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I've played WH40k for years, but i've never been hot on painting my units. The Painting Center here is awesome, but going rates are around $5 per model, and at 40-70 models, thats a chuck of change that outprices most of my 750 pt games lol.

I'm looking for a real quality paint job on CSM, 10-14 termies, 5 raptors, 10 Plague Marines (5 non-gw models) 5 Chosen (non GW models) 5-8 Havocs, 15 or so vanilla CSM, maybe 5 lesser deamons, 2 bikes, a few random models, and bits.

I do not have $350.00 so $5 a model is out, but a $200 army project can be arranged. If anyone is intrested, please PM me. If I am way off base, please let me know, as I am new to this scene. Thanks guys

Do it over time, maybe a unit or two a month. 5 dollars for a quality paint job seems like a real good deal to me, and if the painters a local that's even more reason to use them. You'll have them right there to discuss what you want, and see the progress.

With the cost of paints, brushes, and time. 200 for that many model seems very low to me.

Maybe you can find someone overseas where the dollar is stronger to do it, but shipping them out might make it not so worth it.

What do you consider a real quality paint job...

pm'ed

I may have miscounted but that sounds like 64 models plus some tidbits. That works of to a hair over 3 bucks a model. Most of whic are not regular troop type models and are going to take significant work. If each model only took 1 hour that'd be 3 dollars an hour. That's assuming they are assembled and mold lines and spaces have been adressed.
5 dollars a model is a pretty good deal. For 3 per model you can expect a very basic level of quality, like base coated washed and details colored in. Unless someone is willing to be quite generous in what's basically a donation of thier time with a nominal cost to cover expenses.

actually i feel that isn't a bad deal. i see all these painting services charging $10-20 per model and i just think it is ridiculous. yes they are very well painted, but it is still a standard i could achieve with reasonable effort. my prices are much lower and i still offer higher than tabletop standard paintjobs. $200 equates to £120, which is around what i charge for armies. it also happens to be the exact amount of money i need to complete a personal project, so if the OP would get back to me, i would be very gratefull

I sent you my bid, putting a note here to keep subscribed for a little while.

Waagh... Aren't you a minor? An overseas minor? With crooked Khorne freehand in your gallery? I'm only positive on that last point, but your name sounds very familiar.

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:actually i feel that isn't a bad deal. i see all these painting services charging $10-20 per model and i just think it is ridiculous. yes they are very well painted, but it is still a standard i could achieve with reasonable effort. my prices are much lower and i still offer higher than tabletop standard paintjobs. $200 equates to £120, which is around what i charge for armies. it also happens to be the exact amount of money i need to complete a personal project, so if the OP would get back to me, i would be very gratefull

Do you really think it's ridiculous. Sometimes my wife makes us go out to dinner, and while I flinch at paying 30 dollars a plate for a meal I could make for less than a third of that, and probably better to boot. But you pay for a service. That's just my worldview but I tend to think Im fair.

yes i am a minor, and i'm only overseas to people not in england, and it wasn't freehand, it was a stencil. but i don't really see the problem, if you look at my more recent work, the archon, then you will see a better example of what i do. my freehand is what i have been working on, mostly by painting tattoos on the neatened up hive gangers from my gallery.

and yeah i do think it's a little ridiculous, while some of the painters that charge that amount are giving you a fair deal, most aren't, in my opinion. but that's just me, and i can afford to charge less because as a minor, i don't have many expenditures

How does a stencil get put on crooked?

when i used masking tape and a scalpel, it was more of an experiment really. turns out it didn't work out so well and from then on i used a more traditional type of stencil

The question is really how much do you think someone's time is worth, and do you think the worker is worthy of his hire, IMO mini painting artists mostly get peanuts when you work out the wage per hour.

cod3x wrote:I've played WH40k for years, but i've never been hot on painting my units. The Painting Center here is awesome, but going rates are around $5 per model, and at 40-70 models, thats a chuck of change that outprices most of my 750 pt games lol.

I'm looking for a real quality paint job on CSM, 10-14 termies, 5 raptors, 10 Plague Marines (5 non-gw models) 5 Chosen (non GW models) 5-8 Havocs, 15 or so vanilla CSM, maybe 5 lesser deamons, 2 bikes, a few random models, and bits.

I do not have $350.00 so $5 a model is out, but a $200 army project can be arranged. If anyone is intrested, please PM me. If I am way off base, please let me know, as I am new to this scene. Thanks guys

Ah, another 'I have unrealistic expectations' thread.

For a 'real quality' job, you're looking at around £10 ($15) per 28mm mini. Plus mini cost, plus postage. Heroes, elite types / complex schemes, vehicles and monsters are gonna be extra.
$5 a model is NOT going to be quality, and if you can't face that, then you best learn to paint yourself. And find the time.

