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So recently someone decided to pay me £5 for me to paint one of their models (and they lended me a few paints he wanted me to use for the model) and while it was fun to paint a new model which wasn't my own army, it took me quite a few hours and i'm not sure if I think £5 was worth it, but on the otherhand I don't think my painting is worth £10, hell i'm probably lucky someone paid me £5 lol, so I just wanted to ask some more experienced guys in what you think I should charge for a HQ model?
(The damage on the cloak was made by the model owner).


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The images seem to be worse quality on this page, i'll link photos from imgur.
http://i.imgur.com/ZcKSft2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/0v7k04f.jpg

Not to put you down but I wouldn't pay for you to do a HQ for me.

There's only two reasons I would use commission painting:
1. I want someone to paint 50 of the exact same model because I can't be arsed.
2. I want someone to paint up a really special model to an immaculate standard.

I'm not saying your painting is bad but it isn't at a level at which I would pay for it. However, if someone is paying for your services, I'd go with 50% RRP.

A few thoughts

1) Pay by time. How long it takes you to paint something should be a factor in the price you charge. If it takes you 5 mins great, if it takes you 5 hours then you're pulling way below minimum wage at £5. Ergo if earning the money were important you'd have earned more just shelf-stacking or trolly pushing at the local supermarket.

2) Pay by quality - highly subjective and based a lot on the impression of the client and the market. It's a far more iffy area.
Often when you see pay by quality on websites its more that its pay by time, but reflected in varied levels of quality. Ergo a 3 paint space marine trooper might be the cheaper option because it has less detailing and is fast (ergo less time); whilst a high detail character might be far more in cost.

The painters skill is still the same, its a reflection of how greater detailing requires greater time.

3) How skills you "should be" to "charge for your time" is as skilled as people are prepared to pay you for it.
Whilst many dislike this viewpoint, it is the reality of the situation. Basically you can be fairly average in painting skill; but if others are willing to pay you for it then you can freely charge for it.
Often you will find that skill within a craft does not translate to financial earning potential - there are a lot of people who are average or even below average who can run a business; advertise and get clients well. And where there's no regulating body (lets face if a badly painted model won't kill anyone like a badly installed gas cooker can)that's how the free market operates .



So in the end look at the time it takes you and go from there. If you want to get serious (ergo beyond just the odd job here and there); then you want to factor in running costs (heating, lighting, paints, brushes - other supplies). Once you knew your rough running costs that would factor into the pay by time element you'd charge to all customers. You might also increase costs to cover paints if clients require specific schemes that you know would use a lot of specific colours etc...

It depends on your attitude to this. If you look at it from a hobby perspective of "I just want to paint minis and it's extra cool if somebody pays me for it", you'll come up with a different answer than if you treat it more like a business decision and want to be properly compensated for your time.

If it's the former, charge whatever you'd be happy to receive and you think the other party will pay.

For the latter, try to estimate how long any particular paintjob will take you and set yourself what you consider to be a fair hourly rate for your time. Calculate the charge by rate times hours, plus an allowance for overheads and consumables (i.e. brushes and paints). If you do it this way you may find the price looks quite high, higher than buying the models in the first place. But really it shouldn't be a surprise. After all, what should be cheaper, buying a mass-produced model kit that's churned out by the thousand, or paying somebody for several hours of their time?

You don't think £5 was worth it because you're purely looking at it from the perspective of the quality of the painting. The person you did it for might look at it the same way, or they might not be bothered about how good it looks. Perhaps they just wanted to pay £5 so that they didn't have to spend the time painting it themselves, in which case they could say they got a bargain.

If I was you I maybe not get ahead of my self on charging people anything sorry if this seems a put down but it's not.

Think you would need to charge on a job to job basis depending on amount of time amount of models and some try it on amount of paints used and quality of work.

At the moment with your present skills I would maybe do some for free to try and improve but up to you

Thanks everyone for all thr replies! I'll try and respond ASAP but i'm a bit busy atm, but your comments are very appreciated!

 mrhappyface wrote:
Not to put you down but I wouldn't pay for you to do a HQ for me.

There's only two reasons I would use commission painting:
1. I want someone to paint 50 of the exact same model because I can't be arsed.
2. I want someone to paint up a really special model to an immaculate standard.

I'm not saying your painting is bad but it isn't at a level at which I would pay for it. However, if someone is paying for your services, I'd go with 50% RRP.

