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Yes. I am not at all thrilled for being called out for my comment being supposedly "Istigating" a flame war, any more then I am for the thred being used by the OP as a sales tool.

http://paintedfigs.com/discountfigs-smear-campaign

Tell me again.... how does the OP take his so called bark at the moon, and turn it around as some sort of sales shpeel?

I looked at the site. Pretty much everything he posted here is there. Verbatum.


SO Mods.... Uh... about that "Flame fest again? How about looking here and making a real judgement.

http://paintedfigs.com/


Point of contention, as well. Does Raif really speak for this guy?


Alarm Bells? heck- a three alarm fire.

If no one else is calling it I will. thread reported.

helium42 wrote:

Medium of Death wrote:This thread definitely rings alarm bells.

Agnosto: Those hounds at least look OK. Better than the Basic offered by some Miniature Painting services. Although if I was paying somebody to do it, I'd likely want it in a standard I could never achieve.

EDIT:
Found a recent work example by snooping around in the OP's post history and finding their youtube channel.
Not many videos recently, and hardly any to do with miniatures at least within recent months.
There was this. Post 16 Hours ago.

There were some pretty big gaps on the land speeder that need filling. One of the razorbacks had tracks that didn't meet up well at the joints. These are things I'd expect from any paint/assembly service, even paying for what might pass as a basic job. Take into consideration that it likely took three months or more to finish these models.

It took 3 people to paint 6 vehicles, with NO shading or tone, and no insignia or markings anywhere?

I've never seen a company advertise against themselves like this before... sometimes it's better just to say nothing at all. I had never even heard of paintedfigs.com before this now I associate it with whining and unprofessional business practices. The examples of assembling and painting are just further evidence to not take them seriously at all. I'm just amazed, it's like business suicide after having a near death experiece already!

I was expecting to read up on a painting service... this is just...

LOL, just got through reading this thread.


To everyone except the OP: You guys do realize that these paint jobs are not painted by miniatures painters, or professional painters right? Everyone keeps saying things like, " it took 3 months for this piece of crap with no shading, highlighting, etc.." thats because the OP is employing sweat-shop style cheap labor, possibly overseas, and probably is paying around the lines of $2-4 dollars per figure (guessing).

To the OP: If you found out a way to make a few bucks off of mexican kids by having them basecoat figures, then good for you i guess. But ill be really honest with you, no one with any reasonable standards of quality would be at all impressed with your galleries you just posted. The work, frankly, is "tabletop" quality AT BEST, and really terrible AT WORST. I mean some of the galleries look like they were done by kids in 4th grade, its really bad. The majority is completely average and bland with no highlighting or inking even.

Maybe thats just the baseline service that you offer though, nothing wrong with that i guess, . . . until you come online and boast about quality and service.

maybe this type of business model (quantity over quality) is what works and makes the most return on investment though, i dont know.

neal1975 wrote:LOL, just got through reading this thread.


To everyone except the OP: You guys do realize that these paint jobs are not painted by miniatures painters, or professional painters right? Everyone keeps saying things like, " it took 3 months for this piece of crap with no shading, highlighting, etc.." thats because the OP is employing sweat-shop style cheap labor, possibly overseas, and probably is paying around the lines of $2-4 dollars per figure (guessing).

To the OP: If you found out a way to make a few bucks off of mexican kids by having them basecoat figures, then good for you i guess. But ill be really honest with you, no one with any reasonable standards of quality would be at all impressed with your galleries you just posted. The work, frankly, is "tabletop" quality AT BEST, and really terrible AT WORST. I mean some of the galleries look like they were done by kids in 4th grade, its really bad. The majority is completely average and bland with no highlighting or inking even.

Maybe thats just the baseline service that you offer though, nothing wrong with that i guess, . . . until you come online and boast about quality and service.

maybe this type of business model (quantity over quality) is what works and makes the most return on investment though, i dont know.

