on the board.

At the same time, guys, comparisons like this are not fair. Moff3l started this thread to talk about the process of working with Blue Table Painting. It's apples and oranges, no matter how much we want to point to other services, the only thing that really matters is whether Moff3l is satisfied.

Moff3l - can you tell us? How satisfied are you with the models you are getting back? Has it been worth it?

`Of course Moff3l is satisfied - he has very low standards and expectations.

My favourite bit is the all the red on the rhinos. Is it supposed to be OSL? Of course not, they've just gone SIZE TWO BRUSH PAINT ALL THE THINGS.

Pretty shoddy when all is said and done.

Can't blame OPs defensive nature, no one likes having failings pointed out - whether they've made them or purchased them.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

Den of Imagination does some good work. I actually saw a Contemptor Dreadnought they did, you just could not take your eyes off it. Really stood out in comparison to every other model on the board.

At the same time, guys, comparisons like this are not fair. Moff3l started this thread to talk about the process of working with Blue Table Painting. It's apples and oranges, no matter how much we want to point to other services, the only thing that really matters is whether Moff3l is satisfied.

Moff3l - can you tell us? How satisfied are you with the models you are getting back? Has it been worth it?

`Of course Moff3l is satisfied - he has very low standards and expectations.

Let's be nice. He did pay money for this, and telling him to feel bad doesn't help anyone.

I am being nice, just pointing out what Moff3l himself has admitted to. His expectations are already low, so he's inevitably going to be easier to please.

("I don't think its possible to do good shading on white cloaks so I asked for a flat white").

EDIT: nevermind. Forgot you were the sarcastic one.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

Den of Imagination does some good work. I actually saw a Contemptor Dreadnought they did, you just could not take your eyes off it. Really stood out in comparison to every other model on the board.

At the same time, guys, comparisons like this are not fair. Moff3l started this thread to talk about the process of working with Blue Table Painting. It's apples and oranges, no matter how much we want to point to other services, the only thing that really matters is whether Moff3l is satisfied.

Moff3l - can you tell us? How satisfied are you with the models you are getting back? Has it been worth it?

`Of course Moff3l is satisfied - he has very low standards and expectations.

Let's be nice. He did pay money for this, and telling him to feel bad doesn't help anyone.

I can't trust your word after you mastered sarcasm and ascended to another plane of existence, Tech.

At the least the OP may have a starting point - he can detail the miniatures himself, as opportunity/the mood hits him.

The freehand, in particular, will need to be touched up. I am kind of surprised that BTP didn't make a stencil and airbrush the fly on the rhino - but then that may just be from seeing the recent Kickstarter for stencils.

It will at least take the OTP less time to touch up and detail than it would have taken him to paint the entirety from scratch.

I have seen worse minis, though, I will admit, not from a professional service.

The conversions that the OP himself did are quite nice - it is the paint job that is the failing of this army.

And even that is salvageable, though... trying to salvage a what is supposed to be a professional paint job does stick in my craw, a wee bit.

The Auld Grump

Well, it looks pretty much like something I painted, so not very good really, personally I would not pay for a paint job like that.

The OP did get what he paid for though and thats what matters here, it was not a lot of money for not a lot of work.

Anyone using BTP in the future should start a thread here just to make sure you get the best service possible.

Ignoring what the minimum standards of what commission painting should or should not be, so ignoring whether this was painted by a day one hobbyist or a golden daemon winner...

Is it painted to a table top standard?

I so didn't catch the red blots on the havoc launchers, nice spot whoever first caught it!

Also, the eyes on the Hellbrute, come on...

I would ask BTP for a price reduction... If I sent this shoddy work as a finished project, I'd offer at least a 75% decrease in price because *I'M* the one who messed it up.

Also, the brush hairs stuck in the paint on Typhus... REALLY?! Can BTP not afford good brushes to paint with?

Off topic, but looking at the pictures... I gotta comment on your conversions!

That is an awesome plasma conversion on the DV unit leader/icon bearer!

The terminator combi weapons are all nice work too.

Thanks for posting again. Let us know what you think when you have the miniatures in hand. They might not stand up to scrutiny when there is a whole forum combing for errors, but will they pass the "3 foot away" test for table top play?

 PlaguelordHobbyServices wrote:
I so didn't catch the red blots on the havoc launchers, nice spot whoever first caught it!

Also, the eyes on the Hellbrute, come on...

I would ask BTP for a price reduction... If I sent this shoddy work as a finished project, I'd offer at least a 75% decrease in price because *I'M* the one who messed it up.

Also, the brush hairs stuck in the paint on Typhus... REALLY?! Can BTP not afford good brushes to paint with?