Yeah fair enough, I personally also wouldn't pay anyone any money to paint my models as for me that's one if the main part of the hobby, but 50% RRP does sound reasonable, although i'd probably be likely to do it for a bit less.


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 Overread wrote:
A few thoughts

1) Pay by time. How long it takes you to paint something should be a factor in the price you charge. If it takes you 5 mins great, if it takes you 5 hours then you're pulling way below minimum wage at £5. Ergo if earning the money were important you'd have earned more just shelf-stacking or trolly pushing at the local supermarket.

2) Pay by quality - highly subjective and based a lot on the impression of the client and the market. It's a far more iffy area.
Often when you see pay by quality on websites its more that its pay by time, but reflected in varied levels of quality. Ergo a 3 paint space marine trooper might be the cheaper option because it has less detailing and is fast (ergo less time); whilst a high detail character might be far more in cost.

The painters skill is still the same, its a reflection of how greater detailing requires greater time.

3) How skills you "should be" to "charge for your time" is as skilled as people are prepared to pay you for it.
Whilst many dislike this viewpoint, it is the reality of the situation. Basically you can be fairly average in painting skill; but if others are willing to pay you for it then you can freely charge for it.
Often you will find that skill within a craft does not translate to financial earning potential - there are a lot of people who are average or even below average who can run a business; advertise and get clients well. And where there's no regulating body (lets face if a badly painted model won't kill anyone like a badly installed gas cooker can)that's how the free market operates .



So in the end look at the time it takes you and go from there. If you want to get serious (ergo beyond just the odd job here and there); then you want to factor in running costs (heating, lighting, paints, brushes - other supplies). Once you knew your rough running costs that would factor into the pay by time element you'd charge to all customers. You might also increase costs to cover paints if clients require specific schemes that you know would use a lot of specific colours etc...

Very interesting ideas, I personally wouldn't do pay per hour as at my Amateur level I can see this easily causing a lot of drama and bs as it's hard to prove how long I have spent in a model and I really don't wanna deal with that, I have been concerned about "ripping people off" but I guess that really isn't an issue, they can see the quality of my painting and then decide how much they woukd pay me, I would then agree ir disagree based in circumstances, ect, cheers!


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 Bellerophon wrote:
It depends on your attitude to this. If you look at it from a hobby perspective of "I just want to paint minis and it's extra cool if somebody pays me for it", you'll come up with a different answer than if you treat it more like a business decision and want to be properly compensated for your time.

If it's the former, charge whatever you'd be happy to receive and you think the other party will pay.

For the latter, try to estimate how long any particular paintjob will take you and set yourself what you consider to be a fair hourly rate for your time. Calculate the charge by rate times hours, plus an allowance for overheads and consumables (i.e. brushes and paints). If you do it this way you may find the price looks quite high, higher than buying the models in the first place. But really it shouldn't be a surprise. After all, what should be cheaper, buying a mass-produced model kit that's churned out by the thousand, or paying somebody for several hours of their time?

You don't think £5 was worth it because you're purely looking at it from the perspective of the quality of the painting. The person you did it for might look at it the same way, or they might not be bothered about how good it looks. Perhaps they just wanted to pay £5 so that they didn't have to spend the time painting it themselves, in which case they could say they got a bargain.

Cheers! I found your post very interesting. Because i'm an idiot I have a pretty big backlog of models I need to paint for my army because Warhammer is very addictive lol, I think I would be much more willing ti di it for £5 if I didn't have this baacklog, I guess I feel £5 isn't worth not spending that time clearing uo my backlog if that makes sense.


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10penceman wrote:
If I was you I maybe not get ahead of my self on charging people anything sorry if this seems a put down but it's not.

Think you would need to charge on a job to job basis depending on amount of time amount of models and some try it on amount of paints used and quality of work.

At the moment with your present skills I would maybe do some for free to try and improve but up to you

Thank you for your criticism, I wouldn't do them for free as I gain more for just painting my own models, but ai definitely wont be like advertising myself for commission lol, I am really harsh on criticizing anything ai do so I just wanted some unbiased views, cheers!

If you were considering a genuine commission-based business, I'd say it needs a lot more work. However, having said that - a ton of "commission" painting boils down to friends paying friends to paint their minis to an "okay, tabletop standard" which is what I see in your painting.

At that point it's between you and the friend. I don't think your paintwork as exhibited deserves a premium price, but time is time, and paint is money. Also, sometimes people have rich friends who don't scoff at offering them money well above what the quality is probably worth.

