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neal1975 wrote: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.

I'm sorry, what? I would like to compile a list of things you either assumed and have no right to be the judge of:
-What is art? Are my miniatures art? I meant, its painting but its not like I'm creating something, just fillings it in. Then again there are figs in the gallery here that definitely are art. Odds are your figs are nowhere near that level and if they were then you would be judging others' work unworthy and therefore even more wrong
-How is what they do different from anyone painting squads in an assembly line manner?
-Art is made on assembly lines everywhere. That's what prints are. If I want the Mona Lisa in my study I pay $100 for a nice print and put it in a frame. It was printed in a factory/manufacturing suite.
-People in Sri Lanka make art too. Does the fact that they made it and the value of it is less really art.
-The art gallery analogy was just brutal. More holes then swiss cheese

There's a few more but you get my qualm I think. Please don't try to tell anyone what art is or isn't.

The service offered by this company is one that allows people who love playing with painted minis but who don't love painting to do so. The number of hours they would have had to suffer through to get a worse result makes the price worth it for these people clearly. Is it really taking anything away from the hobby to have more painted armies out in the world? If you're just mad that they put in less time and have better painted minis then to you I say: "You mad, bro"

neal1975 wrote: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.

Now we can debate on what is considered art or not art (ugh, going through art school, "What is art?" debates is like a staple of your life), but in this case, I think we can simply agree on something: what they're doing is not art. It's work. Just because they're using materials that are related to artistic pursuits, that doesn't make it art the same way painting a roof is not art. Doesn't matter if it's the most exquisite roof in the world.

Same goes for traditional painting. A lot of painters would paint generic still life or flowers or abstract, texture-y paintings that don't mean anything because they sell, and they paint it in the intention of it selling and not for artistic pursuits. Does this mean that these people, usually people who be labelled "artists", should stop painting these generic, meaningless paintings because they don't have "the sincerity" for it?

If you can see what they're doing is work and not art, then you can see why they DO have a right to paint figures and make money out of it. And who's to say they're not painting for the sake of artistry too? I'm not saying they do, just that it's possible.

And it's okay to be proud of your own work.It's not okay to say "only artists have the right to create art. What makes an artist an artist anyway? It's also not okay to be elitist about your hobby, and some people in this hobby are not into it because they're interested in artistic pursuits (hint: they like the wargaming side).Confidence and elitism are two different things. One boosts your sense of self, the other just looks down on others who don't conform to your way of thinking.

Neal 1975,

Someone back a few posted about kicking a down dog.

You posting what you did is exactly that. As for offensive, The deeds been done. It is about context of the OP and his "business", now on the public light. All of the other stuff coming out of left field is just distraction from the point of contention here.

Nothing at all about first, second, third,or fourth and fifth worlds. As to the "Art" discussion, this is just more off topic talk that you should hold what you got. I can apprecate your position, but seriously your putting it out there that, pretty much any player is suck, and that only professional painters should even put brush to plastic. Painting miniatures isn't the brain stew your making it out to be here. You primer up some figures, put some paint on them and play a game here.

THIS topic has nothing to do with art.

Bottom line, this guy started up a chest beating OP, then is now caught up in his own personal drama. ( which, BTW- We are still waiting on that explanation as to the WHY did he make the conscious decision to use our forum for his personal posterboard for how hard he is trying to "Clear his good name".

heartserenade wrote:
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.

I totally sympathize with you. My SO is a trained graphic designer who tried her hand at some freelance work while "between jobs." She was outbid on just about every project. There's a TON of people out there who can do "passable" design work, which drives the value of her skills down. It's tough to find clients that are actually looking for high-quality results that are also willing to hire someone without an extensive freelance background. And it's hard to build that background when the majority of available jobs effectively pay less than minimum wage.



So how did the ethics of outsourcing get dragged into this topic? Many businesses shift work offshore to reduce costs. It's nothing new. Condemning Paintedfigs for underpaying/overworking/maltreatment of its employees is based solely on conjecture and dubious pay figures from an equally dubious character (Paul). In reality, we have no idea how the Paintedfigs workers are being treated or paid. Unless you trust Paul. And personally I do not trust that guy (see my earlier post of clively's).

