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yep really not looking good here don't know if its just me but you cant post messages on the WP facebook page any more and nick's personal facebook page has now vanished..... not before he posted a message to me on facebook on the 19th :-

"i thought we left on good terms dave? I have seen your attacking posts on dakka and im disappointed you would be so quick to turn on us with one misstake we mad with a customer. Burning bridges in such a small community is not wise."

I only post this to distance myself as much as possible from Worthy Painting i'm pretty much sure that I speak for all commission painters when I say don't let one companys mistakes put you off using commission painting services the majority of us are honest and professional :-)

What I would say is just try and follow a few very simple rules :-

1, do your research, and make sure the person you are going to do business with is active and can provide lots of clear examples of THIER OWN recent work.

2, NEVER PAY UP FRONT!!, again I can only speak for myself but I never ask for payment until a commission is finished that means the most you as a customer would have to spend would be for any models that you supply not £1000's. that also should give the painter the incentive to finish the commission as quickly as possible.

3, always pay via paypal/credit card at least then you have a chance of getting your money back.....

To be fair, especially with larger jobs a deposit payment is pretty standard. It discourages timewasters. Also payment by paypal is expensive for the commissioner (and potentially the client), especially on large jobs.

winterdyne wrote:
To be fair, especially with larger jobs a deposit payment is pretty standard. It discourages timewasters. Also payment by paypal is expensive for the commissioner (and potentially the client), especially on large jobs.

Yeah, it's in the best interest of the commission painter to ask for an initial deposit, even a small one. Otherwise we have to deal with people who just talk and talk and talk and never actually commit to anything. Or, and this is equally annoying, people that don't pay. An initial deposit insures that the customer is serious and that they intend to pay in full.

Contrary to popular belief, it isn't always the customer that gets ripped off. Commission painters can and have lost a lot of money/time to unpaying/noncommitting customers. I sure know I have...

~Tim?

I tend to let the customer supply the minis that works as a deposit and also if the customer backs out then you can sell on the finished project its always worked for me in the past :-)

as for PayPal yup its a bitch but it adds that extra layer of protection for the customer that way it adds a extra layer of trust.

Yea that's a good method I usually take deposits though.


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I do that for local commissions.

Seems a shame that someone so involved with the hobby that they can actually start up a commission painting service would let things play out this way.
From what I've read in this thread they've been rather unprofessional, basically stealing from their customers. The stories on here should be followed up with lawyers for breach of contract, and if it were any big bussiness, people wouldnt hesitate.
If you have commissioned worthy painting, paid upfront, had your commission accepted and some interaction with them, and then nothing for months past the deadline with no explanations as to why or whats going wrong for them, or a refund and cancelation of the contract, then I would suggest you look at legal action, especially with the kinds of prices this type of thing can cost the customers. People generally just don't have hundreds to throw away... most case scenarios they probably have a tough time justifying buying models without having them painted

I'm kind of assuming that Worthy Painting was a registered bussiness that would pay taxes on its earnings and recieve a break in sales tax for work supplies etc. If they are/were not, perhaps the tax man caught up with them?

I'm less inclined to think that they were just out to rob everyone as they apparantly have provided a satisfactory service to some in the past, and then at some point it all slipped.... Seems sensible to assume that something went amiss.. illness, family problems, mid life crisis.. whatever it may have been it seems to have been something that didnt allow for them to disable the website from taking orders... as it would definatly be unscrupulous to knowingly continue to take orders when your already aware (or even planned that) it wont happen.

Yea see if there's something I've learned doing commissions. You got to suck it up and take criticism. It's a very competitive business and a first I didn't see that and took criticism badly, but reacting instead of improving doesn't help. I would just like to know how you burned your bridge by starting this thread. I didn't know a customer could burn his a bridge. I mean its not to hard to find a commission artist.


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We are essentially here to serve you not the other way around

Become gradually more and more shocked as I've read through this thread. I've looked up to WP while setting up my own small business dealing in commission build and painting services.

On the drop pods... jesus... £280 for that standard seems very much out of order, and their not even providing complete miniatures is inexcusable, the second drop pod made me wince. I would have charged likely somewhere around £100-120 labour and could easily have delivered better quality... hell I have a Ultramarines gallery on my website of stuff better than this that took my usual standard of 5-6 hours per unit.

As to WP closing... have they stated the reasons why?

