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Hi, as the title says, I am a wannabe commission painter, earning a bit of money for doing something I love. What I really need is some in depth advice on how I could improve my painting what people expect from a commission painter. I have always been a very artistic and creative person so naturally I have an eye for painting and converting but I have been thinking that if I want to get the most out of a commission business then I really must up my painting game.

Below are photos of some of my miniatures of varying quality of paint job...

The first of the photos is the Hammers from the Dust Tactics miniatures line. I consider the paint jobs of a low tabletop quality; the miniatures come pre-primed so all I had to do was some detailing, highlighting and washes. The notable features about this paint scheme are the free-hand triangular camo-scheme, american flag on the shoulder pads and Watchmen smiley face on the chest of the miniature on the right.


The next set of miniatures I would like to show is the Axis Sturmpioniere squad also from the Dust Tactics.Once again the paint job is a low tabletop quality and the main selling feature is the freehand SS on the shoulder pads.




Here is a little collage of photos depicting a diorama I made using Isabella von Carstein. So many new techniques has gone into making and painting this such as the superglue and hair blood trail, the very fine highlighting on Isabella's hair, using blues to paint shadows in the skin instead of browns and thinning down my paints to use as glazes.


Here is a photo compilation of my Chaos Space Marine army. A lot has gone into this army; every miniature has had greenstuff added to it an customised in some way. Also I have tried out pretty much nearly every painting technique when painting this army apart from non-metallic metallics.



Honest feedback on how I can improve my painting skills to commission quality would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for reading,

~ MetalOxide (Curtis)

The Sons of Davin are awesome, love it.

Not the feedback you're after?

From what I can see in the pictures your stuff looks pretty good. I would recommend looking at how to take batter pictures that really capture the detail of your models. It will help get clients and also allow of better feedback.

Better pics is a start.