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Hey everyone

im a bit of a lurker here and have finally plucked up the nerves to post.

i was hoping some of you guys could give me a bit of advice for my painting as i am constantly looking to improve and also i was hoping you could let me know if i am charging 'fair' prices for my work.
i am not trying to make a living from painting EVER! i do this for fun and to see people happy with my work and it makes me happy to see my work circulating.

aside from that i feel i still want to charge as i have a full time job and painting for others takes time out of my free time and costs me i materials that i need to cover.

with this in mind here are 2 recent space wolves i have painted.

Thunder Cavalry. i charged £35 to paint, assemble base and convert, the customer paint for the model and i supplied the eldar unit.
i know the blood doesnt look great in this and i plan on working on that.




Ragnar Blackmane, i charged £15 for painting and basing




any advice on how to improve is greatly appreciated and any opinions on if the price is fair or not would be awesome.

Fair pricing is whatever the customer is happy to pay.

I think it really depends on what you're trying to provide.

Are you providing a painting service, or are you an artist?

If the former, then you need to price yourself into the market. At £15 a neat character model, and £35 for a large creature including building and conversion, I think you're doing about right.

If the latter, then you should never under-value your talent to try and make more money. It'll only damage your profile in the long run.

If you're sellling 'your style' and you're unique, people will pay whatever they are comfortable with - high end painters can charge way, way, way beyond what you're charging, because they're selling part of themselves, a unique, bespoke item.


As for whether your stuff is good enough - sure it is.

I'd classify the standard as 'decent tabletop'. Pushing contrast on highlights a bit more by adding some extremes by hand could push that to 'high end tabletop', which is where the decent money starts. That is, it roughly trebles from what you're taking now.

Your pricing for what you're providing right now seems to be about market level - at the end of the day you have to charge what your customer base will pay - don't be afraid to push it a little bit - miniature painting is an undervalued skill, and at the end of the day if you have good client relations, they'll pay it for someone they know they can rely on for a good job that will get finished.

 AG. wrote:
Fair pricing is whatever the customer is happy to pay.

I think it really depends on what you're trying to provide.

Are you providing a painting service, or are you an artist?

If the former, then you need to price yourself into the market. At £15 a neat character model, and £35 for a large creature including building and conversion, I think you're doing about right.

If the latter, then you should never under-value your talent to try and make more money. It'll only damage your profile in the long run.

If you're sellling 'your style' and you're unique, people will pay whatever they are comfortable with - high end painters can charge way, way, way beyond what you're charging, because they're selling part of themselves, a unique, bespoke item.


As for whether your stuff is good enough - sure it is.

Thank you for the response i appreciate that it is difficult to judge a fair price

essentially i am doing this on a local one to one friendly basis but i am worried that i may over charge for what my standard is worth. but i dont want to under charge too much as i would like to still make people consider the value of what they want to be done. if that makes sense at all

You'll know you're overcharging when people won't pay what you're asking.

winterdyne wrote:
I'd classify the standard as 'decent tabletop'. Pushing contrast on highlights a bit more by adding some extremes by hand could push that to 'high end tabletop', which is where the decent money starts. That is, it roughly trebles from what you're taking now.

Your pricing for what you're providing right now seems to be about market level - at the end of the day you have to charge what your customer base will pay - don't be afraid to push it a little bit - miniature painting is an undervalued skill, and at the end of the day if you have good client relations, they'll pay it for someone they know they can rely on for a good job that will get finished.

Thank you on the next ones i am doing for this customer i will add the more extreme highlights and see how that looks.

great advise thank you