Yes, the OP seems to have a lack of communication and marketing skills. And he doesn't seem like he knows how to run a business. And no, the product does not look terribly great. The turnaround time is very long with poor/no status updates. At the end of the day, there is a market for a service that provides fully assembled and painted models for a decent price. While Paintedfigs seems to be decently priced, the quality, customer service, and lead time are probably not good enough for most people.

Unless I missed something, there really isn't much more to discuss at this point. No one has gotten a significant amount of figures assembled/painted to comment on quality. No one has reported here that they put in an order and been ripped off. Those that have had a few models painted have been content with the quality, but not with the time it took or the customer service.

@elrabin: Well, freelancing has its own upsides. Sometimes you get a project that would go way past your average montly income. Sometimes you don't get projects at all. It's an unstable position in which you would need connections and marketing skills to sell yourself to your clients. Plus, you control your schedule (big plus for me!) and you're your own boss.

Grot 6 wrote:
Bottom line, this guy started up a chest beating OP, then is now caught up in his own personal drama. ( which, BTW- We are still waiting on that explanation as to the WHY did he make the conscious decision to use our forum for his personal posterboard for how hard he is trying to "Clear his good name".

I think it could have worked (posting in the forum to clean one's name), but in the way it was handled is, let just say in my opinion is "wrong". I'm not justifying his actions or what he said is true or false. All I'm saying is that it's a PR nightmare.


I do agree that there's nothing more to discuss in this thread, aside from OT topics like "What is art?" and "Is outsourcing from 3rd world countries a bad thing?". Sorry guys if I got a bit OTed but I do feel like it is my duty as a citizen of my country and as a professional artist to chime in in those off-topic discussions.

DOWN WITH THE UNION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




it's not like OP made a company in America and then outsourced to Sri Lanka. If GW is a global market, then expect to have various services associating with that market to be global as well.... It's not that hard to understand really.

And for all of you internet, political think-tanks, your opinions, views, slants, perspectives etc... have absolutely no place here, period! And it would be in the best interest of all the dakka community if you just kept from posting your potentially damaging rhetoric!

On a side note, OP does offer a stand alone cleaning service, which I have never seen before. I myself can't stand cleaning mould lines so I may have to give them a try...

On a side note, OP does offer a stand alone cleaning service, which I have never seen before. I myself can't stand cleaning mould lines so I may have to give them a try...

You would send your miniatures around to the other side of the planet to have mold lines removed? Surely there is somebody in your local gaming community who would perform this service and get you those figures back in a week, rather than months later.

helium42 wrote:

On a side note, OP does offer a stand alone cleaning service, which I have never seen before. I myself can't stand cleaning mould lines so I may have to give them a try...

You would send your miniatures around to the other side of the planet to have mold lines removed? Surely there is somebody in your local gaming community who would perform this service and get you those figures back in a week, rather than months later.

Sounds a bit bizzare to me, i personally would not like a four month wait or to have to pay to remove mould lines, it doesnt really bother me though, guess its just a case of each to his own.

I have had to once again edit this thread.

If you have nothing to post other than "thread needs locking" then please don't post. Spamming the forum is against our rules. Also, keep it on topic. If you want to talk about an Off Topic subject please avail yourself of a new thread. Finally, just because you don't have any contructive on-topic remarks to add doesn't mean a thread needs to be locked. The fact that you or other posters feel the temptation to respond to this thread in a way that violates our rules is also not a good reason to lock this thread. But if you do respond to this thread in a way that violates our rules the result will be a suspension of your account rather than a locked thread.

Thanks.

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

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

You cant be seriously claiming that hard working americans have some kind of exclusivity to painting wargaming miniatures are you? I mean its so wrong what you just typed in so many levels that the only thing that I can say to you is American miniatures painters are not the most trained, with more skill or even with more artistry... just compare GD's and see how worlds apart most of your miniature painting skills are comparing with some other countries.. Besides its a worldwide hobby that not even started in the US in the first place.