WAAAAGGHH-god wrote:actually i feel that isn't a bad deal. i see all these painting services charging $10-20 per model and i just think it is ridiculous. yes they are very well painted, but it is still a standard i could achieve with reasonable effort. my prices are much lower and i still offer higher than tabletop standard paintjobs. $200 equates to £120, which is around what i charge for armies. it also happens to be the exact amount of money i need to complete a personal project, so if the OP would get back to me, i would be very gratefull

Yeah, when I was in my twenties I used to charge AU$10-20 a figure, though I do a lot better than typical tabletop standard. I stopped painting once I finished Uni and got a job since for $10-20 a pop miniatures painting isn't worth my time. Now I have a professional job, the idea of spending even a couple of hours on a figure for someone else for only $20 or 30 makes me laugh. As a painter, I see painting miniatures for money as something that's worth your time when you're young and becomes progressively less so as you get older and progress through the workforce. I still occasionally paint the odd figure for other people, but I do it as gifts.

$5 a model is dirt cheap IMO, especially if the paint is decent. For less than $5 a model, you're looking at a spray can, not a "real quality paint job".

Once you cover cost of materials then factor in time most people simpley couldnt justify working basically at-cost for someone elses benefit. I mean - I make animal enclosures but once you count costs I only make about £4 an hour and it's a fair bit of work and I'm charging roughly the limit of what people will pay for these things.

Same applies to anything really - people generally don't want to work for nothing.

If you were local I'd hire you to make me a cat run in the back yard.

There was a brief mini-painting enterprise over my way with a few people i knew. Ultimately it just wasn't really profitable, so much time to do the work, then the time communicating with the guy they were doing it for, paints, postage etc. The real fall down was that the guy doing all the communicating wasn't the guy doing the painting so he started offering "deals" like get a free paint job for somthing with you two infantry companies and it just got ridiculous fast.

That was as much poor management as anything else but i suppose the lesson is its really hard to paint stuff for money and make it profitable, that will generally mean that good paint jobs are expensive and anyone offering you an army of that size painted for the price you want will likely be a bit of an ametuer, so not really worth the bit of money you do pay. Its a premium service, and a premium price.

Without being a tool about this; Waaagh's painting is decent for himself, if he posted in the showcase i would say well done but it is still no where near a paint job i would consider worth paying for (again sorry, im not trying to put anyone down).

So i think it was said already but it really is a case of pay good money and get a good service or just find a way to paint them yourself, the middle ground will leave you $200 out of pocket and with some likely sub-par minis.

Nod. I think Waaagh's paintjobs are very much tabletop quality. Better than many I've seen but not nearly at the top end, either.

thanks, i don't pretend to offer award winning paintjobs. i can do pretty good display pieces, but they take the same time as a small army.

my service is based around tabletop quality for really low prices. sure i can make the army look better than that, but what most people want is to have a painted army on the table.

Waaagh God, are you using spray tan as a wash?

no, that was an experiment with an old pot of chestnut ink. so it basically was fake tan. i have since repainted them and i found out that devlan mud works much better

How did this become a critique of this kids work

AustonT wrote:How did this become a critique of this kids work

I agree, some of you guys are being pretty mean to this kid.

nah, i've taken and given a lot worse. it's all just constructive criticism, or at least that's how i see it. they make some good points, after all, i can see why a lot of people have problems trusting their models to a 15yr old, i've seen people my age pull off some truly shocking paintjobs without seeing what is wrong with them

Quick reminder!

Dakka Dakka encourages constructive criticism.

Dakka Dakka strongly discourages rudeness and insults of any kind everywhere, but especially so in the P&M forums.

Thanks!

If people were calling his work "crap", that would be rude. I don't think "Tabletop Quality" is an insult by any means. At the same time he's offering a service for money, and his self-descriptions have gone from "higher than tabletop standards" to "tabletop quality for really low prices". I think what would help would be a couple of figures that are more representative of his current ability but at the same level of the service he's hawking. Maybe the repainted Goliaths?

A friend of mine used to use a paint-and-glaze method on his figures and they looked fine. The key was/is using very neat basecoats, which he then went over using glazes of Winsor & Newton inks from art shops. A bit more expensive than GW (but not a lot, to be honest), and the Inks have a much stronger pigment density than GW washes, but also don't tend to "dry cloudy" as the Goliath above has.

He actually used to paint for commission as well using that technique, and while I no longer use it myself in the same form, it did me well for many years.

as i have said, the model you should be looking at is the archon on jetbike

I did look at that one, but due to lighting and pose it's hard to see clearly. That was the model I based "tabletop quality" on, bearing in mind that it's hard to see clearly.

fair enough, i'm not that great with macro pictures. i can never get the focus i'm looking for

cod3x wrote:I've played WH40k for years, but i've never been hot on painting my units. The Painting Center here is awesome, but going rates are around $5 per model, and at 40-70 models, thats a chuck of change that outprices most of my 750 pt games lol.

I'm looking for a real quality paint job on CSM, 10-14 termies, 5 raptors, 10 Plague Marines (5 non-gw models) 5 Chosen (non GW models) 5-8 Havocs, 15 or so vanilla CSM, maybe 5 lesser deamons, 2 bikes, a few random models, and bits.

I do not have $350.00 so $5 a model is out, but a $200 army project can be arranged. If anyone is intrested, please PM me. If I am way off base, please let me know, as I am new to this scene. Thanks guys

$5 a figure is cheap unless you want a really cheap job. You can't get a "real quality paint job" for the money you want to pay, you'll barely get a paint job.