I don't think you read this at all. The company is based in Sri Lanka, an island off of India.

And I charge $4 for a basic paintjob that is worlds better than what I've seen on their gallery. Then again that is because I don't mind working 10 or 12 hour days when it's just painting models. And I don't think you can really "sweat shop" people who are painting models. It isn't rigorous work. It doesn't take much physically. There are loads of factory workers even in first world countries who would LOVE to have such a nice cushy job.

I read the thread.

I dont care where the labor comes from, i just made up non-U.S. locations as guesses.

The quality of their work is poor.

It is my personal opinion, whether you agree or not, that this type of "low-end" service is just bad for the hobby in general. Its an expensive hobby that isnt suited well to people who cant put forth the effort to either paint their figures, or pay a reasonable amount to have an *** ARTIST *** complete the paintjob at a level of quality that is respectable, and deserving of the incredible artistry and skill that the sculptor put into the figure itself. If you want to paint a turd with a crappy paint job, thats fine. If you are paying somone in india $4.00 to paint some of the finest miniature scluptures in the world, to look like theirs do, then shame on you. I dont know, whatever

neal1975 wrote:I read the thread.

No, you didn't. It'd really help you out if before jumping into a thread you actually read what was in it. You might even call that a pro-tip for forum posting.

neal1975 wrote:

It is my personal opinion, whether you agree or not, that this type of "low-end" service is just bad for the hobby in general. Its an expensive hobby that isnt suited well to people who cant put forth the effort to either paint their figures, or pay a reasonable amount to have an *** ARTIST *** complete the paintjob at a level of quality that is respectable, and deserving of the incredible artistry and skill that the sculptor put into the figure itself. If you want to paint a turd with a crappy paint job, thats fine. If you are paying somone in india $4.00 to paint some of the finest miniature scluptures in the world, to look like theirs do, then shame on you. I dont know, whatever

It took me a while to stop laughing; I decided that you're either trolling or just joking. The bolded part was pure forum gold; do you work for GW bro?

neal1975 wrote:I read the thread.

I dont care where the labor comes from, i just made up non-U.S. locations as guesses.

The quality of their work is poor.

It is my personal opinion, whether you agree or not, that this type of "low-end" service is just bad for the hobby in general. Its an expensive hobby that isnt suited well to people who cant put forth the effort to either paint their figures, or pay a reasonable amount to have an *** ARTIST *** complete the paintjob at a level of quality that is respectable, and deserving of the incredible artistry and skill that the sculptor put into the figure itself. If you want to paint a turd with a crappy paint job, thats fine. If you are paying somone in india $4.00 to paint some of the finest miniature scluptures in the world, to look like theirs do, then shame on you. I dont know, whatever

I totally agree with you.

I'm sure some of the snarkmasters around here will give you crap for referring to GW as the finest miniatures in the world, but what you said can apply to any gaming miniature that was professionally sculpted.

Its bad for the hobby, and terrible for those of us trying to make honest money at commission painting. Every time someone gets burned, they post about it online, and give everyone the heebie jeebies about employing commission painters.

So I'm a snarkmaster? Awesome. And of course you agree with him, it's in your best interest to devalue any other services that undercut what you charge, it's business. However, I wasn't being snarky about neal's sentiment, just the words he used because they're verbatim what GW reps say.

agnosto wrote:So I'm a snarkmaster? Awesome. And of course you agree with him, it's in your best interest to devalue any other services that undercut what you charge, it's business. However, I wasn't being snarky about neal's sentiment, just the words he used because they're verbatim what GW reps say.

Don't get all worked up... there's a lot of GW hate 'round these parts. It was a safe call... if that's not what you meant, then apologies.

I do take offense that I desire to devalue other services. There are many I respect, and a few I look up to. I don't see any of them as rivals, but peers.

When other services do good work, or work I am envious of, I compliment them. Go ahead, check it out in the painting sub-forums.

When other services do sub-par work, I keep my mouth shut. Im not here to try to make anyone else look bad.

