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I am considering starting to paint for money on the side, nothing commission based at this point or anything but I would like to make some extra money doing something I enjoy, So what I would like to do is post a few images of a couple grey knights I have painted to get peoples opinions and ultimately information to further my skill. Basically what I would like to know in the long run is "Would people buy these" in your opinion, and please give me a little feedback on what you liked or didn't like, and why! Please don't pull punches, I want to know what others think. The models in the pics are completely painted but are not based, I do bases well, but I am specifically looking for feedback on my painting. So without further ado, let the potential trolling begin!


EDIT:: Just realized my figs aren't "complete" due to bases so I suppose my post is in the wrong forum, if a mod could move it that would be fantastic!

Justicar Santoro & Knight Drusus

Upload your pics to the dakka gallery and then link from there.

I figured it out, thanks though!

You have the skill, since thats definitely high enough quality to commission (better than i do, even though ive been getting people locally wanting to commission me).

Big question is how fast/much can you paint? Commissions usually involve large chunks of an army if not an entire army, rarely just a unit/single model. If you cant just pump these models out at that quality, i'd either not bother so you dont make any unhappy customers with the massive turnaround time OR specify no large commissions, which would be a little cheaper.

Thats why i dont commission. I have ~4000pts of tau and at LEAST 4000pts of orks. I still have about 1000pts of unpainted tau and probably ~1000pts of painted orks. I cant paint fast enough lol.

Oh, and doing great bases adds a lot to a commission price. I actually love basing things. Especially if you go with a theme that affects the model's paintjob such as glowing lava pools, snow/frost, or something that goes along with the camo color if they have one.

Thanks Vineheart! Like I said in the OP i wasn't planning to commission as of yet, I still need to work on my speed for that! But I am simply going to paint up a squad and magnetize them for weapon swaps and sell them as I get them done. Thank you for the positive feedback! Basing is really fun for me too! Ill upload a few malifaux figs I finished recently. I am particularly happy with one of my Nurses.

Here are some Malifaux figs. For some reason I couldn't get a great picture of Mr. Graves but oh well. Nicodem and the Nurse are all custom built based though!

Bit of advice: take better pictures. Your painting is competent enough to sell, but your photography is going to give people a bad impression. Look through some tutorials and use the advice.

Good advice, I'm working with a phone camera atm, but i do know I can get better pictures with it. The light at my desk is awful as well which certainly doesn't help matters, it's a very "yellow"
light too. I'll look up some tutorials! Thanks Peregrine!

Squallbuddy wrote:
Good advice, I'm working with a phone camera atm, but i do know I can get better pictures with it. The light at my desk is awful as well which certainly doesn't help matters, it's a very "yellow"
light too. I'll look up some tutorials! Thanks Peregrine!

There are tutorials specifically for phone cameras. But one big thing you need to do is take your pictures against a plain background, having all of your desk clutter in the picture looks bad and takes away from the things you want your potential customer to be paying attention to.

Your painting looks pretty decent and certainly good enough for commission work. I'll echo what others have said about the pictures. Have a plain background otherwise it takes some of the focus away from the miniature and you don't want that distraction. The photography articles will show you how to create more lighting which you will definitely need.

Good luck!

The painting looks perfectly good, certainly better than most and therefore something people will pay for in the right circumstances/for the right price.

The thing to bear in mind, though is that when you're buying minis to paint and sell, the overall margin is going to be a lot less than taking a specific commission, as the minis are coming out of your own pocket. Simple maths, but going on my commission rates (£10 for a regular 28mm mini, I don't have 'levels' so it's simply done to the best quality I can produce), it works out like this:

I get a commission to paint a Space Marine Captain, for which I charge £10. At the end of the commission, I've made £10 and the client has a finished model.

If I buy that mini with a view to selling it, I have to charge at least £15 just to get my money back, I'd have to sell it for £25 to get the same as I would have for a commission. While the cost is still the same in that case (the buying is paying £25 for the mini+paintjob either way) you're nowhere near as likely to get that same profit, as half the time when buying people probably won't factor in the cost of the mini, just see you charging twice as much for a commission and move on.

The best way around this is to buy cheaper models and sell them in groups. You're still not going to make a great deal of money, but you'll likely get more interest in 10 Tactical Marines or a Malifaux crew for £45-50 than single models selling for twice their RRP.

To be honest, I say go straight to commission work. Set up a site (free), take and upload some good pics of your best minis (free), post links/introductions on various forums and sites (free) and see who bites. This way, any 'sales' you get will be just paying for your paintjob, you don't have to fork out cash for the minis that then might not sell/make their money back, and if it doesn't pan out, you've lost nothing, whereas buying to sell (in a worst case scenario) leaves you out of pocket and with a bunch of minis you don't really want. By all means, also sell some stuff on ebay or wherever to make some money back (you should easily break even on the minis with that quality of painting, and most likely make a little profit even in a very crowded market), but if you do, be sure to include a flyer or leaflet or link in whatever you sell to your main commission page, where you'll make more money.

Good luck! And most importantly, don't let the business/money side of things detract from or blot out the hobby side; paint because you love it, not because it makes you money, and if at any point you think the commission or selling stuff isn't working out or is making your hobby less enjoyable, step back from it and enjoy yourself!

Echoing what others have said, you're definitely up to standard, but keep workbench pics for your blog and do some studio standard pics for your site. If you only have a phone camera, grab a friend or parent for an afternoon who has a real camera.

Thank you everyone for your replies and various pieces of great suggestions! Definitely building a simple lightbox tomorrow. Dug out my digital camera and charging it now! I'll try to get some better pictures tomorrow .
Paradigm, thank you very much for the in depth explanation of what I can expect going into this, and explaining that painting to sell is definitely not the way to go with this. Sure I'll go that route to hopefully clear out my unwanted Grey knights, but going the commission route is definitely much more rewarding. I may look into starting a small site with a blog soon, starting small of course to assure I wont get overwhelmed or disheartened. I'll get some pictures up in the next few days and hopefully you guys will agree that things look better! Thanks again!

Make yourself a light box if you can. There are tutorials on the internet. It will help your pictures immensely.

What Paradigm says is spot on. Commission work via your own website etc is definitely the best way to go. One thing I would also add about selling on eBay is to watch out for those final seller fees. I've had it where I have covered the cost of the mini I painted, plus made a couple of pound on top of it only for eBay to take a chunk of that away in their final seller fees. If you break even by selling on eBay then you will likely end up making a loss when eBay take their cut of it. You can usually get around this by making sure your initial starting bid matches at least the cost of the miniature itself, so any subsequent bids will at least make you money. Doing it as a Buy it Now can also help with this, i.e. cost of miniature plus whatever you want to charge for the paintjob.

Painting other people's miniatures is definitely the better way forward though since most of the money you get from it will be for your actual painting rather than covering the initial cost of the miniature first.

 Breotan wrote:
Make yourself a light box if you can. There are tutorials on the internet. It will help your pictures immensely.

And just like that, the tiny aquarium in my garden shed looks useful again.

A piece of cardboard wedged into one of those cheap extractor booths also makes a great little light box. I'll snap mine tonight

Just be sure you really like painting. I've been looking into doing this myself so I can make money while I'm back at my university, and all of the research I've done echoes what's been said here. What I'm personally going to do is just paint for people I personally know back at school. I know a guy that has a Chaos army that he wants me to paint, and I'm not really going to charge him all that much because I'm still trying to build up some sort of a portfolio to show people so others actually want me to paint their stuff. I still need to cover my materials and make some money out of it, though. I'll definitely be keeping track of this thread and I'll PM you if I find any other relevant information.