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Hi...as some of you may know I'm in the process of starting commission painting.
Unfortunately I have no idea what to charge...I can paint to a 4/5 on the CoolMiniOrNot painting scale thing...I still haven't mastered blending or highlighting cloth, but I am rapidly improving and have been told I could do cheap affordable commissions...

I'm just wondering what I should charge :/

I can't paint brilliantly so I don't want to charge a large amount...but I also don't want to undercharge people. If you want to know what my painting is like, I have pictures of a Valkyrie and a Commissar in my gallery...they're a bit old and my painting has improved, but you get the idea :/


Thanks in advance to any and all who help,

LazzurusMan

Maybe post some current pics of your work so we can see them?

Unless you have good, high quality photos you simply won't (or if you customers have any sense whatsover *shouldn't*) get any business. Step one; document your work. Serously.

4 or 5 on CMON is gak. Sorry, but if you're looking to charge for even basic tabletop work, you're needing 6's consistently. 7's will get you enquiries coming in if you can turn it round fast.

This said, CMON ranking / rating is getting harder; there just don't seem to be the same number of votes coming in, not to mention the odd accounting for taste it sometimes exhibits, so my first point about high quality photos to let people make up their own mind is the most important one. You need to have done work that you can show.

I have similar problems pricing my work. I usually let my wife decide how much each item will cost. That said, I've found a fair scale to be what the model in question is valued at MSRP for tabletop standard. i.e. A standard troops selection typically runs between $3 and $5 (10 @ $37.50 or 5 @ $25) while characters can run from $10-25. Sometimes it can be hard to price things that aren't infantry models though. I'm currently painting Dreadfleet for a customer in batches and charged $65 for the tokens - wind/vortex marker, measuring stick, turning counters, and trophies.

This gets a tabletop standard with primer, basecoats, washes, highlights, matte sealing and basing. Any conversion work, gap filling or anything that uses resources short of a hobby knife, clippers, and glue will run extra.

I only work in batches when dealing with rank and file, but vehicles, characters, and larger models I'll take one at a time. I insist on a "godpenny" or down payment equal to half the estimate of the commission with payment due upon delivery. No payment = I keep your models.

My experience with commission painting has been fair to positive. I find that this is due to my willingness to communicate with my clients in regular status updates, pictures of the current work, and alert them to any delays. Although my customer base isn't large, I have loyal patrons that provide a consistent supply of work.

To ensure that I'm able to deliver on time, I only work on a single project at a time and schedule carefully to prevent overlaps. When I'm entering painting competitions or tournaments, I finish what I'm working on for others before starting on my own models and let my customers know when I'll be available again. Also, sometimes you need a break and don't be afraid to let your customer know that you're not taking commissions temporarily.

Hope that helps!

Like winterdyne said, you aren't hardly going to get any business without up to date, quality photos. People aren't going to send you minis to paint if they don't have a good idea of what the outcome will be.

First thing, start a blog here on Dakka. It's easy and free, and that's your best opportunity for business. Start off by offering cheap commissions just so you can get your name out there, get a better variety of minis painted, and of course take pictures of them and post them on your blog. Update your blog regularly. After a few commissions then you can get a better idea of what you want to charge from feedback, time it takes you to get the job done and what not. You may even discover you don't want to do it. Right now we really don't have much to go by.

Well I'm currently working on some wyches for my other half, and a few skellies for myself, so hopefully I'll be able to post some picture up in the next few days

Thanks for the advice guys

focus on what your good at. as a commission painter i focus on speed. when i get a commission it is based on speed painting since detail painters seem to be a dime a dozen these days. find your niche, and roll with it.

Well atm I can paint a squad of ten to a pretty good standard in a week...pretty good being about the same level as this commissar

I'm currently looking into having an army painted and have 2 artists on my short list. They are both active contributors on Dakka with vast examples of past and current work.

People have given you a lot of advice on how to go about starting a commission service. It would prove useful to take that advice.

Also, commission painting is alot more than just paint skills. Organizational skills like setting up and following schedules. Replenishing supplies. Answering e-mails. Providing clear detailed photos. Receiving orders. Making orders. Sending packages. Dealing with unhappy customers. Developing relations with retailers for discounts to maximize your profits. Developing relations with other artists so you can steer potential clients there way to cover things you can't/ won't do... As an example, sculptors if you're not good with green stuff.