When other services scam people, THEN I speak up. Especially when it comes up again and again, and makes us all look bad. Most of us are honest, and will give you what you pay for.

Battle Ready Studios wrote:

Don't get all worked up... there's a lot of GW hate 'round these parts. It was a safe call... if that's not what you meant, then apologies.

I do take offense that I desire to devalue other services. There are many I respect, and a few I look up to. I don't see any of them as rivals, but peers.

When other services do good work, or work I am envious of, I compliment them. Go ahead, check it out in the painting sub-forums.

When other services do sub-par work, I keep my mouth shut. Im not here to try to make anyone else look bad.

When other services scam people, THEN I speak up. Especially when it comes up again and again, and makes us all look bad. Most of us are honest, and will give you what you pay for.

Then I guess I don't get your point in posting in this thread. I don't believe anyone's outright accused the paintedfigs of scamming, other than the "journalist"; I myself have used them and was only really unhappy with the lengthy turnaround times. So again, if you only speak up and talk about the competition when they're scamming, why post here and call people "snarkmasters"?

Edit: You know what? Nevermind. This will only take us off topic and I really don't intend to be argumentative.

I may have over-spoke a little in my last post, because i feel very strongly, and passionately, about seeing an artist, or hard-working american lose work to some 3rd world peasant, who has:

- no professional training
- no education (that we hare paying out the ____ for in our country)
- no skill
- no artistry
- cant speak english

and this one friends, is the REALLY important one, and the one that pisses me off, read it carefully -

- dont give a rip about you, your game or your hobby, or the sacred and tedious artistry that is miniature painting. They are just doing it for $4.00, so they can eat.



I worked for a very long time as a Technical Illustrator and producing very technical line art for books and manuals, and the company i worked for decided that instead of paying a U.S. Illustrator (who is professionally trained, highly skilled, and competent with technical materials and software) that they would rather send the work to a fly-by-night startup staffing company in india because they could pay them literally 1/6th of my salary, and then basically all the piss-poor quality artwork that came back they asked me to fix it and re-draw it..

So yeh, it bothers me to see companies that sell americans out to make a few extra bucks, and it bothers me as well to see someone selling out our hobby by outsourcing work for vast quantity of low-end garbage.

(i had to think for a second here why im mad)

I think the reason it bothers me is, i love to paint, and i truly adore and admire, and love the hobby - it is a rare art form to me that, i think is just as special or sacred as oil painting or sculpture. So to see someone cheapen that , and on a massive widespread scale, is very bad for the hobby.

While I have neither professional training in painting nor a college education, I do consider myself somewhat skilled and artistic. And I do understand the hobby and the effort put forth by those who enjoy it.

Alas, I'm based here in the US so I guess I'm not the target of such comments.

I can't believe I just read this train wreck. More so that I'm bothering to comment on it. (disclaimer: Navin's work looks like utter garbage; my 9 year old has better paint skills so you should understand I am certainly not promoting his service).

My opinion: It sure sounds like there are a LOT of things wrong here. Not just with Navin but also with Paul.

Assuming this entire episode is even true and not some sort of reverse psychology plot to get free advertising through negativity (been done before); it sure looks like there is a whole lot that happened that neither of them have spoken about.

Tearing apart the "article" by "M.E. Shenny" (who can't spell nor, apparently, use a word processor).

1: Paul's email address in the messages point to a non-existent domain. Most people pulling their email out at least say me@<redacted>.com or something like that.

2. The email talks about how Paul is going to spend exactly 1 day per month working on Navin's company and bill $750/month. wtf? Seriously? I don't know anyone (and yes I own my own company) that would agree to have someone work one day a month for a period of 3 years in order to build a website, "organise(sic) management" or really to do ANYTHING at that level for that price. If Navin is in Sri Lanka why in the world would he pay those rates...

