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Pretty straightforward. A battalion set runs $90. Provided the paintjob matched your army scheme, what would you pay for a boxed set that was already assembled and painted to a tabletop standard? I'm not talking about a "bartertown" paintjob where the models are crap and need to be stripped. I mean a good solid paintjob, decals and all.

nothing i like painting my own models.

nothing i like painting my own models.

Perhaps I should clarify that the poll clearly doesn't pertain to you if you paint everything yourself.

Believe it or not there are more primer or bare armies than painted ones, and this would be a way to shift that ratio.

Alot of people don't paint. Either they don't want to invest in the supplies, don't have the time, don't have the skill, or just have the cash to throw around. It is a harsh prospect to look at a paint line that is an easy $250 and then add brushes, basing supplies etc. I have an easy $1k worth of hobby supplies that I built up over the last 10 years. Not everyone who plays is able to do that.

I understand that alot of people prefer to paint themselves, as do I. Not everyone can, for some reason or another.

I based my vote on Oz Dollars. I would not pay that much more for a painted model when I could just do it myself.

50% original retail, since now I have to strip them and repaint them to match my army.

If it matches my army, yea, I would pay a little extra. I too like the painting and modeling aspects of the hobby, but I tend to not be able to keep up with my buying :/ Right now I've got 40 kroot and 20 hounds sitting here on my desk to paint and it's certainly a daunting task.

So yes, I would spend 120 on it, however anyone who would paint an entire army box and then sell if for just a 30$ profit is nuts. I always have SOMETHING that needs painting so it's not like if I bought it painted I wouldn't have anything to do.

what mondo said...

o hobby decline, please go away...

Is this painted by someone else, or standard issue out of the box, sans AT43?

Because most of the Prepaints out there are gak by Standard Operating Procedure. splash of paint on them, then that makes them "Prepaint".
The other ones ended up being standard playing pieces for a table top game. When you put your own effort to it, thats when it becomes your own army.

$120 , because thats what other companies can offer.

And the already expensive price of $90 before paint isnt an excuse to raise the price to astronomical prices.

By prepainted I mean by a commission painter.

$120 makes it only profitable if one can get a box from sprue to finish in about 9 hours which is asking alot for a decent paint job. $175 would be about 2 days work and would be more doable. The profit margin is based off the commissioner getting the models at cost, i.e. $56 for a $90 set.

I think with an airbrush for base coloring that 2 days is very doable. Assembly is a big part of the time for certain models. A landspeeder storm took about 3 hours to fully clean and assemble.

Just trying to get a feel for whether or not this is worth looking in to as a way to kill time between commissions and still make money.

In terms of the amount of work you would be doing, I generally feel that 50-100% of the retail, added onto the price of the actual kit is reasonable.

All in all, the cheaper your prices, the better your overall business. Perhaps you won't make much money (I honestly wonder why people even do commission painting for 'fair prices', which in consumer speak, means less that it is worth... ), but you could get a lot of practice in, and you should make a few bucks.

If you are serious about starting a business, I would say don't, due the large amount of painters already available, and the risks involved with long-distance transactions.

All in all, charge 120$, you are making next to nothing for your time (seriously though...), but you should get some business.

aerethan wrote:The profit margin is based off the commissioner getting the models at cost, i.e. $56 for a $90 set.

So, you are not talking about a 90 dollar product, with a fee attached.

Customer buys product... sends it to you, and you charge for painting/ assembling. If that is the case, then I would say you should charge 30$, not 60$. It would be nice if you could squeeze minimum wage out of this, but I doubt that possibility highly.
Note:
30$ fee for painting/ 9 hours of work= 3.33/ hr.
That... well, it is not worth it. Have fun though.

I base my concept of profit off of California's minimum wage of $8 an hour. Which is why I say that doing a box for $175 for 2 days work makes it to be about $120 in profit, which is 60 per day which is just shy of $8 an hour if it takes me 16 hours to complete.

The whole idea with the prepainted sets is that they aren't really based on request, as that would just be a commission. These are to be painted in popular themes( ultramarines, blood angels etc).

I phrased my profit statement incorrectly. The margin is based off of ME getting the models at cost, not the end buyer. $30 a day is definitely not worth pursuing.

I wouldn't pay any more for them, if that's what you're asking. Honestly I wouldn't care if they were pre-painted or not.

If the Battalion comes assembled and pre-painted, won't it have to be in a much larger box? With some sort of protective packing to protect the paint?

I wouldn't buy it full stop. Seems too much like buying toys to me.

They're already toys.

Anyway, I don't know if I'd buy it.

Here's paintedfigs' rates:

http://paintedfigs.com/prices.html

20-28mm
Infantry
$3.30-$5.50

I don't buy pre-painted (AT43 type) stuff.

I don't buy stuff painted by other people generally (when I do, I've already warned them that I put no value in their painting and will strip the model as soon as I get it home.

I do on occasion sell a paint piece thru various channels. Never online. I do alright for myself in that regard and have turned down commission jobs that would have paid quite well. Mostly because I don't like being beholden to a time frame on my painting and will not guarantee that I won't get bored with that particular project half way thru and shelve it for an indeterminate period of time.

Finds self nodding in agreement at Howling Moon's comments... feels dirty and ashamed

malfred wrote:They're already toys.

Oh Malfred, I'd expect that coming from my phillistine work colleagues, but not from a fellow Dakkaite

When we game, do we not play?

When we shoot, do we not make pew pew noises?

When we roll a trukk, do we not vroom vroom?

If you cut me, do I not bleed, wait, wrong speech.

My wife has banned pew pew noises from the house

Flashman wrote:My wife has banned pew pew noises from the house

That doesn't stop the vroom vroom vroom.

Negative money. Someone would have to pay me to take their pre-painted figures.

Unless they were a friend of mine. Then I might let them give the figures they've painted to me for free.

As has already been noted...

You really should have had a "$0" option in this poll.

The painting/modeling aspect is the ONLY thing keeping me in the game these days!

Take that away, and I'm finding another game to spend my time and money on...

Are you asking if a Battalion set was painted, say, in Cadian 88th Co style.. what would it sell for?

OR..

If you bought a Battalion to sell to ME that would be painted before I got it in my own personal army scheme, what should you charge for it?

Not only would I not pay a cent but I would dump GW forever...

malfred wrote:

Flashman wrote:My wife has banned pew pew noises from the house

That doesn't stop the vroom vroom vroom.

Nothing stops the vroom vroom vroom, Mal.

Are we talking about GW selling pre-paint models like AT43 or about someone offering a painting service?

The poll question can't be answered in a reasonable manner without addressing the quality of the paint job. As others have pointed out, there also needs to be a $0/wouldn't buy option.

While I've purchased painted figures before, it's always been with the intention of stripping and repainting the figure. Sometimes, a figure arrives and I'll go "Ah, good enough" and not bother stripping it, but if I was going to pay someone to paint a figure it would be because they could paint it better than I could. A basic three color and wash paint job done by someone else is worth exactly US $0 per figure to me.

If this is some sort of business related poll, you should track down something like the D6 Generation's interview of the guy running Painted Figs to give you an idea of the structures needed to make money painting figures.

I think painting and modelling is a luxury, not a chore. While it might be good to get them on the table fast (thinking back to when I did 150 orks basecoat for my bro before Adepticon), I don't see figure-painting as a very profitable endeavor. We do it for ourselves. I like marching out my fully painted and fully unique Eldar army at a store game and seeing all the other players say "damn that looks awesome". I would prefer to pay less for unpainted models though, and get around to it on my own time, than to waste moneys on other people's work.