On the subject of deposits and payment; this is a sticky situation. As a painter you have to protect yourself; paintjobs are often very client oriented and if a guy renagues on payment, you're looking at potentially weeks of work that you'll have to struggle to get a secondary buyer for. This usually means ebaying it, and often you get significantly less than you originally expected. I do this work literally to pay my rent, so to effectively lose a months' work isn't really feasible. Thus, I give clients two options;

1) Paypal as a third party to give them some security if a dispute comes up, aswell as me if they try to pull a fast one. The downside is, paypal take 3% fees, so that tends to up the bill a little, as I can't afford to have it come out of my pay.
2) To get around the fees, the alternative I do is a bank transfer for the cost of model kits +50% of the labour up front, followed by the rest upon completion when they've received photos. I also make a point of mailing photos weekly, allowing the customer to give basic direction to make sure it goes the way it should. At the end, if they want minor corrections, it's fine. Any major repaint that isn't my fault however requires fresh pay for the significant time increase. All common sense stuff.

The last trick on my end is simple; I only offer tracked/insured shipping, which I require the client to cover when we start. Absolutely essential to avoid nightmarish situations.

ha I didn't even start this thread I just posted a couple of bits....!?!?!

my guess would be that they just had too many staff I'd guess that inc the shop there were 10+ staff add to that the rent of a 4+ story city centre shop and they must have been haemorrhaging money every month :-(

The fact that WP hasn't responded to this thread indicates (to me) that something's up on their end. Foul play, probably not. But this thread is a PR nightmare.

~Tim?

No kidding, but I doubt that they have much to worry over since they've apparently already been heading for closing down for the last month.

I guess it can only be good news for those of us looking to try our hand at building up to bigger and better things, but even so, I was impressed by WP's setup. To see them go is sad. If Dave is correct though, it's less surprising... ten staff and a high street shop? That will have been some frightening overheads. I guess they just tried to expand too quickly too soon. Better to rent a cheap workshop somewhere and hire several painters to get the core business going well... I don't even think I'd even want to try something like a city center store down the road... sounds like a recipe for disaster. The prices associated with GW products as they stand as bare kits are already enough to turn away many members of the public... you need the intermewebs and communities like this.

their ignoring post on the worthy gaming site about this issue as well :-(

Geez well I'm not sad I paint myself so more room for me.

The commission business is really cut-throat, and it's very unforgiving of mistakes. This is because it's often large jobs, drawn out over a long period of time. Sometimes to make ends meet you have to reprioritise jobs that have been booked far in advance, simply to cover running costs.

If you book projects for several artists, and then those turn out to be incapable of doing the job (for whatever reason), you are in essence, Royally fethed. This can lead to cashflow problems very quickly.

If you book projects up ahead, and then run into cashflow issues (very easily done when buying tools / materials / paying for your webhosting etc etc), then even if you have artists in place toddling away on a project, the chance that you won't be able to pay them when they need the money or finish their part of the work means you need to pay them off and cut the risk. This extends your own workload and costs you money on the job (which you may not have received from the client yet) which makes cashflow situations much worse. Again, good chance of being Royally fethed.

If the cash flow situation gets to the point where you need external income or faster turnaround jobs to survive, your working time on commissions is reduced, and again, good chance of being Royally fethed.

I've struggled through all of these situations, and with an understanding client it's survivable. You have to communicate though - clients understand that this is a tight margin business, with complex project management factors involved - it's unfortunately not just a case of sitting down with a box of marines and painting them in a week or so. Sometimes, you have to admit to your customers that you've screwed something up. It happens, and in most cases it can be fixed.

Just as an update to those here they might want to take a look at this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM3ZasfAWqM

Not to sure how I feel about this. I went with worthy paint to begin with because I am quite honestly not a fan of Blue Table. I do appreciate Nick trying to make good on a tough situation but all one has to do is look up Blue Table Painting to see some many things to give a person pause about using them.

Nick just put out a Video explaining that Worthy painting is going out of business. He has worked out a deal with Blue Table painting to get all outstanding commissions finished. Good luck to anyone having a commission with Worthy Painting.

i'll paint your figures for non-professional fee at the level of detail of those droppods anyday. Just pay for paints, S&H, model itself + very modest paint fee

PM me if you want samples of my work!

Karnophage wrote:
Nick just put out a Video explaining that Worthy painting is going out of business. He has worked out a deal with Blue Table painting to get all outstanding commissions finished. Good luck to anyone having a commission with Worthy Painting.

Might wanna read the other comments before you post mate, the guy above had already put that and linked the video :3

Do not jump on me, I was watching the video when I made the post. If you care to look at the time difference on the post was only 5 minutes before I actually submitted my post.

