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I'm currently working on painting up and planning on selling a bunch of dwarfs. I would like to know what the community thinks how much a mark up from retail is fair for painted models. I'm also curious as to if people prefer to buy armies or individual units/squads. So, input/thoughts?

I would say sell armies as wholes, otherwise individual units won't match someone elses army. As to price, that depends entirely on the quality of the paint job.

Yeh for a standard job you'd probably be scraping either at or just over cost at best, it'd be more likely to be significantly less. The better it and your pictures are the more likely you are to make more from it.

Most of the time second hand models are worth less money if they are painted, maybe breaking even if they're a haf decent tabletop standard. Only when it is a professionaly done army or very well painted centerpiece model do you usually see painted models making good money.

I think its because the buyer is basically stuck with however the army is set up and can't change them to fit in with their existing collection. Unless its a commission done to the persons specification, buying a ready painted army closes a lot of doors that you would have had open if you'd done it yourself.

You usually have to be very very good at that paintjob for it to be worth good cash. Most paintjobs are barely tabletop standard, to which the consumer usually just buys the models and strips the paint in order to get the colors/design they want. Excellently painted minis usually command more because the paintjob is not just tabletop but extremely high quality that isn't normally seen.

So poorly painted minis = less cash. Amazingly painted minis = lots of cash!

And on that topic... don't ask your friends/mates how they think your painting is. Most of them will be biased in your favor saying "OMG it roxxors!!" because they're your friends when in reality from an professional painter's view the minis may only be "ok". Post your work on different websites and gauge the responses.

Painted models to me are all but worthless as they wouldn't fit my scheme and I'd end up stripping them. Granted I'll never win a Golden Daemon but I am a pretty good painter. Painted would probably be worth more if it was an entire army but then you'd have to find someone willing to shell out all that cash at once.

I wouldn't field a model that another man painted. Unless that man was a good friend of mine and it was a gift. Even in that event, I wouldn't trust the model and would have to keep it separated from my other models.

Furthermore, any used, pre-painted model I picked up on ebay or through some other means would have to be stripped with simple green prior to my using it on the table.


However, if your dwarves are well painted and you find the right buyer, you should make more than retail cost from them. It all depends on how patient you are willing to be to find that right buyer.

Best of luck, man.

I regularly see painted figures and armies being sold at shows like Cold Wars and Historicon.
28mm on foot seem to range from 3 to 10 $.