Oh wait, that's right I own my own company. I've been approached by scammers claiming to want to help me get my marketing and sales strategy going (including building websites and micro-sites) for that level of fail. I've also been approached by a fair number of SEO "experts" wanting the same thing, If this was real and Navin agreed to that then he was taken to the cleaners pure and simple.

3. So Paul: ".. was asked to build websites, boost online sales and help restructure the company and make it prfoitable. " (sic).
Hire an outsider for websites? Normal.
Hire them to "boost online sales" Normally you contract a dedicated SEO person/company for this; but it is sometimes they same people that built the site to begin with.
Hire them to "restructure the company"? No... Now we have ventured out of what's normal for a website/SEO company to help with and into another area entirely. The only time you "restructure" a small company is when you intend to sell it.
Hire them to make your business "prfoitable"(sic). No. That's the job of the owner... or partner...

4. "There were dips in August and December as I was on holiday those months. ".. Really? Paul goes on holiday and the company's profits go down? Obviously something is extremely wrong there. This statement is full of fail. Presuming that SEO is how Paul was driving sales; his lack of doing anything over a 30 day period should in no way impact whether the company's profits dip.

I'm going to stop there and move on to Navin's OP.

1. "Can you say the same for an invented persona that attacks me online?" So is Navin saying Paul isn't real? If not, it sure seems like Navin ought to know exactly who this other person is: Why not out them?

2. "Catching Scammers is Paypal’s Job " Umm.. they try to do this; it's not their job.

3. "Six years Experience" and " who waits that long to make a quick stolen buck".. A lot of people actually. It's a "white collar" crime that goes by the name of embezzlement. It usually happens when the owners sense that the company is going to die soon and try to take what they can from it before it's a dead carcass.

4. "Declare bankruptcy. Walk off with all the money" Depending on where your clients are and the country you are in it can be pretty easy to simply close shop and walk away. The actions identified leading up to that point are actually typical of a company folding.

5. "...we got robbed of all our money but some mysterious, evil, third party we never actually name." and " I took responsibility for a mess that I had gotten myself into".. So Navin was robbed.. but it was his fault and he's not going to out the thief. um, okay..care to expound upon this? If I've been robbed and I know who did it then you can be sure everyone I know will know too. Of course, if you name a real person and that person didn't actually do the things you say they did then there is libel..

Actually, I've wasted too much time on this already.

Opinion: This is either all completely made up by Navin to drive people to his site via some type of sympathy thing OR they (Navin/Paul) are both scammers. Result: I wouldn't go near them. Of course, I wouldn't anyway as the paint quality from those photos is..lacking.

DOWN WITH THE THIRD WORLD PEASANTS! DOWN WITH OUTSOURCING!

DOWN WIth...

wait...

I was looking through the gallery, trying to put my finger on what bugged me about everything in it when it hit me. They look like the collectable D&D Minis figures that were the ultrasoft plastic and sold by the bucket. The work looks like it was done with a spray paint can and a box of felt tip markers, and I'm in awe that someone would be pleased with anything I see in the gallery, especially when they can walk into most hobby stores in the US, slip someone there a few bucks, and get vastly superior work.

I honestly don't care about the ethical issues, or the slew of accusations flying around. I just can't believe anyone would charge for what looks like the work of a middle school kid who just started playing last week and hasn't discovered filing mold lines or thinning paint.

Paintedfigs, for all its existing woes, did a huge amount of damage to itself by starting this thread and thrusting its extremely poor quality into the spotlight.

neal1975 wrote:It is my personal opinion, whether you agree or not, that this type of "low-end" service is just bad for the hobby in general. Its an expensive hobby that isnt suited well to people who cant put forth the effort to either paint their figures, or pay a reasonable amount to have an *** ARTIST *** complete the paintjob at a level of quality that is respectable, and deserving of the incredible artistry and skill that the sculptor put into the figure itself. If you want to paint a turd with a crappy paint job, thats fine. If you are paying somone in india $4.00 to paint some of the finest miniature scluptures in the world, to look like theirs do, then shame on you. I dont know, whatever

Well, at least you're doing your part to ensure that you come across like a reasonable individual who's willing to accept that the opinions of others are as valid as your own.