A quick way to get an idea is also to put it up on auction on eBay with some good pictures. But, be forewarned...it'll be a rude awakening. You'll also be competing with stuff from China at that point, making it even more difficult.

In short, only you can tell what you'd accept for the time you put in - and if your friends are willing to pay it, go for it.

ShadowPug wrote:
Very interesting ideas, I personally wouldn't do pay per hour as at my Amateur level I can see this easily causing a lot of drama and bs as it's hard to prove how long I have spent in a model and I really don't wanna deal with that

You don't literally charge by the hour, you add up the amount of hours it would take you to do a thing, multiply by your hourly rate, and offer that price to the customer before you start the project. For example, I can make $28/hour just by showing up at work for a few more hours, so anything less than that is not worth my time. Call it $30/hour, it's going to take me at least ~5 hours to paint a model to any decent standard, and my price is going to be several hundred dollars for a single 28mm infantry model. I don't care what anyone thinks about the "value" of my work, if you aren't offering at least $250 per 28mm infantry model you're wasting my time and I'm not even listening.

(Yes, this means that your prices will not be "reasonable". Commission painting only makes sense for three groups: unemployed people who have no other source of income and have to take what they can get even if it's a terrible hourly rate, people in China/Russia/whatever where the cost of living is low and an hourly wage that is pathetic in the US is actually pretty good, or people who love painting but don't have any projects of their own to work on.)

The very basics of business, is that you need to calculate your costs. You then wish to make a profit on your costs.

So what is your cost to paint 10 tactical marines? Half-can of primer, half-jar of paint plus several spot colours. Let's say one brush-worth of wear and tear on your brushes. So, $7 primer, $5 worth of paint and $5 worth of brushes. Are you gluing the models together yourself? Add the cost of glue, but we'll assume they're pre assembled. As a niche product, I'd suggest a minimum of 40% gross margin, so divide your cost by 0.6. $17 / 0.6 = $28.33.

Now what is your time worth, what quality are you offering, and what does your client expect?

3-colour minimum to not get kicked out of a tournament?

Decent tabletop standard?

Display quality?

Let's say tabletop quality with a simple scheme. Basecoat and wash kind of thing. Something you could crank out a Squad of 10 in 15 hours. So what's your time worth? At least minimum wage. Let's say $15 an hour. 15 x 15 = $225.

Plus your material costs. I forgot basing materials above, so let's say a total of $260 for the job.

Plus shipping.

So could you find someone willing to pay $260 to you to paint a tactical Squad? If not, you're probably better off flipping burgers as at least you'll have a steady pay check and no risk of a client refusing to pay.

You could do it for less. Once you cover your costs the rest is up to what you feel your time is worth, and what you can convince other people to pay for it. At that point, you're doing it for funsies though, not as a professional.

You can’t calculate your price based on your time on a single model, unless it’s a HQ or monster size figure; no one is willing to pay $250 for a single infantry model unless it’s like the box art quality or better.

You have to calculate per squad, your estimate time will be more efficient as you work, the cost of paint is usually not included unless you are using airbrush or painting terrain which use up more paint.

If you don't include the cost of materials, you misjudge your profits. Again, if this is a business idea you need to approach it as such with risk assessment, pricing models, inventory management... the whole shooting match.

If you're doing it for fun, in your spare time, that's up to you. You should realize though, that you're spending $20 on consumables to do the work. So if you would pay someone else $20 to use their gear while you painted their models, go for it! And maybe your spare time is only worth $10 an hour... if you want to make $150 for the 15 hours of work you need to charge $170 to do that, but you aren't factoring your time and resources to acquire your supplies either, which is one reason to put a margin on your supplies costs.

A real business takes work. If it's a hobby that you don't care about anything more than recouping your costs, at least properly determine what those costs are.

 Big Mac wrote:
You have to calculate per squad

I am. Even with assembly line painting it takes a lot of hours, and the cost is going to be several hundred dollars per model. Call it excessive if you want, and refuse to pay me. I'm fine with that. But I'm not going to waste my time even considering a commission unless I'm getting that much money. It just isn't worth my time to paint for the pitiful hourly rate that people expect commission jobs to cost.

the cost of paint is usually not included unless you are using airbrush or painting terrain which use up more paint.

Then you're terrible at running a business (which commission paint is). Accounting for the expenses of production is basic business operation. You don't assume that each job gets a fresh pot of every paint required, but you'd better be accounting for your ongoing paint/brush/etc expenses. Anything else is just begging to find out at some point that you've been paying other people for the privilege of spending your time and effort painting their models for them.