I think thats flock from the basing, I will remove it for sure.  Also the eyes on the helbrute are being painted now.

Moff, a couple guys are asking, and since you're back in the thread again...what's your POV? Are you satisfied? If you are, then everything is golden. If you aren't, it's further proof of BTP messing up, as you've clearly shown to be rooting for them. Most of the guys on here have made up their mind (I'm guilty as well) of never using BTP. But would you utilize their services again? That's really all that matters, as you're a current customer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as an addendum: I wouldn't use them as I like to paint my own stuff. But I wouldn't utilize anyone's painting services. Your infantry looked pretty good to me, but the vehicle freehand flies are awful. They should have paid you for the work they did on those.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Moff, a couple guys are asking, and since you're back in the thread again...what's your POV? Are you satisfied? If you are, then everything is golden. If you aren't, it's further proof of BTP messing up, as you've clearly shown to be rooting for them. Most of the guys on here have made up their mind (I'm guilty as well) of never using BTP. But would you utilize their services again? That's really all that matters, as you're a current customer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as an addendum: I wouldn't use them as I like to paint my own stuff. But I wouldn't utilize anyone's painting services. Your infantry looked pretty good to me, but the vehicle freehand flies are awful. They should have paid you for the work they did on those.

I am actually in the works of setting up a second small project where they supply the miniatures and conversions and ship them together with my current project. I wasnt really that happy that I had to play QA for them but oh well. With the rest I am happy they look pretty cool and better than I could have done, in a pretty short time span.

Another question about the freehand, was that something you asked for?

 curran12 wrote:
Another question about the freehand, was that something you asked for?

The big fly yes the small one no, which they have since removed as per my request.

Just FYI; it is impossible to remove freehand cleanly (ie to a clean, smooth finish) without a strip and repaint.

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I am being nice, just pointing out what Moff3l himself has admitted to. His expectations are already low, so he's inevitably going to be easier to please.

("I don't think its possible to do good shading on white cloaks so I asked for a flat white").

EDIT: nevermind. Forgot you were the sarcastic one.

I would argue that high or low are equally as bad, the point is if they are reasonable. If he has seen previous work, that quality is ok for the price for him, then his expectations of a repeat are reasonable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

winterdyne wrote:
Just FYI; it is impossible to remove freehand cleanly (ie to a clean, smooth finish) without a strip and repaint.

Bs, depends entirely on the technic used.

An old scale modeller's trick is to gently buff it out with a paper coffee filter. Not sure that will work on acrylic though.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Are you satisfied? If you are, then everything is golden. If you aren't, it's further proof of BTP messing up
Automatically Appended Next Post:

This is wrong for ANY business, not just BTP.

xxvaderxx wrote:

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I am being nice, just pointing out what Moff3l himself has admitted to. His expectations are already low, so he's inevitably going to be easier to please.

("I don't think its possible to do good shading on white cloaks so I asked for a flat white").

EDIT: nevermind. Forgot you were the sarcastic one.

I would argue that high or low are equally as bad, the point is if they are reasonable. If he has seen previous work, that quality is ok for the price for him, then his expectations of a repeat are reasonable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

winterdyne wrote:
Just FYI; it is impossible to remove freehand cleanly (ie to a clean, smooth finish) without a strip and repaint.

Bs, depends entirely on the technic used.

I'd like to see you try. I'll stake 25 years' experience on it.

Buffing it out is effectively a strip - you will remove the base layer as well. In order to get a smooth finish you need to effectively sand the surface down and repaint. Incidentally, rather than coffee filters you can also try cigarette filters; they work reasonably well, but again, if you need a very smooth, clean finish you need to sand down the offending area.

Simple rule: You can add layers, but you can't take away.

winterdyne wrote:

Simple rule: You can add layers, but you can't take away.

I bet they followed that rule, and added some layers of the base vehicle color over what they had.

Yup; I'd guess so. With more streaky paint and bad drybrushing.

 Blacksails wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Such as? Maybe Polish painters? I know they have pretty low wages over there. $10 per model would be an hour or less per model, I wouldn't actually expect much better than what he got while paying for an hour or less work per model.

Frontline gaming for one has a $7 per infantry, put you pay for the basing separately, which would put it at $8. Hell, they're level 2 model and base is $12, which looks significantly better. They're level 1 is on par with what we've seen in this thread, and looks cleaner too.

I'm sorry I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I didn't know about Frontline... but looking at their site level 1 is just block painted, with selective washing and drybrushing, most the model doesn't have any shading at all and SM eye lenses aren't painted at all. There's a whole heap of detail that hasn't been painted at all.