Eric

I care about the ethics.

The one about this guy dragging Dakkadakka into his mess, and then spouting out about how Raif vouches for them. The OP is pretty classless in the use of this very thread as a sales tool.

I only know Raif from his pod casts, so in that, I do not believe he would be any part of this guys cherade.


At first, being a disinterested third party I had a little sympathy, then I went over to the Paintedfigs.com site...


Needless to say, I could care less about the stuff hes going on about, his "poor me" attitude, or the painting in question. I care that he posts us prominently in his advertising, yet No other discussion forum about "How hard he is to clear his good name..."

I see him using this thread, and Dakka in a questionable manner. I'm pretty P.O.ed at this situation. ( I don't know the OP from Jack, and I didn't sign on to his whitewash campaign using our forum here as the tool.)

I don't remember being asked to be used in an advertising campaign, and I know none of you would go for this sort of thing in the light of how it is being used.

It has nothing to do with "Third World painters", or anything like that. It has to do with classless behavior.

Go check out the site and tell me if I am taking the context of the use of this thread wrong. If I am, a thousand pardons, but If not, this is wrong on a few different levels, and I for one demand explanation from the OP as to why this is supposed to garner my sympathy.

This made me lol.

"Exhibition Quality"




I painted better skin on my first model ever! How are people paying for those faces? And I agree that Dakka does not want to be part of your attempt to regain some sort of reputation. Leave us out of it.

Aerethan wrote:

neal1975 wrote:LOL, just got through reading this thread.


To everyone except the OP: You guys do realize that these paint jobs are not painted by miniatures painters, or professional painters right? Everyone keeps saying things like, " it took 3 months for this piece of crap with no shading, highlighting, etc.." thats because the OP is employing sweat-shop style cheap labor, possibly overseas, and probably is paying around the lines of $2-4 dollars per figure (guessing).

To the OP: If you found out a way to make a few bucks off of mexican kids by having them basecoat figures, then good for you i guess. But ill be really honest with you, no one with any reasonable standards of quality would be at all impressed with your galleries you just posted. The work, frankly, is "tabletop" quality AT BEST, and really terrible AT WORST. I mean some of the galleries look like they were done by kids in 4th grade, its really bad. The majority is completely average and bland with no highlighting or inking even.

Maybe thats just the baseline service that you offer though, nothing wrong with that i guess, . . . until you come online and boast about quality and service.

maybe this type of business model (quantity over quality) is what works and makes the most return on investment though, i dont know.

I don't think you read this at all. The company is based in Sri Lanka, an island off of India.

And I charge $4 for a basic paintjob that is worlds better than what I've seen on their gallery. Then again that is because I don't mind working 10 or 12 hour days when it's just painting models. And I don't think you can really "sweat shop" people who are painting models. It isn't rigorous work. It doesn't take much physically. There are loads of factory workers even in first world countries who would LOVE to have such a nice cushy job.

A lot of Sweat shop work isn't necessarily rigourous,(Definition- manifesting, exercising, or favoring rigor : very strict) they are not in the Military . It's repetitive, dangerous or menial work.

neal1975 wrote:I may have over-spoke a little in my last post, because i feel very strongly, and passionately, about seeing an artist, or hard-working american lose work to some 3rd world peasant, who has:

- no professional training
- no education (that we hare paying out the ____ for in our country)
- no skill
- no artistry
- cant speak english

Uh, this is quite offensive. Really, really offensive. And reeks of elitism.

First off, how does one's language affect their quality of work? Really. And having no professional training, education, skill or artistry makes them undeserving to work for a living?

- dont give a rip about you, your game or your hobby, or the sacred and tedious artistry that is miniature painting. They are just doing it for $4.00, so they can eat.