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 greatbigtree wrote:
And maybe your spare time is only worth $10 an hour...

IMO it's the exact opposite. My spare time is the time where I get to do all of my fun stuff, see the people I care about, etc. It costs more than my work time, not less, because if you want to take it you're displacing things I care much more about. I can't imagine valuing it at a mere $10/hour unless I was unemployed and unable to get any other work.

Not talking to you, Perry. Talking to the OP.

We know your time is super valuable. You made a thread about it.

Edit: More to the point, OP. If you're looking at this as a business, and recognizing your skills require development, you could look at this as an apprenticeship phase. Taking a lower wage now to gain experience going forward so you can charge more down the road. Like paid training, if you will. I'm not suggesting you stay at a low rate forever.

In this case, what you've created would fall into the 3-colour minimum end of the spectrum. There is a market for that, if you advertise to the tournament crowd and point out that you can do this quickly and cheaply. Some people are looking for someone to put paint on their FOTM army list so they can play at a tournament. If you can turn an army around in a month, you can at least justify a higher cost vs someone sending an army overseas to be painted.

Well, that was about as subtle as a chainsaw to the gonads

 greatbigtree wrote:
Not talking to you, Perry. Talking to the OP.

And the OP's free time is worth more than $10/hour, unless they're unemployed and/or a child. We need to get rid of this idea that it's ok to expect commission painters to sell their time for pathetic wages because it's "free" time. that. Commission painting is a second job. Demand payment comparable to a real job.

 greatbigtree wrote:

Edit: More to the point, OP. If you're looking at this as a business, and recognizing your skills require development, you could look at this as an apprenticeship phase. Taking a lower wage now to gain experience going forward so you can charge more down the road. Like paid training, if you will. I'm not suggesting you stay at a low rate forever.

This method can work and it can backfire in several ways

1) Everyone continues to learn and dedicated people often never feel that their work is "good enough" or that they ever stop learning or gaining new skills. Some can even be hyper critical of their work.

2) Baring point 1 in mind there are still clear point at which people are learning far more and are clearly beginners to intermediate in skill level.

3) Based on those two points its important to remember that you will never be perfect, but that you can raise your skill to a high level with practice, dedication and instruction/learning.

Now that's out of the way when you are on the path and you can clearly see that your product is not as good as others in the market you have to consider the value of taking commissions whilst clearly in a very active learning phase. Some consider this poor taste or business practice because you are charging for a product that you know is substandard, even if you are charging a lower fee and even if you are full up front with the quality of your work*.

Another issue to keep in mind is that if you work hard and build a client base around a lower price point, the moment you raise those prices you will lose a good portion if not all of that client base. As you move up in cost the potential client base for your product changes (and the bigger the rise in price the greater this effect happens). This means you might well build yourself a nice niche low cost market and then find that you've got to do all of that marketing work all over again building yourself a brand new market.

Finally there's advertising. If you produce a product then that product advertises your quality and thus your business to others. So if you do a lot of substandard work; even when you have upped your skill level, you will find that a lot of your earlier work will still be shown around, found through searches and be in peoples hands to see. Ergo its going to make your marketing more difficult.


Now many people will apprentice within some markets where its possible. They gain experience, real world working, instruction and have time to learn. The company/person they apprentice with filters their work and often as not the company will hold copyright/rights on the work produced anyway. This lets you work and learn without putting out a low quality product into the market. Of course model painting is a very niche market already so potential for finding such an arrangement is very reduced, but its still likely possible.


A final element is to consider how the market will perceive your talent. Some people can get very irate about low quality products being charged for and as such if you are advertising and putting out and doing lowgrade work you can attract the wrong kind of attention. The wrong kind normally sticks to when misrepresentation occurs or when something serious comes from the poor quality of work (warhammer being a hobby this is less of an issue as compared to say, bad wedding photographers). It's still part of marketing your busines to consider.



Honestly right now I'd say the best bet is to research this more; look into working out some actual costs to do business (eg running costs etc....) whilst improving on your skill as a painter.

*That doesn't mean talking down about your own work; it means faithful well produced clear photos (marketing) that displays your actual normal talent level. No stealing photos or models from others; no showing that super cool fantastic one time that it was far better than normal; no hiding key flaws in your style with creative photography angles etc...

I'm on board with what's been said here. Part of what I'm suggesting is that the current skill level puts the OP in a sub-niche market. Quantity rather than quality. No matter what, a commission painter needs to produce quickly to profit. Getting used to painting cleanly and quickly would be a good start.

