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 Peregrine wrote:

 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?

Exalted for truth. Good to know that I could likely get hired at Blue Table, with my mediocre level.

My god....that was just bad, I could do better then that, those bikers where.....Ugh

 Peregrine wrote:

 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?

There's really no point in trying to rationalize it. The OP seems pretty dead set on giving his money away to these people.

Think I might have to start a painting service...

Prime.
Basecoat.
Drybrush.
Dip.



...profit?

 Eggs wrote:
Think I might have to start a painting service...

Prime.
Basecoat.
Drybrush.
Dip.



...profit?

You're missing the part where your profit is sweet feth all

I thought dry brushing came after dipping

I know a few people who work as commission painters for huge historical armies that use a full miniature wash method and have satisfied customers. They're price per miniature is very low, but they only accept big projects. They're sort of bleeding into the historical toy soldier collector market though, and there a block painted glossed toy soldier can be $10-$25.



There are niches and branches of the miniature hobby where expectations are very different. For example, the type of people who want super hard gloss baked on enameled toy soldiers are interested in a certain tradition of toy soldier painting going back long before anyone alive today was born. Some of them would go apeshit over those glossed soldiers getting an oil wash nicely blacklining all the details while still keeping the traditional toy soldier aesthetic.

BTP though seems to be trying to operate in the fantasy/sci-fi miniature wargaming market where expectations are a lot different. They'd probably screw up trying to operate in the toy soldier market because you can't just decide the customer is wrong and change the paint scheme or do extra free hand work or whatever.
.

I think if you saw these paint jobs on an army placed opposite you for a game, you would be quite enthusiastic. In themselves they're not awful, they're competent and as a mass army probably look effective enough on the table, and are better than a huge number of armies that are semi-painted and unpainted. Not sure it's worth paying anything like $800 for though, the techniques used are pretty basic.

If I was going to throw money of that order at a commission I'd go the whole hog and ask Winterdyne to do a decent job.

There's a difference between 'basic' and badly done.

I do (generally) 4-5 colour transitions on everything (base, wash, highlight, highlight / extremes).

If I were to do a just two (base and wash) or three (base, highlight, dip), that'd make a fine low end tabletop standard.

In either case there's no excuse for painting over details, or executing a technique badly. The freehand on the OPs rhino is particularly bad. Not just from a professional standpoint, it's actually badly done, period. No excuse for for painting the black spot on exhausts off-shape and off-centre. No excuse for getting yellow paint from painting an eye over the brow and not fixing it.

And for presentation; I'm constantly surprised by the appalling photography. It took me about an hour to learn how to set my lights, backsheet and tripod to get a consistent result I could then pass through Photoshop for colour correction. I don't have an expensive DLSR. I can't honestly see the need for one.

So no, we're not comparing Prius to Tesla in commission services. We're comparing badly built go-kart to Ford (if I were to be the subject of the comparison). The likes of Matt Fontaine, Tommie Soule over at Golem, Bohun et al might be considered the Tesla / Lexus end of things.

Edit: whilst it's the OPs prerogative to throw more money at BTP, I don't actually think he got a good result even for what he paid. It can't really be improved on without repainting. It's not neat. It's amateur at best. Honestly, my 9-year old can paint better than that.

The excuse as I see it is you are trying to paint it faster. If you are trying to paint something within 1mm or 0.1mm, it takes vastly different amounts of time to do it. I'm sure that's the same reason Frontline gaming have huge chunky edge highlights, it's faster for them to do it that way.

Yes... I think the freehand is bad... but my point was that to do it better takes more time. It's not just a case of being sloppy or lacking skill, it's that to do it not sloppily takes more time and that time has to be paid for (unless you're a commission painter working on flexible hours, which is not something that is practical for a company like BTP).

I could paint a better freehand fly than that... but then I'm sure it would also take me longer to paint than what they were paid to do.

Comparing Prius to Tesla or comparing go-kart to Ford... the end result is the same, you're comparing apples to oranges

 Eggs wrote:
Think I might have to start a painting service...

Prime.
Basecoat.
Drybrush.
Dip.



...profit?

I think, despite what some of the commission painters have commented in this thread, there is actually a market for such a service (and no offence to these painters; they produce fantastic results).

There are plenty of people that are only interested in having an army that passes the "3 foot away" test. Some of these people are loathe to spend the time it would take them to accomplish this. Thanks to experience, a professional painter could achieve the same results much faster and more neatly.

For such customers paying for a service where models look immaculate under close scrutiny would be a great waste of money.

nareik wrote:

I think, despite what some of the commission painters have commented in this thread, there is actually a market for such a service (and no offence to these painters; they produce fantastic results).

Yes, clearly there is a market for a service that like this, considering we are having a conversation about a service that offers it and has no trouble finding plenty of people willing to pay for it.

In a way, it doesn't bother me because it makes no real impact on the way I do business as a commission painter. I offer commissions as a part time job and I only take jobs that I have time for and interest me because it isn't a full time job (I'm lucky that my regular job allows me plenty of free time) so I don't rely on painting things for people to pay my house note pay my bills, or feed my kids. Where it does hurt me, is that I make it pretty clear to any potential customer that I charge what I think my time is worth and that can be a shock to a person who sees companies like BTP who charge next to nothing (even though their work is of sub par quality, as evidenced by the pictures they share) because I'm not as cheap as they are.

However, in another way it really bothers me because there are painters out there who do paint as a full time job (and offer much better results than what we have seen here) and I feel like businesses like BTP undercut them, possibly to the point where they are no longer able to charge what they deserve for their work. Of course, this is my notion and I have no hard numbers to back it up, so if there are full time painters (like Winterdyne) please feel free to expand on that.