With only 2 pictures in th gallery and no website to speak of, I think you should worry alot more about getting some finished product to display and alot less about how much to charge. Like I initially said, I'm in the market for a commission service. At this time, I have no interest in taking a chance on your services, regardless of the price. You're lacking the most basic and fundamental pieces of commission painting... photos of past work

I have only recently began painting again, and I'm not sure how to go about setting up a webite :/

And I am happy to take advice and stick by it...I am currently trying to finish a load of models to use as examples of how I paint, and as I have already said I have no idea how to set up my own website, or whether I have the resources required to set one up :/

And assistance on that front would be highly beneficial as well.


All in all I would like to thank you all for your contributions and advice, I will be taking it all into account and hopefully if I can get these damned mini's finished and a website sorted I will be able to start soon. ^^


LazzurusMan

google's blogger service is excellent, and provides hosting for pictures for free, but more importantly it's easy to use.

I personally pay for a business webhosting package, so I don't get bandwidth issues, have my own domain name (www.winterdyne.co.uk) and so on. Make sure your package has unlimited bandwidth (monthly usage), or you'll get stung if you put up something popular. The Sternguard Tutorial I put up cost me something in the regions of £300 in excess hosting fees in the space of 4 weeks. A quick phone call later and my account was upgraded to unlimited usage at no extra cost. So, do check.

But first, paint paint paint.

LazzurusMan wrote:I'm not sure how to go about setting up a webite :/LazzurusMan

Not a problem at all. This is why the dakka gallery is your friend. As a matter of fact, a web site is the least of your concerns right now.

Since you're just getting back into painting, you should focus on painting to get your skills back up to snuff, as well as your speed up. You should figure out the fastest way to get the quality you're prepared to paint to so that you can maximize your profit. Once you figure out how long it takes you to paint a mini to your standard, you need to figure out the best way to do 10 (squad) minis to that standard. Based on time and materials used, you could figure out a price you'd like to make/ hour then compare your prices to other studios of the same standard.

At the same time, you should be working on your photography so you can clearly show your level. Not saying you did or will, but a quick photo with a statement of it looks better in real life does your service no good. Proper lighting and background will help immensely. You need to show your work off at its best if you expect people to pay their hard earned money to you.

Thanks again for the advice, will definitely work on my painting to try and get it to at least a constant seven on CMON

the honest and brutal truth, No that model is not to the standard required for commission painting. There are no highlights. Its very dark, and very flat. If your style is dark and flat, that may appeal to some but most people will not want that. You need to display a variety of techniques and style that gives a clean and polished finish. Simply your work so far is messy and dull. This is not to say that you can not get to the standard required but it will take serious effort on your part to do this and I don't actually see you doing that yet. You need to show a range of items such as characters, units (5-10 will be fine) rare/niche units and vehicles.

You need to display your varying levels of detail and stages you will paint to. For instance a centre peice model that will take X amount of time and be finished to a v.high level and also the rank and file men that will be painted to a good table top standard but be done quickly and efficiently.

You can get to where you need to be but basically serious effort on your part is needed.

don't listen to lukewide.

Miniature quality is not your problem, there are many people who commission miniatures only to fulfill a bare-bones tabletop-standard. The Commissar you posted is decent or probably even good tabletop standard.

That being said, if you take a week to paint a squad to his level, then sorry: You won't be making a living off of commissions.

Something such as your commissars level should require 30minutes with drying-time for washes afterwards. As with all assembly-line work, if you paint 10 at a time, you should require less than 6hours for an entire squad.

Now, THAT being said, it still won't suffice to make a living.

You said that you wanted to charge MSRP, right? Well, so if you charge, let's round generously, 40bucks for a squad of 10 to be painted, but require 6hours to do so (wich, as you make it sound, would be very, very fast for you), you'd make barely any money.


For commissions, theres 2 ways:
a) you paint insanely fast, using onely foundations applied very accurately and washes or a drybrush, for a medium tabletop standard.
b) you paint insanely good and charge insane money for it.

if you do NOT want to or need to make a living off of this, there's option
c) you do this for fun and only to fund more hobby. Good, you don't need to make a living, just paint miniatures for people for a decent price in decent time.

