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Hey Guys and Gals, I've always wanted to start a commission painting service. Can you guys please give me ANY feedback possible, constructive. Thanks!

Ok, how long does it take for you to paint to that standard, and how much are you looking to charge for that standard? They appear to be a rough table top standard and most services charge about $5-8 a miniature for something like this. The two ways of making money in the commission business is to be really good, or be really fast. If you can't pull off one of the things I would not suggest going into commissions.

I prefer painting special characters and taking my time on them. I could do one in about 1 hour and a bit.
But I can also do batch painting. Probably 2 and a half hours for 10 simple tactical marines.
Most of these models where painted some time ago as I haven't gotten many miniatures recently.

Short and sharp:

Not good enough. Compare two threads- TyranidPainter's (still not good enough, but with practice definitely getting there) and Olim's (good enough, be needs rep building). Both threads have a great deal to teach.

More specifically:
The sad truth is there isn't a market for the standard you're putting out. Blends are rough (possibly dry brushed.) detail is not particularly sharp. Hard to say more, photos are extremely poor. People just don't pay for this; you may get a job or two for a friend, but it's not suitable for building a business on (especially in an extremely low margin market with a particular focus on quality as the variable for competition).

You need to improve both paintwork and photography before jumping into the 'pro' bracket.

As a final point, saying 'no bashing' is childish. Take any and all feedback as it comes. Some of it you can expect to see the sense of, some of it will just be noise, pleasant or otherwise. 'Ooh that's awesome' teaches you less than 'try reverse blending the highlights on black' for example. Your reaction to feedback teaches the people reading your threads a lot about you.

Thanks for the input. But no bashing means really saying some thing is Sh*t. Thanks anyway

Winterdynes right, I think my models look pretty decnt but I still can't get commissions at the moment, it's a tough market when you're new and I think you could improve your skills through practice before you're level with tabletop commission painters before you meet the whole task of making yourself known and beig able to charge sensible rates.

Edit: I think you are ready for commissions now I've seen the we photos , looks way better and good luck with the painting (y)

I can't really tell what your paint jobs look like due to your photos. The biggest glaring problem with your photos is that every single one of them is back-lit. So, you're just taking a picture of shadows. Your natural light source seems to be behind and to the right of your guys. You can improve your photos 100% by moving to the right hand side of that table your guys are on so that the light is coming over your right shoulder. And remember, the better a product looks, the more likely it is to sell. That's even more true when you're working in the interwebs. People can't pick your mini up and look at it, so having pictures be as good as possible is very important.

Thanks guys, so make the light come from behind me. Sweet.

RageQuitRabbit wrote:
Thanks for the input. But no bashing means really saying some thing is Sh*t. Thanks anyway

But if something is actually 'sh*t'... youd rather not be told that its gak ?! Saying 'no bashing' just sounds like your going to cry if anyone says anything negative about it.

...
As for the work, photography photography photography, we can't judge your work becasue we can't see your work. I can see some blurry colours, and lots and lots of shadows? On some unfinished mini's (no basing)
with some cheesy text around the base on one or two of them.
Thats all I can actually comment about without a clearer photo; which is a shame for you as I'm sure youve put in an amount of effort on the painting and would probably value some constructive criticizing.
To be blunt, no ones going to buy anything without a better pic. For fear of the poor photo quality being used as a tool to hide a poor job. Literally anything you put out there to advertise your service needs to be a crisp clean photo, with the white balanced correctly, on a suitable background, with as much detail as possible.

sorry to say this but the painting actually isnt very good. the only reason i would by these models is to add to my bits box

Thanks you very much guys. I tried to take some more photos changing my setup.
I think there better then my first ones but I can still improve.

Better, but your depth of field is way too shallow. Too much of the miniature is out of focus.

do you know how I could fix that, other than getting a better camera.

RageQuitRabbit wrote:
do you know how I could fix that, other than getting a better camera.

Are you using the macro setting on your camera (it looks like a little flower)? I would also suggest getting a tripod or something to stead the camera as you take photos.

I use macro. Ive got a tripod, I'll try use that. I have to take about 100 pics and only 3 are any good, lol. Thanks.

Thanks. Yes I would quite like painting some penal legion. I've painted some Catachans before. It shouldn't take too long. I'm going to America for 2 weeks in December. And after that my main goal is to paint about 1000 points of Eldar for a tourney. But I'll be able to get em done before the 10th of December.
Also Are you in Auckland? I am.

Ok so the Pith helmet guy and the custodian. So you want kind of like 2 Custodians? and 8 Penal guys.

Do you want me to base them? If so how?

Do you want Track and Trace on the postage?

How does $25 sound?

I'll PM you my Email.

Your work is good friend. I especially like the chaos marine. Very nice use of colour and shade. He came out nicely.

Best of luck with your business.

Thanks dude