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So I am a bit new to the commission painting scene and I have gotten my first out of town commission so I was wondering to make transactions easier do you guys ask for money upfront or upon completion please get back to me on this.

Coming from a business standpoint I would say charge half of the amount before starting work

Half and half, or come up with a deposit IMO.

Aye, Minimum of 50% when I receive the models, the remainder + shipping costs when they are ready to be sent home.

This way if you get screwed you at least got half the money and some nicely painted models out of it.

Its fairly hard to judge the actual cost of a commission job unless your customer provides you with intensive pictures of the miniatures they are going to send you. There are different categories of work that need to be done on a single miniature.

-Already assembled, mold lines cleaned up, they just want it painted.
-Needs cleaning up, painting
-Basing/flocking
-Assembly
-Stripping
-Converting

What you charge depends on what you need to do for each of these models. A friend of mine (Hulksmash on the forums here) does commission painting and has fairly continuous business because he's not only a fantastically good painter, but also because his prices are better than anyone else I've seen on Dakka or elsewhere. Quoting how he does it, its like $2.50 per model, $0.50 to flock/base it, and another $0.50 or so to have something cleaned up.

If you have a potential customer that assembled and painted a few minis, assembled a few others, started some conversions...primed some and didn't prime some....or any combination of all those things, the price you charge is going to have to depend on what work you have to do on the army, which may well change throughout your commission as requirements/requests are added.

Secondary to that, unless you have a monstrously stellar reputation as a well-known commission painter, getting 1/2 up front, and 1/2 prior to shipping is not only making the customer put 100% faith into you, but is also delaying the process 1 day to a week+ as they mail you a check / wire funds / get a paypal transfer.

As a customer, I'm happy to make a deposit, or put money down for the completion of work, or to pay for supplies, but you don't know your final bill until you take the sealed package to the post office or UPS store and they weigh it and quote you shipping. And paying for services rendered on goods I don't have is a queasy prospect (as I mentioned) unless you have a gigantic reputation/website/blog to back yourself up with

In your shoes, I would initially ask for a deposit 1/3 to 1/2 of the value of the anticipated job based on the model count that the customer gives you and your discussions with them on the phone. Always phone - monetary transactions should not be completely internet based. Have them send the deposit with the miniatures unless they're doing something electronic. Once you have the miniatures, inspect them. Make notes if some need to be cleaned up, or assembled, and make an exact invoice in excel - then before you ever start work, have a second conversation with your customer detailing the job specifications based on what they sent you versus what you talked about.

Once they give you color schemes, paint a sample model or two, take pictures, confirm that's what they wanted, then get to work. When you're done...take copious pictures and post them on your blog, send them to your customer (don't forget to keep your customer updated as you're working...you *do* have hundreds or thousands of dollars of their minis).

And make sure you work out ahead of time how payment is going to work. I don't mind paying 50% to get something going, but without a huge reputation....I'm going to want my models back in my greasy hands before completing the transaction. You might need to work this out individually with a customer, depending on who they are, where they're from, etc.

I am not going to send someone money and my models unless I personaly know them. Look at it this way, if they don't pay you you keep the models.

jbunny wrote:I am not going to send someone money and my models unless I personaly know them. Look at it this way, if they don't pay you you keep the models.

Yes, but most commission painters don't care about the models, or what game they are used for, or etc.... So after spending their time painting your models, if you don't pay, they have to find a new buyer (and for many games, model sets, or color schemes that can be extremely difficult), who will usually only pay a portion of the original price. That means the painter loses out on the money they could have made painting models for someone that was going to pay, and spent their time painting your models! A potential 3x loss on their part!

Thanks to everyone especially Dashofpepper for all your useful advice.

I have decided to have my customer pay half up front with the models and have sent them a ton of pics.

It was a plastic chaos terminator lord that he wanted me to paint to my best ability and pin with all the options able to be swapped out. also he wanted me to hand paint the emblem of the word bearers onto the model I decided for all of that around $60 seamed fare.

What do you guys usually charge for this sort of thing?

Holy Christ, $60 for a single model?

There is no set 'right' price. It all comes down to the quality of your work, and how much people want your work specifically.

$60 for a tabletop quality model would be excessive. $60 for something Golden Demon-winning standard would be a bargain.

well for something that has non-metalic metel light reflections and has a really cool conversion and is painted to the best of my ability its $60.
but for a really well painted army I charge about $4.50 per model. so its not to bad. and like 30 for tanks.
the guy wanted it to be like golden demon standerd. so thats what I gave him.
plus the price of the model I had to buy it too.

Vlad Von Carstien wrote:well for something that has non-metalic metel light reflections and has a really cool conversion and is painted to the best of my ability its $60.
but for a really well painted army I charge about $4.50 per model. so its not to bad. and like 30 for tanks.
the guy wanted it to be like golden demon standerd. so thats what I gave him.
plus the price of the model I had to buy it too.

Now that last bit makes a bit of a difference, thats $20 off the price,. When doing a quote you should always split 'Cost to buy models' from 'cost to paint models' since one of which is a set price, and the other is negotiable. Splitting 'Assembly' off can also be a good idea.


Also, get better lighting for your pics. The ones in your gallery are too dark/small to see anything