I'd say level 2 for Frontline is on par with what Moff got, though painted using different techniques than what Frontline uses (Frontline seems to like quick and rough edge highlights). The Frontline stuff has edge highlights... that look like they were painted by an 8 year old. There's some level 2 OSL in their portfolio that looks so awful you wonder why they did it at all. Level 3 is when they start to look like more than paint just being thrown at the model... but even on level 3 I can still pick out plenty of instances of poor paint coverage (another coat of paint would have fixed it) or very poorly done edge highlighting (taking more time to paint thin edge highlights or varying thickness instead of just slopping on a 1mm thick line on every edge).

I'm not saying Frontline is crap or bad value for money... I'm just saying when you pay someone to paint a model in less than an hour including priming and basing you're almost always going to get something that looks like it was painted by an amateur unless you have someone who can work very fast.

A quick look at Winter's stuff in this thread and the pricing guide would have put the total costs in similar ballparks, but I'd argue you'd get more value from Winter.

The cheapest thing in Winter's pricing guide looks to be $20 per model for a basic squad and $110 for a character on foot. I'm not arguing if you pay more you can get more (if you know where to look) and I'm not arguing that Winter is anything other than an awesome top level painter.

All I was saying was that moff seems to have gotten what he paid for and what he wanted.

Tenebre on the other hand got neither what he paid for nor what he wanted, that's the problem that started the whole debate.

I disagree with your assessment of Frontline, but I'm not going to get into a nuanced debate about the finer aspects of model painting in this thread. To me, the Frontline stuff just looks more finished and cleaner. Plus, it is technically cheaper at level 1, so there's that.

At the end of the day, I just don't find anything redeeming about this service over any others. We can go on about the details and comparisons between armies, but there's nothing inherently special or redeeming about BTP for what's paid. Admittedly, I'm a little biased in that I probably wouldn't get anything commissioned at the lowest level possible, personally. Please don't take anything I'm saying too seriously because of that, and I'm merely a curious observer who's almost had an army commissioned, but there are other services that offer comparable results for similar prices. Maybe the Polish guys are even cheaper, I don't know.

As for Winter, it is more expensive, but I guess I'd make an argument for value rather than cheapness.

I'll leave this to Moff now, and I thank him at least for coming through to the end.

 Blacksails wrote:
To me, the Frontline stuff just looks more finished and cleaner. Plus, it is technically cheaper at level 1, so there's that.

I'm surprised you think they look more finished, at level 1 they haven't even painted the lenses of SM helmets, if you look at the sample SW figures they haven't painted any of the gold detailing and there is no shading on the armour at all, not even a wash or a drybrush, they don't look finished at all to me, they look like what you throw together in an afternoon so you can play a game before you go back and actually pick out the details.

Level 1 looks largely unfinished, level 2 for Frontline look like similarly rushed jobs as moff's models to me.

 Blacksails wrote:
As for Winter, it is more expensive, but I guess I'd make an argument for value rather than cheapness.

In the context of a single model or a single squad I think that might be a valid argument... in the context of an entire force it's massively different price points. The difference between $800 and $1600 is huge and could determine whether you get an army commission painted at all. To me it's like comparing a Prius to a Tesla... comparisons can be made, but they're mostly moot if at the end of the day one is in your price range and the other isn't.

At the end of the day, I just don't find anything redeeming about this service over any others.

I don't disagree. I simply think moff got what he paid for... I think the comments people are making are going a bit too far.... attacking conversions that BTP didn't even do and talking about how crap the paintjob is when you've only paid them to do a quick and dirty paintjob anyway.

I think we should stick to attacking BTP for the bad things they've actually done like screwing over Tenebre, lack of communication with customers, having poor quality photos that don't show quality (or lack of), inconsistent quality from one job to the next, misrepresenting themselves, blaming the customer, etc etc. Rather than getting tied down discussing and attacking the quality of models that have simply been rushed through the door to satisfy a very small amount of money.

 M0ff3l wrote:
I am actually in the works of setting up a second small project where they supply the miniatures and conversions and ship them together with my current project. I wasnt really that happy that I had to play QA for them but oh well. With the rest I am happy they look pretty cool and better than I could have done, in a pretty short time span.

Are you serious? Even ignoring the mediocre quality of the painting how could you possibly give them another job after all the inexcusable failures you had to get corrected? FFS, you had to tell them "don't paint any detail on this" because you couldn't trust them to do it right. Why would you go back to BTP instead of using one of the other commission painters that don't have problems like that? Are you just too stubborn to admit that you were wrong about BTP, even if it means throwing away even more money?