Ridiculous!

The only hardworking skilled workers that pay for education are from america? the rest are peasants ROFLMAO

Wake up!

NAVARRO wrote:

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

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

You cant be seriously claiming that hard working americans have some kind of exclusivity to painting wargaming miniatures are you? I mean its so wrong what you just typed in so many levels that the only thing that I can say to you is American miniatures painters are not the most trained, with more skill or even with more artistry... just compare GD's and see how worlds apart most of your miniature painting skills are comparing with some other countries.. Besides its a worldwide hobby that not even started in the US in the first place.

Ridiculous!

The only hardworking skilled workers that pay for education are from america? the rest are peasants ROFLMAO

Wake up!

Pedro,
I believe what he is saying is that only Americans can paint miniatures sculpted and designed in Britain. It's a rather brilliant argument wouldn't you say? And even better all in the name of art!

I do understand Neal's point.

He is basically saying if we buy a Ferrrari and pay some amateur to do a custom paint job
and mess it up ( of course ) we should be to blame for been that *risky ( or insert other words xD)

NAVARRO wrote:You cant be seriously claiming that hard working americans have some kind of exclusivity to painting wargaming miniatures are you?

Of course not. That would be silly.
He's only saying that we have the exclusivity of doing it PROFESSIONALLY.
Really. I mean, how mistaken can you be, Navarro.
You'd have probably figured that out, if you weren't some third-worlder, yourself.

NAVARRO wrote:The only hardworking skilled workers that pay for education are from america? the rest are peasants ROFLMAO

Well, yeah.
Glad you finally understand.


Eric
(...and for those with no sense of the absurd or sense of humor, I'm now officially taking off my sarcasm hat. In actuality, I agree with Navarro and am glad that he spoke up.)

LunaHound wrote:I do understand Neal's point.

He is basically saying if we buy a Ferrrari and pay some amateur to do a custom paint job

No he isnt.

I dont understand his point at all because its flat out ridiculous.

Only one thing matters If you pay a bloke to paint your minis, if he paints good.

Some Indian painters will be able to paint miniatures fantastically well. Amazing.

If I want a painted mini, that is the ONLY thing that possibly matters.. the skill to paint said mini! Who gives a gak if he isn't a well educated American!?

I'm asking him to paint a mini, not perform open heart surgery on a small child perched on my garden furniture.

Guys, i apologize, i let my personal opinion get the better of me, and i got carried away with my posts in this thread, which got way off track. It is my fault sorry.

I didnt mean to step on anyones toes.


I would like to maybe edit, or revise my bullet points of my opinion, here are the cliff notes:

- the things i said in this thread, its just my opinion. Im not trying to tell you what to think, im trying to tell you what * i think *

- I am very frustrated, and upset when i see a skilled persons job go overseas to someone in a 3rd world country who is WAY less skilled and trained, for way less money. That isnt being impolite, thats just being straight up honest with you. And yes this could apply to miniatures painting. And yes, it happened to me at my old job and i was infuriated and felt betrayed by it. My company stabbed me in the back just the same way your company would probably stab you in the back to increase their profits. If you dont know how that feels, and are in with a good company, then i am indeed happy for you. Some people mixed up my comments on here about miniatures painting, and job security / outsourcing.

- I dont have a geological bias for parts of the world to be inferior to the U.S. I dont care where you live. there are talented people who paint miniatures ALL OVER THE WORLD. There are talented artists all over the world.

- It bothers me i guess to see people accept such a low standard of painting on such finely crafted , and expensive miniatures, most of which in my humble opinion, are the nicest gaming/collectible miniatures available to the public. It bothers me, i guess, but ill get over it, its my problem not yours. I accept that there is a vast and enormous range of skill levels of people in the hobby, and a vast range of priorities , etc.. Some people just want to play a game, so thats fine i guess. I am really caught up in my own vision of what things are supposed to look like - when it doesnt look like that, i try and find out why, etc..