Many services charge different rates for different quality. Essentially, you make the same $ per hour, but you spend more hours on higher quality. That way you can still sell your "quantity " quality to established customers, and gain new tabletop quality patrons as your skill improves.

In my opinion, clean base coats are crucial to a model to be considered professional. Once you've mastered that, start adding shades to improve detail quality. Maybe get into edge highlighting.

Adding specific skills to a given quality of work makes the time estimating easier. Basecoat = level 1. Basecoat and wash = level 2. Basecoat, wash and highlight = level 3.

Once you get past the basics, that's where I think showpiece models start to appear. So level 4+ could include more advanced or time consuming processes.

 Peregrine wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Not talking to you, Perry. Talking to the OP.

And the OP's free time is worth more than $10/hour, unless they're unemployed and/or a child. We need to get rid of this idea that it's ok to expect commission painters to sell their time for pathetic wages because it's "free" time. that. Commission painting is a second job. Demand payment comparable to a real job.

It's all well and good saying that commission painters deserve minimum wage because it's a second job but no one is going to pay that much for you to paint their models, so the point is moot.

How much should you charge? I don't know. It is subjective to who you are charging, and what quality you are putting out. As some of the guys above have advised, you can use comission painting to learn and get better at the lower end of the market before moving on up. But that has its downsides as already stated, as your initial work may be of very poor quality compared to what your latest work is like. Based on the quality you have shown there, £5 was probably a reasonable price for a friend who lent you some paints to finish off his model for him, to the standard you have done. There are things that you could also try to make some cash and to get better, as I have detailed below. Also, some things to think of that also touch on what others have said previously.

I have several models which I will be selling on Ebay once I have finished working on them. I am selling them on Ebay because I own the models already, I don't want to keep them or play the armies and I feel that I can get valuable experience from doing the actual painting rather than trying to sell the plastic as is. Examples below:



For the clanrats, I will probably be looking for at least £2.00 per model, so £40 for a unit of 20 with command group. If I was painting them on commission, I would probably be looking at charging a lot more. Why do you ask? (or maybe you haven't asked, and dont actually care!) Because right now, these guys are my personal modelling project, not someone elses toys. I am painting them to a decent tabletop standard, leaving the bases bare for anyone who buys them to finish off to match thier current force, and trying to learn better techniques to speed up my painting. If someone wanted me to do this work as a commission, then I would be thinking about paint cost, brushes, electricity, assembly work, spray undercoat and varnish. Plus, the time that I would be spending working on these in MY spare time, which I also need to do my own modelling projects for my own armies. I would also be charging postage seperate at the end, to deal with things like packing and tracked postage, which can cost to make sure models are correctly protected. Just spit balling, I would be looking at around £5 per model minimum for a unit of 20, bringing the cost to about £100, plus postage. Obviously, if i had to buy the models too then that is added onto the top. Does that sound like a lot? Well you have to consider I would potentially be losing 2 weeks of my evenings to a project (depending on work patterns for my actual job etc) and limiting my time to do anything else. But, as the Goblins in World of Warcraft always say - "time is money, friend!". That is the crux of all comission painting, someone is paying you for your time so that they don't have to spend that time themselves. People with disposable cash and deadlines can't always make the 2 match up and so they look to the world of commision painting for help.

The reason I am looking at a lot less on Ebay is market factors. People on Ebay want a bargain, they know that they can wait to try and snipe out auctions and generally pay a lot less for minis. It is a perfect place to get a quick sale however, and to get your painted models out there at a small profit, which is what I am trying to do (If I sell all of the models from the Isle of Blood set at what I hope for I will have more than made my money back on what I paid for the boxset for example. And got all the painting experince to go along with it). If people are approaching you for work, even basic work, then be reasonable but also be concious of what you will be actually looking to earn in the long run. There is a reason that pretty much no pro commission service post a price list and it is all done via quotes.

Some of the things I have learned with reading on the internet, is that if you start low you will get a customer base. As soon as you realise you are working far too hard, for not enough profit then you increase your prices accordingly and you lose a lot of that custom, who just want cheap and quick work (normally FOTM tourney players). Overread has some good points in his post, but the most important thing you can do is be honest and realistic. Be realistic with your experience, be honest with yourself and your customer as to what standard you are putting out. Be honest with your photographs, be realistic with your pricing. Be critical of yourself and your work, strive for better but do not publicly shame your own work (forget any more customers if you are on coolminiornot or dakka saying your own models are poor quality). Finally, be realistic with the time something will take to do. If you will take 3 weeks to provide a squad of Marines, be upfront with it.