Aaaaaaand this makes them undeserving to make a living out of painting because... they're doing it to survive?

Look, I'm a designer/illustrator/miniatures painter. I understand how it feels when your potential client shifts to a cheaper service of a lesser quality. but I don't fault them for it, because they're a business, and businesses are about making money. If they can get cheaper service and they do not care about the quality of the output, then they should do that.

And this is coming from me, a person who can't afford a website right now and thus uses the dA portfolio to advertise my work.

I worked for a very long time as a Technical Illustrator and producing very technical line art for books and manuals, and the company i worked for decided that instead of paying a U.S. Illustrator (who is professionally trained, highly skilled, and competent with technical materials and software) that they would rather send the work to a fly-by-night startup staffing company in india because they could pay them literally 1/6th of my salary, and then basically all the piss-poor quality artwork that came back they asked me to fix it and re-draw it..

I am professionally trained and educated: I have a BA in Visual Communication, a minor in Art History and hopefully I get an MA someday. I was schooled in the best school my country has to offer (University of the Philippines). And if I choose to work in an office I will get paid much less than you (on the average it would be something like Php 10,000 to 15,000 per month. That's $238-$357 in US dollars. If I'm wrong and the salaries won't differ much I would be stand corrected but I'm sure skilled labor that would need a degree from a US company would pay much more than that).

Now that I'm working freelance, my competition are cheap "designers" with no artistic training who would charge less than a dollar for logo design. Imagine that the industry standard here for professionally made logos including a logo design manual is Php 35,000 ($833). Now I'm lucky if I can charge a client Php 8,000 to 12,000 ($190 - $286). Some freelancers who are just as skilled as me or better would even go for less.

Do I think my work is superior to said competitors? Yes. Do I fault them for charging that much less? No. Do I fault the companies for switching to cheaper alternative or refusing to pay me industry standard work? No. If I were in their position and I would like to have a logo and not care if about its quality, I'll go for the cheaper alternative (hell, if I'm not artistic I would coerce one of my artistic relatives to do it for free!).

Same with miniatures painting. As a commission painter anything more than Php 100 (roughly $2) for a tabletop standard model would have the client walk away from me because I'm "charging too high".

Bakerofish wrote:DOWN WITH THE THIRD WORLD PEASANTS! DOWN WITH OUTSOURCING!

DOWN WIth...

wait...]

Lol.

REMOVE ALL THE CALL CENTERS IN THE PHILIPPINES!

LET OUR THIRD WORLD GRADUATES STARVE SO THAT AMERICANS CAN HAVE THEIR JOBS BACK!




Note: Php to dollar conversions are done 42 is to 1. That is roughly the equivalent of the exchange rate now. They are not accurate but they're near.

Bakerofish wrote:DOWN WITH THE THIRD WORLD PEASANTS! DOWN WITH OUTSOURCING!

DOWN WIth...

wait...

Point is we in the west can afford to buy our goods even if we made them at home, it would be expensive. We choose not to because we get a benefit of a cheaper higher quality lifestyle. Sure our quality of life would suffer a fair bit, but if we did so, The Third world would collapse. Who is paying for all the Aid and medical supplies? Military Aid packages to equip their armed forces? Certainly ain't them. Who is employing their populous to make the goods we want? Western Companies in the main. Oh and why is China paying for everything in Sudan? Could it be they want it's resources? Don't bite the hand that feeds you.

China needs to watch it's step especially with the iPAD debacle and constant reverse engineering, knock-off stealing of IP and Patents. Apple has a value greater than the GDP of Poland. That is one single company, not beholden to the UN or it's people, but to it's Shareholders. China will regret it if it pisses off high end Companies like Apple. Money speaks louder than words, when their treasury notices a drop they tend to get the attention of senior figures.

Outsourcing cannot carry on at the present rate due to the escalating Energy costs. It's still cheap to ship items across the globe but for how much longer?