That model is of a low painting standard, and ten models per week painted to that level is very slow.

Personally, if I bought that commisar off ebay I would be stripping the paint off to repaint. That is not an exaggeration or me being mean for the sake of it, I have actually bought and stripped models painted to that standard from eBay.

You are not going to make any money out of this unless you totally change your painting technique, and massively improve in all fields. Even good tabletop standard commission painters often end up barely making minimum wage if their technique is not efficient enough to produce high standards within a short space of time (generally speaking, a model needs to be neatly painted with shading and highlights and a coherent colour scheme within the space of 30 minutes to make it work).

*Do* listen to lukeside, and don't listen to people that lie to you for the sake of "being nice". CMoN scores should not be considered the final judgement either, display standard is the focus of that site, not tabletop standard.

The model is not painted neatly. The highlights are drybrushed on messily, the black undercoat shows through in many places and the colour scheme is flat and displays no contrast, highlighting or knowledge of colour theory.

If you can't break minimum wage, you're better off getting a warehouse job or whatever where you will at least get lots of physical exercise and people to socialise with rather than being home-alone doing a sedentary activity.

All good points, archont. However, your option c is fraught with its own dangers as well.

archont wrote:
if you do NOT want to or need to make a living off of this, there's option
c) you do this for fun and only to fund more hobby. Good, you don't need to make a living, just paint miniatures for people for a decent price in decent time.

If you go this route, LazzurusMan, be careful that you do not treat your commissions with the same casual attitude most of us apply to our hobbies. That behavior is what breeds commission horror stories and gets people into hot water. It is very easy to take on projects only to have to set them aside when "real life" matters crop up. Get too far behind on client deadlines and your rep begins to take a hit. Then people begin to wonder if you have absconded with their miniatures and money when all you really had going on were some extra hours at work, a family emergency, or some other "hiccup" that happens in every day life.

I commission 90% of my painted armies and so far I have had extremely good luck with the services I have chosen. But from everything I have read about commission painting and the conversations I have had with the artists who I have hired to paint my armies, the trade is a rough one unless you have a very unique skill in speed painting or have some other means of squeezing as much profit out of each project.

Well I may have to give up on this anyway, hopefully I'll be starting college again in the new year, and If I don't then I'll be moving in with my GF and searching for a job up north, where there might be more jobs.

So if I do start commission work, it would it would be to fuel the hobby, not to make a living


And I could have easily pumped this commissar out in about...6 hours? It only took me longer as I had other things I wanted to do XD

LazzurusMan wrote:[...]
And I could have easily pumped this commissar out in about...6 hours? It only took me longer as I had other things I wanted to do XD

Read what was written above. A miniature such as that commissar should not require anymore than 30minutes.

LazzurusMan wrote:Well I may have to give up on this anyway, hopefully I'll be starting college again in the new year, and If I don't then I'll be moving in with my GF and searching for a job up north, where there might be more jobs.

So if I do start commission work, it would it would be to fuel the hobby, not to make a living


And I could have easily pumped this commissar out in about...6 hours? It only took me longer as I had other things I wanted to do XD

I'd be careful if I were you, as it is as likely to kill you hobby as fuel it.

I did some commision painting years ago and recall on more than one occasion receiving furious letters informing that they were not happy with the turn around times, they were going to write to various magazines, ruin my business etc. The problem was these letters arrived before the figures I was supposed to be painting.

If you want to make money, then look at painting smaller scales 15mm and 6mm.

archont wrote:don't listen to lukewide.

Miniature quality is not your problem, there are many people who commission miniatures only to fulfill a bare-bones tabletop-standard. The Commissar you posted is decent or probably even good tabletop standard.

No do listen to Lukewide?!?! (whoever he is)

Too often in painting forums people put comments on models saying 'thats great' 'really good, well done', when these models are far from good or close to well done. As I said to you, its not a great bit of painting and certainly not to the level that would justify someone to pay for you to produce that.

Listen to the people that will tell you the truth, whether you want to hear it or not. Don't listen to the people who pour honey in your ear and do not point out where you need to improve. Constructive criticism is what you need to improve

Thanks again lukewild, I now understand that my painting needs to improve allot

And I'm going to have to give up on this for now anyway, I have too much going on to have any time or resources for commission painting.