Good luck with your work if you do decide to make a go of it.

Also, if anyone wants any Skaven.....

Not really related to the OP's questions, but I see a lot of "minimum wage" equating going on here.

I have a hard time believing that the really good commission painters (and Dakka has plenty) work for minimum wage.
I dunno exactly "why" I think that. It just doesn't seem to match what they're actually producing (which IMHO is art).

War Drone - minimum wage is the starting point; ergo we are using that as the bottom end measuring stick for how much to charge per hour. One can charge way more or even way less. Min Wage is just the general rough guideline to put some structure to the conversation.

It's also good if the OP wants to consider it as a line of work to think of the hours spent in terms relating to min-wage. At least then they know how viable their pricing is.

I think an hourly rate is intially the best way forward, somewhere around £10-£12ph to start, anything less and you may as well McJob

The sage of t'north has a good YT vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ktONH9Xjgw&t=2s

Also worth noting GW overbusy mini's can really mess with the time/money/value sum

Yeah ... that's pretty obvious now that you mention it ...

To put my position out more clearly, if you're doing this as a professional you should be charging enough to live on, which was my point about minimum wage.

You may enjoy the "act" of painting. I personally don't, I just like the results, but the OP may enjoy spending time putting brush to model. In that case, they might work for less simply to be paid to do something they enjoy.

If someone paid me $10 an hour to go fishing for them for an afternoon, I'd probably do it even if they kept the fish I caught. I enjoy the act of fishing, and would do it for free, so why not get paid? But I don't fish for a living. I'm not fishing to provide for my family. So if the OP enjoys the act of painting, and realizes the could raise prices in the future as their skills improve, he could start off cheaper.

 greatbigtree wrote:

Let's say tabletop quality with a simple scheme. Basecoat and wash kind of thing. Something you could crank out a Squad of 10 in 15 hours. So what's your time worth? At least minimum wage. Let's say $15 an hour. 15 x 15 = $225.

It absolutely does not take 15 hours to base coat and wash ten Marines. If you're still painting that slowly then there's no point at all looking at commission painting.

That is a 2-3 hour job.

I used to charge about $50-70 for a ten man squad, $70 for an Imperial Knight

If you want to know how much to charge, paint a complete start collecting 40k box and put it up on ebay.

Some will pay more if they can choose the scheme, but its a good way to start.

 DanceOfSlaanesh wrote:
If you want to know how much to charge, paint a complete start collecting 40k box and put it up on ebay.

Some will pay more if they can choose the scheme, but its a good way to start.

Actually that's totally different.

Being commissioned to paint an army the persons hiring you is paying for your time and painting not for the models themselves. Often they'll supply the models or pay extra for you to buy the models (0 profit) and then assemble (paying for your time like painting). Basically with commission work they are paying for your time and skill.


When you're buying models on ebay that are already painted, you're more buying the model itself; most often with the intention that you'll strip the paint and start fresh with your own scheme. You'd have more luck selling for the model and painting if your scheme is something another person wants and that fits with their scheme (which practically means sticking to the official GW schemes). Otherwise its a huge lottery where most people are buying to paint strip.
As a result because they are buying for models the price goes down as the model is less valuable having been assembled and painted, to the average person.



So comparing to sold prices on ebay for painted models isn't going to be worth it; even pro-painted models can sell for less on ebay because, unless you are lucky, that pro scheme is still not going to fit with whoever bought it so off comes the paint.

There are plenty of ebay artists out there that sell at 2x-3x base model price.

Its a good non-biased test to see if your models have any appeal.

If you cant sell a painted model at an greatly increased value on ebay don't bother go into commission painting.

Increase your skill first.

Suggesting minimum-wage to op? Seriously lol

I think it depends on the chapter's paint scheme, and if you can prime in the base colour. When I say basecoat and wash, I'm assuming starting from white primer, actively applying the armour colour, and then also painting the details like purity seals, chest eagles, bolter skulls and wings, then washing those colours appropriately, not just a dip.

Some chapters, like blood angels and space wolves wind up with a crap load of extra details to deal with. I was ballparking 1.5 hours each to paint a decent tabletop standard, including time to finish the base in a simple scheme. Yes, it could be done faster but I'm assuming skills and speed are still developing.