There is a slow Energy change going on in the West, I've seen it in the last 10 years. I now have a Hybrid Car, I have Super A rated energy efficient house, I want to grow as much food as possible at home and have my goods brought to me by the minimum distance. This is to help my countries economy, reduce needless traffic and help my government raise taxes. Out my window I can see Wind Turbines, installed about 5 years ago. The Price of Oil has been the biggest driver of this change.

Outsourcing will continue but no country will remain cheap for long, look at China's wealth explosion. Sri Lanka is charging up there too, only 8% of it's populous lives below the povert line.

LOL i love it when "the east needs the west to survive" argument comes up

its not that the east is "working for cheap"

you guys are just getting overcharged

LOL Oh come on? The Phillipines is part of the US in all but name. It was gifted to you by the US when granted Independence. You have retained the Language, and yes you are an independant republic but you are very close with the US.

Furthermore as a Mariner, I have worked with Hundreds of Filipino's Mariners/Sailors and they are possibly the best in the world.

The only thing that annoys me is "Filipino Monkey" on VHF.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filipino_Monkey

Long nights of listening to The Filipino Monkey taunt other vessels. "Indian vessel, Indian Vessel, I can't see you, but I can smell you" etc etc. It probably is a Pakistani crew or something but its endemic at sea, I've even heard it in the English Channel.

OT I think we shall how this business does, but I'm not confident it will be here in 12 months.

@mwnciboo

id argue your point but im afraid i cant make heads or tails of what that would be

its fun getting a picture of people's casual ignorance though.

OT stuff on spoiler mode for mwnciboo:


As for paintedfigs.com... I have read the whole thing and I just find it to be an example of bad handling of public relations, among other things. If the e-mails on the smear campaign website are true... well, dang. Don't curse on interviews. Don't state that you're manhandling those who work under you, or that you want to fire them. And the original post, well, didn't fix anything. It made more damage to the companies name, since ones that neither care nor know what was happening are now googling the smear campaign front, back and center.

I second that. This thread has sailed way of course and is getting offensive.

I didnt mean to offend anyone, honestly. I was just sharing my opinion on what i think is going on.

And yes, everyone has a right to try and make a living, and survive, and get by. Yay.

But not with art. Art is different, if you arent an artist, or at least doing it in the spirit of artistry, or creating art, then . . .you just shouldnt be doing it. If you dont appreciate it for what it is, and is meant to be, then you are cheapening and insulting the entire hobby. These arent cheap christmas ornaments that you buy at walmart, but some of you guys are acting like it might as well be. This hobby isnt for everyone. Art can not be made at an assembly line factory, your basically just manufacturing trinckets then.

Would you appreciate an art gallery that is full of paintings that have all been labed at the botttom " done for $4.00 by sri-lanka cheap labor" as a gallery of a well known artist who has spent their career lovingly, and carefully promoting the hobby or their artform? Maybe you wouldnt know the difference, or care, but you should as a patron of the artform, care about the hobby, care who is creating it. It matters.

it doesnt really matter what country its from.

It is ok to feel a "little" elitest about art, or painting, if you dont feel proud of it, or feel like its special, then it waters down something very important to the world that is slowing fading away i think (art). Art should be admired, and celebrated by all, but it think maybe creating art should be reserved for people that have some sincerity about it.

thats all im ever going to say about it. none of this is meant to be offensive.

@neal1975: Art is a fantastic thing I agree with you, but there is more to this hobby than the purely artistic, and there are people out there who have little to no interest/time/talent, and yet still want to partake in the other aspects of the hobby, maybe they're gamers, for whom the models are simply a means to an end, or maybe they are fantastic at modelling, but lack the skills to paint their creations without them looking like a dog has thrown up on it. Maybe they simply don't have the time to build and paint a 2000pt army, and yet want to have one that isn't just a sea of grey plastic. This is where commission painters come in, your post seems to be demeaning the idea of commission painters as a whole (apologies if that is not your intention)