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Hi everyone. I'm new here so I'll be brief in the introduction and then to the main reason I am here. I've been a wargamer, mostly 40k, for over 10 years now and have amassed quite a collection. I recently bought an armorcast baneblade off of ebay and decided that I would treat myself to a nice college graduation gift by getting it painted professionally. I chose Blue Table Painting because I remember when they first hit the scene and a lot of people loved them. What I didn't know was how far they have fallen. So I got in contact with them and set up the commission. They told me a Level 3 is a great paint job, so I figured it would be worth the $219.00 for them to build and paint it for me. Their website says it takes 7-8 weeks to do a commission. I waited 5 months. And what I got back was nothing like I was promised. Brush streaks everywhere, globbed on paint, decals falling off, missing details. The list goes on. I tried to reach out to Shawn for a refund, but as of yet, I have not heard back from him. I'm seriously pissed at these guys and just want my money back.

Hi. Welcome to Dakka. Shame about the Baneblade, the old armorcast stuff is gorgeous when done right.

Unsurprising. Sad to see, but I'm not remotely surprised.

I don't mean to be an ass, but in the hopes of helping others I'll repeat the usual advice; always, always check out the recent portfolio of whoever you're thinking of commissioning, and be aware that a cheap price won't get you a lot of work.

That's a shame. I could have painted that. It's not a terrible job, but it's more like a 50 buck job instead of over 200.

To build and paint to a reasonable standard should be in the $500 range, minimally. Both done very badly here.

Again, take idiotically low quotes or estimates for what they are.

Wow how lame. Well Shawn should have never told you a Llvl 3 is a great paint... its not. Its very very basic... I cant believe its $219 for a lvl 3 thats ridiculous. My advice to you is to check out some of the painting studios offered on this website.

I am sure you will find a better value (cheaper price + higher quality) and a much faster return. I cannot believe it took them 5 months that is absolutely ridiculous!

Even 7-8 weeks for a single tank lvl 3 is just stupid. They are in way over their heads at that place, and how they still get people buying from them is beyond me.

One thing to consider is to the piece touched up. Painters on this forum offer that service as well as large companies such as Frontline Gaming.

Good luck, hopefully everything goes your way!

Don't be stupid. If you expect a 50 hour job, expect to pay for it.

winterdyne wrote:
Don't be stupid. If you expect a 50 hour job, expect to pay for it.

If he was told by a reputable (or what he believed was reputable) studio that for the job he wanted it was Level X and would cost $Y, then as someone who is not himself a commission painter, he was putting his faith in their expertise.
Clearly you have an axe to grind with people who dislike paying high prices for premium service, but that's not his fault.

If the studio said they would do display standard for the money, they lied. That's it.

An outsider to any industry will trust an authority when asking for a price.

No, I have an issue with people getting burned by not paying attention to who they're dealing with. If somewhere is offering a low price for the amount of time involved you really are not doing yourself any favours by not asking why.

And let's be honest here, this is BTP we're talking about. Their history of promising high quality at low prices and then delivering garbage is well known. A quick google search for "blue table painting review" has the chaos dwarf trainwreck as the first result. This doesn't in any way excuse BTP's dishonest behavior, but if you do a little research before committing your money you should expect to get this kind of work from them.

$220 and 5 months to spend what looks like 90 minutes on a model, huh? Seems legit.

Welcome to Dakka, and sorry you got ripped off. I would personally have expected a lot better for $220 - like the "3 levels of shading" they advertise, for example; a basecoat and a sloppy drybrush only add up to 2 by my math.



What's with that big blobby fingerprint in the second picture? Is that a part of the (re)cast, or is it just in the paint?

Welcome to dakka. Sorry about the reason you're joining. As written above, you should have done a google search on them. Here is a very (in)famous thread about a guy who paid thousands of dollars to get his Chaos Dwarf Forgeworld army painted, waited months, and got a quicky crap paint job in return. In order to get ANY restitution from BTP, he had to start threads on multiple forums and put up youtube videos about his experience and even then it took a long time to get them to do the right thing and return SOME of his money. As part of his deal apparently he had to take down the videos showing the "quality" of the paint job so you won't find them in the thread but I'm sure you can get the jist from reading the reactions from other forum members who saw what he actually got for the price he paid.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/618082.page

IIRC, his army was shuffled through multiple painters (that was the excuse given IIRC) as they kept leaving the company and not finishing the job for months. After some delays, he started inquiring about it more and more frequently and found out that it wasn't close to being done. It seemingly was then rushed out to him without the care and effort that he PAID for.

In your case though, you only got less IMO than the quality you commisioned but not hugely less. Level 3 is the LOWEST they offer.

http://www.bluetablestore.com/terms-of-service/painting-levels

Level 3- Table Top Standard

Essential details picked out
3 levels of highlight/shading
All major fields picked out

Now, your's doesn't hold up to their "examples" that are obviously cherry picked but you have a worse than a basic tabletop quality paintjob. If they had taken a bit more time with it like even dry brushing some parts and edges, I'd say it would be spot on to the level 3 text that defines the level. As for your consumer protections, that would vary with your local laws and how they interact with the agreement that you got into with BTP by virtue of using their service:

http://www.bluetablestore.com/terms-of-service

9. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THIS WEB SITE AND ANY SERVICES OR CONTENT PROVIDED (THE "SERVICE") IS MADE AVAILABLE AND PROVIDED TO YOU AT YOUR OWN RISK. IT IS PROVIDED TO YOU "AS IS" AND WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, IMPLIED OR EXPRESS, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE MAKE NO WARRANTY, IMPLIED OR EXPRESS, THAT ANY PART OF THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, VIRUS-FREE, TIMELY, SECURE, ACCURATE, RELIABLE, OF ANY QUALITY,

Bold emphasis above is mine. Yes, despite that you commision them to do a specific job under specific terms, they make no guarantees that they will ACTUALLY do the work in an timely fashion, without obvious errors, or to any particular quality. That's what you agreed to. Douchey terms of service are there for a reason and that is 100% to protect the company from their own screw ups. I don't want you to think that I think you got a "good" deal.. you MASSIVELY overpaid for what you actually got if you really did get a level 3 for that price... but I just don't know what recourse you have frankly. I'm not a lawyer so add salt as needed and I hope your next experience is better.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ouze wrote:
$220 and 5 months to spend what looks like 90 minutes on a model, huh? Seems legit.

Welcome to Dakka, and sorry you got ripped off. I would personally have expected a lot better for $220 - like the "3 levels of shading" they advertise, for example; a basecoat and a sloppy drybrush only add up to 2 by my math.



What's with that big blobby fingerprint in the second picture? Is that a part of the (re)cast, or is it just in the paint?

The aquila on one of the sponson turrets isn't even drybrushed. That literally would be 30 seconds of work including cleaning the brush. :(

Hello! Welcome to Dakka Dakka!