It takes a big man to admit his F*** ups and fall on his sword like that.
Good on ya!


As for the paint quality... I really think you guys need to understand that some people see this as a game and just want their models painted uniformly. A "tabletop" standard (which is what I see in the OP's models -to varying degrees) is good enough for these people.

Eric

neal1975 wrote:Guys, i apologize, i let my personal opinion get the better of me, and i got carried away with my posts in this thread, which got way off track. It is my fault sorry.

I didnt mean to step on anyones toes.


I would like to maybe edit, or revise my bullet points of my opinion, here are the cliff notes:

- the things i said in this thread, its just my opinion. Im not trying to tell you what to think, im trying to tell you what * i think *

- I am very frustrated, and upset when i see a skilled persons job go overseas to someone in a 3rd world country who is WAY less skilled and trained, for way less money. That isnt being impolite, thats just being straight up honest with you. And yes this could apply to miniatures painting. And yes, it happened to me at my old job and i was infuriated and felt betrayed by it. My company stabbed me in the back just the same way your company would probably stab you in the back to increase their profits. If you dont know how that feels, and are in with a good company, then i am indeed happy for you. Some people mixed up my comments on here about miniatures painting, and job security / outsourcing.

- I dont have a geological bias for parts of the world to be inferior to the U.S. I dont care where you live. there are talented people who paint miniatures ALL OVER THE WORLD. There are talented artists all over the world.

- It bothers me i guess to see people accept such a low standard of painting on such finely crafted , and expensive miniatures, most of which in my humble opinion, are the nicest gaming/collectible miniatures available to the public. It bothers me, i guess, but ill get over it, its my problem not yours. I accept that there is a vast and enormous range of skill levels of people in the hobby, and a vast range of priorities , etc.. Some people just want to play a game, so thats fine i guess. I am really caught up in my own vision of what things are supposed to look like - when it doesnt look like that, i try and find out why, etc..

Yeah it takes a big man to apologise Neal, don't worry about it. I can understand where you are coming from of course, especially after issues with your own job.

Each to their own of course, I paint all my own stuff too, I was simply playing Devils Advocate on behlaf of people that dont enjoy painting as much as me.

Rayvon wrote:

helium42 wrote:

On a side note, OP does offer a stand alone cleaning service, which I have never seen before. I myself can't stand cleaning mould lines so I may have to give them a try...

You would send your miniatures around to the other side of the planet to have mold lines removed? Surely there is somebody in your local gaming community who would perform this service and get you those figures back in a week, rather than months later.

Sounds a bit bizzare to me, i personally would not like a four month wait or to have to pay to remove mould lines, it doesnt really bother me though, guess its just a case of each to his own.

Currently, I have a gaming community of 2.5. My brother (half way there), My cousin and myself. If I had some people I knew I would ask, but then of course, trying to hold a person liable for damaged, missing, potentially stolen goods seems to be a bit harder than an actual company so to speak...


And what happens when you work 70+ hours a week (with internet/ebay access)? Well, you begin to horde... As of now I have a 3000 pt OnG army in boxes, a 4000 pt WE army in boxes, a 2500 pt half-assembled IG and the same goes for my Ork army. Oh and another 1500 pts in boxed vampire counts. This is my 3rd year in the hobby and this is my results so far. I further suffer from some Iraqi war related issues that continue to hamper my army-building. So really, a 4 month turnaround isn't going to hurt my free time any. Better that, than seeing this ungodly pile of plastic and metal continue to gather dust .

I can definitely understand that the OP has found a niche in this market, why can't anyone else. If he was conducting his business illegally or immorally (other than running into some issues with deadlines and an obviously disgruntled employee) I would be inclined to agree with alot of these comments, but I don't see that as of yet and airing out someones laundry just seems petty. WE ALL HAVE SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET so to speak. Is the painting sub-par? To most people commenting in this thread, yes it is. However I say AGAIN, that's the customers decision, not anyone else. I mean, if you want to see some subpar work, I can post a few embarrassing pics of the crap i've turned out so far. Oh and what about all the people who gripe "ugh another gray army." Wouldn't this be a possible solution?