Thanks again to all of you

LazzurusMan

I don't know what people are getting on about, but especially at tabletop distance, that commissar is a fantastic looking job. You don't have to paint fantastic, A11+++ models to do commission painting. You can just slap on two colors and call it a day, so long as that's what the person commissioning you is paying you to do. The balance comes with giving your customer the paint job they're happy with at a price you're happy with to do the work for. So what you need is multiple examples of your work, and a very clear explanation of what getting something like that will cost. You also need to have a firm handle on how much time it's going to take you to do that, because the way I've used commission painters is when I look at a pile of models and say, "I really want to field these units painted, but damn if it's going to take me forever to paint them all myself."

Indeed, the level of painting is never the issue as long as you are providing what you have promised to the customer. The level of the example figure is high enough to land commissions. Obviously price might become an issue if it takes you six hours to produce it since people are most likely not willing to pay 60$ for it. Therefore, you would have to be able to mass-produce models on that level to start making some dollars.

My personal issue in commissions is that I am still a slow painter and I price myself according to the time I expect to spend on the mini. As a result I tend to be more expensive when doing certain models than other people providing the same level of painting. Therefore I try to attract people who dont mind paying extra to benefit from the aspects that I do better than other painters.

My advice:

-Time how long it takes to do a blood angel, ork or space wolf, all the extra bits and details take longer then you think, after that figure out how much you want per hour. Anything less then minimum wage is not worth it, you'll only burn yourself out or stress yourself out.

-Dont let yourself drop your prices, people are scumbags and will try and make commission painters undercut each other, in the end people think they should get high quality work for nothing, its not like people dont have money in this hobby.

-Get an airbrush, it speeds things up.

For example I would charge $30 for something like this at it took 2 hours:

Ravenous D wrote:My advice:

-Time how long it takes to do a blood angel, ork or space wolf, all the extra bits and details take longer then you think, after that figure out how much you want per hour. Anything less then minimum wage is not worth it, you'll only burn yourself out or stress yourself out.

-Dont let yourself drop your prices, people are scumbags and will try and make commission painters undercut each other, in the end people think they should get high quality work for nothing, its not like people dont have money in this hobby.

-Get an airbrush, it speeds things up.

For example I would charge $30 for something like this at it took 2 hours:

Wow I might be hiring you in the future ;D


O/T

Try to find people locally too who needs work. They tend to pay both more and its much faster/easier to work with. IMHO.
Though each to their own!

That's extremely fast to do in 2 hours... good job, would take me 4 or 5 I think.

Ravenous D wrote:. Anything less then minimum wage is not worth it, you'll only burn yourself out or stress yourself out.

This, holy crap this. I've lowballed too many times and it just stresses me out and takes up entirely too much time for too little pay. The best advice I can give anyone doing any sort of freelance work is not to lowball your work.

Brother SRM wrote:

Ravenous D wrote:. Anything less then minimum wage is not worth it, you'll only burn yourself out or stress yourself out.

This, holy crap this. I've lowballed too many times and it just stresses me out and takes up entirely too much time for too little pay. The best advice I can give anyone doing any sort of freelance work is not to lowball your work.

Agreed! Also, be sure to put delivery confirmation on your packages and to check in with customers to see if they have gotten their models. Otherwise you will finish a commission and ship it off, move on to other things, and then 6 months later get a threatening/irate email from the client asking where their package is (true story).

_Tim?

lukewild1982 wrote:the honest and brutal truth, No that model is not to the standard required for commission painting. There are no highlights. Its very dark, and very flat. If your style is dark and flat, that may appeal to some but most people will not want that. You need to display a variety of techniques and style that gives a clean and polished finish. Simply your work so far is messy and dull. This is not to say that you can not get to the standard required but it will take serious effort on your part to do this and I don't actually see you doing that yet. You need to show a range of items such as characters, units (5-10 will be fine) rare/niche units and vehicles.

You need to display your varying levels of detail and stages you will paint to. For instance a centre peice model that will take X amount of time and be finished to a v.high level and also the rank and file men that will be painted to a good table top standard but be done quickly and efficiently.

You can get to where you need to be but basically serious effort on your part is needed.

I would agree.

Also, don't quit your day job.