 Peregrine wrote:

 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?

Unless this entire thread and project are an attempt at a visible, positive response to Tenebre's thread.


Yeah... a bit tinfoil hat-y, but I have to be honest after the public pledge of a second commission, it's a possibility I can no longer rule out.

 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.

Glad to hear things worked out for you. Hope you enjoy the miniatures once you get them, and keep us posted on what you actually receive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Stormwall wrote:

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

Best not to trust anyone online, Stormwall. The Internet is really just a pit of liars, cheats and thieves, dragging others down with a staggeringly modern efficiency.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
The excuse as I see it is you are trying to paint it faster. If you are trying to paint something within 1mm or 0.1mm, it takes vastly different amounts of time to do it. I'm sure that's the same reason Frontline gaming have huge chunky edge highlights, it's faster for them to do it that way.

Yes... I think the freehand is bad... but my point was that to do it better takes more time. It's not just a case of being sloppy or lacking skill, it's that to do it not sloppily takes more time and that time has to be paid for (unless you're a commission painter working on flexible hours, which is not something that is practical for a company like BTP).

I could paint a better freehand fly than that... but then I'm sure it would also take me longer to paint than what they were paid to do.

Comparing Prius to Tesla or comparing go-kart to Ford... the end result is the same, you're comparing apples to oranges

No; to do something like that (a solid black design) better takes no more time. (Unless they're *really* just bodging it, which given the half-arsed attempt at neatening it up I doubt.) It takes a touch more skill, the right mindset, and possibly a better brush. Mostly it's in the mind. If you're nervous and your hands are shaking because you're under the gun, then you'll feth it up.

My point, and what's aggravating me mostly is that if a job is to be done, it should be done properly, and should be quoted for to do the job properly.

This isn't even a good basic level of work. It's just fething messy. BTP are like an amateur carpet fitter trying to cut the carpet with a chainsaw 'cos it's faster. So what if they're cheap? (for the result, they're NOT).

If someone had posted in the P&M forums with these stating they're wanting to start a commission service, we'd all warn them off it for being gak. I'm not hypocritical enough to say something like this is in any way acceptable just because the studio churning it out has been established for a while.

for the same price or even a bit less the poland studios could do the same job and way better and it would save on shipping.

Since the OP is from Europe this makes no rational sense on any level. In the states, if the OP is dead set on paying more for shipping there are several other studios that can come close to this price for far better results.

Why would anyone go out of their way to use a service they self admit is not very good?

That is exactly the question I asked with my comparison to DoI.

Why one would follow up with a comission is beyond me... Objectively you can get better quality miniatures faster for the same price.
All however, especially the perception of the paintjob, is subjective.
I don't see what Moff3l sees.. but so does basically noone else in this thread.
I concur with Haight here - there is no logical reason without being biased towards BTP to continue using their services.

It is not my intention to attack Moff3l and his decisions; but I just cannot rationalize why he acts like he does.

There is a reason to continue with BTP, maybe a couple.

1. He is going to get a 'discount' in that they are going to ship the new order and this order together, and he is not paying for shipping of a new lot to them. If he is happy with their work, or happy they will fix what he has asked them to fix, the perceived savings may make it worth it for him.

2. By using BTP for the new lot he will have a consistent look to his army, something sending new stuff to a different painter would be difficult to do.

Ok, my english is not that great so i just want to ask so i understand everything in this thread.
1. a user with Name tenebre posted some terrible results from a BTP Commission.
2. another user opened this topic for BTP or in the Name of BTP to Show ugly marines that are supposed to Show hat BTP is great.
3. another user named techsoldaten is applauding him because he is also related to BTP cause no One can post such things?

If im right then i can go on Reading the Rest.
Please clarification for me.thanks

techsoldaten isn't applauding them.

All of those posts were heavily, deeply sarcastic.

Thanks... Couldnt believe two People Are so... Intelligent...

 winterwind85 wrote:
Thanks... Couldnt believe two People Are so... Intelligent...

This is what i do when i read a Techsoldat post: I pretend i'm John Stewart and read them.

You usually get the gist then.

winterdyne wrote:


The likes of Matt Fontaine, Tommie Soule over at Golem, Bohun et al might be considered the Tesla / Lexus end of things.

Faint praise indeed!

"Ahh Lexus, the Japanese Mercedes"

Heh, I drive a Zafira. I thought Lexus were nice? Ferrari, then. They're good. :-)

Only busting your beans, old boy! The sentiment came over perfectly but I've been on a Partridge binge recently and couldn't resist.

Winter, you make painting neatly sound so easy; genuinely making mistakes sounds almost inconceivable to you.

I'd love to have the chance to meet up with you sometime. I bet I have a bunch of terrible habits and it would do me a world of good to sit down and relearn all the basics. I make so many mistakes it takes me ages to even get a bad result and nigh impossible a good one!

As a professional painter do you do 1 to 1 tutorials or anything?

Or hire a venue and do a day basics course thing for a few of us? Maybe in Manchester?!

nareik wrote:
Winter, you make painting neatly sound so easy; genuinely making mistakes sounds almost inconceivable to you.

I'd love to have the chance to meet up with you sometime. I bet I have a bunch of terrible habits and it would do me a world of good to sit down and relearn all the basics. I make so many mistakes it takes me ages to even get a bad result and nigh impossible a good one!

As a professional painter do you do 1 to 1 tutorials or anything?

I've thought about it for sure, but I wouldn't call myself skilled so much as practiced. It'd feel a bit weird arranging putting myself forward as a tutor.
Feel free to drop me a PM about it though.

how much did this cost?

~$800 IIRC.