Well for me I love BTP so I'm happy about that and maybe ill get my project done. I have to say I'm very sad for Nick as I know how much that must have hurt. It's never good when such a big player in this community that we all love goes under . I'm still crazy angry with the terrible service that I've had over the last 7 months. But will alway be thankful for the videos put up as they got me back in to the hobby . So I wish Nick all the best in the future and thank him for his work in the community .

I am from the Preston area and have frequented the store often, as well as being a member of the local gaming club, which used the store. Whilst I can't comment too much on the painting side of things I would like to make everyone aware that 200 pounds of the clubs gaming money went missing, which had been labelled as the clubs and was kept in the safe, funnily enough the one you can see on the shelf in the latest video. Also scenery had been ordered by the club, which had been paid for by the club, yet has been taken to be sold on as it was delivered to "Worthy Gaming" and not the club itself.

Personally I wouldn't trust this person with anything in future, or anything he affiliates himself to.

Well I hope everyone gets anything they lost back. If anyone's looking for a new artist I'm taking commission and I price match just do it to make a little cash and to make the customer happy. I love when I get local customers and I can hand it to them in person and see their face when they see it in person, other then in a photo. Very rewarding.

UN-worthy paintjobz

Not a good year for Wargaming in the UK - First the Maelstrom Games fiasco and now Worthy Painting.

And from what you hear through the grapevine, BTP isn't looking too hot either. The deal with Worthy Painting seems to be targeted to fill the books of BTP, not something you would do if you already had loads to do. If you add in the Kickstarter failure a few months back, things aren't looking to well there either.

 IK-Painter wrote:
Not a good year for Wargaming in the UK - First the Maelstrom Games fiasco and now Worthy Painting.

And from what you hear through the grapevine, BTP isn't looking too hot either. The deal with Worthy Painting seems to be targeted to fill the books of BTP, not something you would do if you already had loads to do. If you add in the Kickstarter failure a few months back, things aren't looking to well there either.

I was thinking the same thing. I have no idea how he can employ that many staff painting minis for peanuts, or do these people work for 3 dollars an hour or something?

the trade stock thing is not too great of an idea either IMO. He's basically buying other people's junk and trying to flip it. Minis can be hard to move, i could see alot of that stuff rotting on the shelf for a year or more unless he blows it out dirt cheap but then he would probably be taking a loss.

if i was a customer i would be pissed, i would just want a refund. I guess this worthy painting guy is refusing to give refunds or he already spent all the money?

I dunno me being in the industry. I feel they do everything perfect, except the amount of employees he's got working and operations. I mean I do the same thing with a few employees in a small studio.


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Keeps costs down which essentially keeps prices low.


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I can agree that the trade program can be hard but I do it aswell and it ultimately provides me the opportunity to really build some awesome packages for people at amazing prices. So it benefits me and my customers likewise.

The BTP employees get paid by the hour. This put pressure on the painters to actually get X amount of miniatures painted in a hour in order to keep on working there. What happens there is the quality varies in each commission since there may be several people working on it. There is also the problem with painters getting burned out which happens when working with a deadline. large studio will normally have a turnover of painters which is what I am thinking happened with Worthy Painting.

Someone looking for a large army to get painted fairly quickly and not concerned about the cost or the quality may want to look to BTP. If someone is not concerned with time but wants their armies to look consistent they should look for a one or two person operation. I

Karnophage wrote:
The BTP employees get paid by the hour. This put pressure on the painters to actually get X amount of miniatures painted in a hour in order to keep on working there. What happens there is the quality varies in each commission since there may be several people working on it. There is also the problem with painters getting burned out which happens when working with a deadline. large studio will normally have a turnover of painters which is what I am thinking happened with Worthy Painting.

Someone looking for a large army to get painted fairly quickly and not concerned about the cost or the quality may want to look to BTP. If someone is not concerned with time but wants their armies to look consistent they should look for a one or two person operation. I

I'm gonna agree here. Also, a one/two person operation will take longer to paint an army, but they tend to be get better results. The reason for the longer timeframe mostly has to do with the fact that the painters want to avoid burning out, which really sucks when it happens. It has happened to me before, and it's a huge problem. The greater the burnout, the harder it is to get yourself to work. It usually results in late-night binge painting.

~Tim?

I'm not impressed by BTP's standard of work. They've been going for years though, and by most accounts have a fast turnaround of jobs for a reasonable price point.

Well maybe it's someone else's turn to shine haha. yea I just keep things small, business wise.