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Good evening guys and girls.
Looking to set up a small commission based miniature painting business. Looking to do cheap projects to begin with just to build up a portfolio etc. Please feel free to check out my facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Krakenminiaturepainting though the page is pretty empty. there are a couple examples of my work on the gallery here on Dakka.
Or you can email me direct ARGMcLeod@googlemail.com if you are interested and we can discuss the project and costs etc.
Really stoked for doing this so please please please get back to me

for now here are a few samples of my work

Hi, i'd always recommend some high quality photos of your past work to help flesh out your site, most commission artists seem to have their own signature style that lends itself to their work, the better a photo is the more attractive an offering it is to potential clients. This way your customers have a better idea of what it is they're recieving.

I think this is the issue I have, i wanna build up the portfolio. hence offering uber cheap commissions

You have alot of work in your gallery, with the addition of a desk lamp and a piece of A4 white paper as a backdrop you can frame a good quality photo for zero cost

ok cool I shall give that a go tomorrow and drop in here

Check out my work guys

A Couple more bits

So started working on this guy. A friend of mine had a can of the mephiston red spray kicking about
and wanted to test it out.
Not a bad coverage. obviously he's far from finished so hopefully will be done by the weekend

I just want to say a big thank you to the couple enquiries I've had. I will however say that if you happen to email regarding a quote could you please have the curtsey to either my prices are too high and not have me chance you with or if you aren't serious about a commission please don't email me in thr first instance.
Sorry for the rant, I'm just über stoked for this and without sounding lame it gets my hopes up when I get an email expressing interest.
Cheers guys and sorry again for the rant

Why 2 threads?

 Darkmoonlight wrote:
I just want to say a big thank you to the couple enquiries I've had. I will however say that if you happen to email regarding a quote could you please have the curtsey to either my prices are too high and not have me chance you with or if you aren't serious about a commission please don't email me in thr first instance.
Sorry for the rant, I'm just über stoked for this and without sounding lame it gets my hopes up when I get an email expressing interest.
Cheers guys and sorry again for the rant

Expect a lot of that. I'd say around 40-50% of the enquiries I get silently disappear once I tell them how much things cost. Don't let it get to you; it's the nature of the business.

Of the remainder, takeup after a more detailed quote is probably about 30%. After that you pretty much know they want you to do the work and are willing to pay reasonably for that work. Further refining the spec for the job and the quote hasn't lost me any clients at that stage (in over 5 years now). So that's boiling down to around 1 in 6 or 7 enquiries that actually comes to a booking.

The metric that matters is 'is your booked time paid for'. If you're sitting idle, you're not making money and should be doing something to up your profile. Doing a blog, tutorials, responding to enquiries, personal projects, improving your relevant skills. Basically advertising and training in business terms. If you're not making enough money for your on-book time you're better off elsewhere. That's a very personal call though, and 'enough' might still be below minimum wage if it's something high profile or impressive (balance this against your 'advertising' budget).

So, down to dealing with enquiries - be efficient! It's very tempting to start a long drawn out conversation about the actual project spec. Know your timing, and you'll know your (approximate) pricing. For me, 10 'tabletop' (A very subjective term, here I mean it's basically 'not competition') Space Marines (a useful yardstick) these days is going to average (based on what clients typically ask for once given all the options) somewhere between £220 and £300, for a week, maybe a week and a bit of time from sprue to shipping box.

Getting an enquiry and being able to 'fire and forget' a ballpark quote before doing any serious thought is an important skill. Unfortunately it's one that's only really granted by experience, so paint, paint, paint, and watch the clock.

One document so that blog the other to show off stuff.however I haven't got as far as splitting them apart yet as have yet to receive work


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Thanks winter, that's actually some really encouraging words. Yea I intended to get more up however, paint station is down this week due to moving house. However once everything is up and running once then I'm sure this will be caked with photos

It's hard starting up getting commissions, a falls thread like this really helped me a couple years ago but once the tread died away so did the interest. A blog helped a bit, as did keeping models at my FLGS, although personally the biggest challenge for me has been getting enquiries all at the wrong time, as previously I could only accept commissions certain times of the year.

It's very hard to get going. But I guess it's perseverance. It's little for making a little bit of pocket money doing something I really enjoy. I'll try setting up a blog just to advertise my own stuff and see how that does :-)

A Facebook / Google+ page works well as a platform. I like Facebook for the photo gallery / album feature. Handy.

Facebook already up mate. Check it out. The links in the op

So guys running discounted commissions currently
Argmcleod@googlemail.com mail me for quotes.



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Mote pictures of abbadon to follow later.
Remember to message me for a discounted commission guys.


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[/url[url=http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/741621-.html]

Let me know what you think guys!!

So a little price list
£5.00 for 25/30mm bases
Character or Sargent on same Base £8.00
£10.00 for 32mm and £12 for characters of the same size
Rhinos or vehicles of the like £15 along with walkers on dreadnought bases.
Predators £20 with fully magnetised weapons and land raiders £30
All half price currently until beginning of October..

I have sent a commission to Aaron, and just wanted to say that I have been happy with the progress pictures so far (mine are the crimson fist terminators on his fb page).

Cheers

Thanks James.
Production will begin again next week on the termis as I'm back from sunny Newquay!!

Bookmarking this thread (since I don't know how else I can bookmark a thread.)

Commissar Yarrick. This guy is actually up on Ebay if anyone is interested.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Pro-painted-Commissar-yarrick-/221894263211?hash=item33a9edc1ab

Squad of crimson fists termis I've been working on for a client.