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Hey all, I have been lurking in here and learning a lot from all the more accomplished painters that I've seen... I just accepted my first painting commission from a guy in my local gaming group. First off, I was honored I guess that someone would ask me to paint their stuff. I am pretty excited and have made good progress so far. I am charging $140 for 40 bloodletters (high tabletop standard, double highlight, based). Out of this price, I am accounting about $40 for materials (paints, washes and basing materials not already on hand). I have been painting for approx 1 1/2 years and have painted approx 300+ minis ranging from mid to high tabletop standard. I have been switching armies quite a bit and always paint about 75% of them before I move on... I am happy to have the opportunity to paint models that I have not painted before (and did not have to buy). My friends in my gaming group say I go through armies like a kid goes through coloring books. Which for me is ok since I like to paint different models. Are there any tips, insights or inspirations that anyone can offer to a new commission painter? (If I can call myself that already lol) I can post up WIP pics if there are those that are interested...

Stay focused and finish them rather than getting to 75% as has been your habit per your own admission... If you set a time table, try to get them done before that deadline so that you have time to fix anything that you may not have seen earlier.

Yeah, I think it is common for most painters to lose their zeal during painting of troops... Grinding through troops is monotonous, but important as they will most likely be the most prevailant models on the table. I am working on saving up for an airbrush... Tackling large vehicles armed with just a brush is an intimidating task... And there is only so much "magic" that can be done trying to fade paint colors with spray cans...So that goal keeps me motivated. I usually lose interest in painting armies after I have painted a group of every unit type (worth playing anyways). With this group of daemons, I am taking the stand point of an opportunity to expand my skillset. Especially since it is of no concern to me how good the units are since I will not be using them...

I thought I'd add some pics. This is my first kind of experience with "look what I can do" type posting...

solid models dude. for troops i give an 6/10, 10 being a GD winner

These are work in progress pics... I will update the main title... Thanks for the compliment!

I too am saving for an airbrush as well... My artillery regiment is too large with too many vehicles to tackle by brush again...

I think it will be neat to pay for an airbrush with a paintbrush... Kind of a personal thing, I think... but at least it sets a goal and will keep me from stagnating on the projects that are lined up depending on how this one turns out...

I added the GW Bloodletter glaze over the highlight. It really helped blend them togther. I have some Vellejo glaze medium on order to start mixing with my paint to make it more opaque (from what I read it is good stuff). I watered down my paints significantly but I think that glaze medium would be nicer to use in order to make the highlights not as harsh. Again, once I get some and use it I will compare.

I dry brushed the spots yellow and washed around the areas with spots. The goal was to contrast the spots against the wash. Some of them are brighter than others due to some of them were dry brushed a little heavier. I also took the oportunity to dry brush the faces a little to help them better stand out.

I finally finished them before the end of the month (in keeping up with the monthly to-do topic thread). There are 40 total. The skulls are from SWM and they are a great product!

Any thoughts or critiques? I charged the guy $140 and had about 45 hours total in painting the group... Based on the pics (my photography skills are kind of lacking lol ), did I overcharge or undercharge? Basically I am interested for future reference as this is both my first time painting for someone else and my first time charging money for my painting skillset. Thank you for checking them out!

P.S. As stated in posts above, this is my first project thread so I am a little new as to the ins and outs of project threads....