Can anyone here post a link of a painting service that can do what the OP states just as cheap, with like quality or better and with a faster turnaround time? Keep in mind cleaning, assembling and painting entire armies...

I'm not sure there is one tbh because I've looked before.

DeadBabySoup wrote: If he was conducting his business illegally or immorally (other than running into some issues with deadlines and an obviously disgruntled employee) I would be inclined to agree with alot of these comments, but I don't see that as of yet

The illegal part is in that article.

After seeing all of the pictures of their models in this thread, I can't understand why people aren't using the great commission painters here on dakka, that do absolutely amazing work and have fantastic reputations.


These paintedfigs models do NOT look good, at all. I honestly compare them to how I painted when I was 10.... I hope that's not a coincidence.

DarknessEternal wrote:

DeadBabySoup wrote: If he was conducting his business illegally or immorally (other than running into some issues with deadlines and an obviously disgruntled employee) I would be inclined to agree with alot of these comments, but I don't see that as of yet

The illegal part is in that article.

Wait, it's in an article on the internet? I hardly think that's any definitive sort of proof.

Emerett wrote:After seeing all of the pictures of their models in this thread, I can't understand why people aren't using the great commission painters here on dakka, that do absolutely amazing work and have fantastic reputations.


These paintedfigs models do NOT look good, at all. I honestly compare them to how I painted when I was 10.... I hope that's not a coincidence.

I agree. I understand that there are TONS of better painters out there and usually charge a bit more for there services and can't or won't clean, assemble, or even paint whole armies. It seems that each one has a certain set of stipulations that go with there service. However, the OP still fills a niche market of doing it all at a seemingly affordable price. We all know by now that most of the posters here think this quality painting is "sub-par," continuing to state that doesn't add anything new to the thread.

MagickalMemories wrote:

dodginghitmen wrote:In answer to your question MWNCIBOO when I was at Painted Figs the building/painting staff were paid a basic of about $100 per month plus bonus, I think the highest paid guy doubled his pay.

You can download the accounts from http://www.discountfigs.com/

But Navin then sent me an email saying the pay numbers were wrong as he hadn't included a $3000 bonus he paid himself.

And in this forums post he said he cut salaries further.

So I would assume it is lower than $100 per month basic now.

First off, I don't care what he pays his employees. I'd imagine a lot of others here agree. It's not like he's got them indentured or stuck in modern day slavery. There are no Sri Lankan laws I could find on Google that said his employees had to work for him if they don't like their pay.
I also don't care what HE makes. So long as he's following through with his promises, he can rake in as much as he wants. Don't gripe to a bunch of Capitalists about him making too much.
You did, however, inspire me to do a little research of my own.

You said the average employee of his Sri Lankan business made $100 a month.
So, according to www.xe.com, $100 USD = 13,006.60 LKR (Sri Lankan Rupee)

According to this (http://indi.ca/2006/10/the-average-sri-lankan/), the average Sri Lankan wage is 17,109 LKR.
So, you're telling us that they paid their employees the equivalent of minimum wage.
Okay. Kind of sucky, I guess... but not horrible.

Then, you tell us that he pays bonuses and that it's apparently possible for them do DOUBLE their wages? So, they could make 26,013.20 LKR per month?
Wow! That's more than 150% of the average Sri Lankan wage. Where is the problem here?

In comparison, the median "one earner" income in Missouri (my home state) in 2011 was $39,332. That's $3277.66 per month.
Now, if we reduced that, by percent, to be the equivalent of what paintedfigs paid their employees, it is $2491.74 (or $29,900 annually).
I am sure there are tons of people who would GLADLY paint miniatures for a job that paid them that as a base salary and offered them the opportunity to multiply that by up to double.

Once you know the facts and can put them into perspective... all you did by telling us the scandalous wage he pays is HELP him.


Eric

I don't think the former Webmaster was complaining about the pay, as you seem to imply. Someone asked for the wages and he gave the answer to the question, because he was able to do so.