Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

The general jist of my post is in the topic.  I'm thinking of tackling a Forgeworld Orca dropship and I want to know what I'm up against.  I've got experience making tanks and such but not the large Forgeworld business.  I've got an airbrush and dremel and know how to use them.  This would be a showcase piece.

So does anyone have experience with these big models, especially this one in particular?

How challenging are they?
How long do they take to assemble?
To paint?
I'm really interested in how many hours I can expect to spend.

And any practical advice?

Thanks!

Have you done any resin kits before? This is a BIG one! Consider that it has a full interior with flight deck, and the passenger compartment has 24 fire warriors, 6 crisis suits, and 12 drones. If you haven't done any resin before, I'd suggest doing as smaller build first such as the Arvus Lighter or maybe a Thunderbolt, to get used to the material. You'll have to learn how to deal with things such as warped parts and air bubbles, which are normal for resin. And the Forge World stuff I have dealt with has always been very brittle.... I think they may use too much microballoons in the mix.

I'd give myself 6 months for this project, and expect a few hundred hours of work if you really want to make it a showpiece.

-Hans

Thanks Hans, that's very helpful.

My situation is this. I've recently launched a painting studio and one of my customers approached me with this potential project. Now he says he also has a Thunderhawk he wants done. I certainly don't want to turn away a project like this, but at the same time It's difficult to break down the amount of work involved so that I can give him an accurate quote and timeline. The crew is obviously much more familiar ground. I have no idea if there is a "going rate" for a project like this.

That's a really good suggestion about the Thunderbolt/Arvus lighter. Those are the only two Forgeworld items he's mentioned to me, but maybe he has more resin stashed away we could use as a test project.

Does anyone have any info on a commission like this -- that is, the "going rate"?

You know,in all simplicity.Tell the client that it would be your first time with resin,further more with such a big kit.
You cant judge your time with something you havent done before either.
Like said,expect a good 5-6 months of work,including putting it together,cleaning,painting,then making it showcase worthy.
Best of luck though,im sure we all would like to see the beast painted

Ahhh, you are doing this as part of a painting business. That makes the equation both more simple but more complex. Are you full-time at this? or do you have a regular job or school to worry about? I'll go with an estimate in hours of work, since that is probably more accurate for your needs. A 6 month project for a hobbiest working on it a couple hours per weekend can be just a 2-3 week project if you work on it consistantly every day.

Normally when I do comission work, which is only occasionally, I normally go by a general rule of the cost of the kits plus the same amount in labor. Though I will steer that higher or lower depending on the actual contents. If there is a comprehensive interior involved, then I will double the labor cost, because it is a lot more involved in labor. (small cockpits in aircraft don't count). Plus, occasionally I will reduce the price a bit if I am excited over the project or it all builds easier than expected. Sometimes I will raise the price if the kit is exceptionally difficult, complex or poor quality.  For instance a basic $30 tank kit would be $30 for the kit and $30 for labor.   A $30 kit with interior probably $50 in labor.  Start adding aftermarket parts or figures, and it goes up from there.   Photoetch Brass or a resin aftermarket interior really can start adding up in parts cost and complexity.

I'm looking at the Orca on the Forgewold website now, and it actually doesn't look TOO bad..... other than the sheer number of figures. So i'd probably lower my time estimate on this one the more I think about it. Probably 30 hours of work on the actual Orca and about 45-60 on the figures (maybe less). My major worry would be warped pieces because of the overall size. However, I also think the interior needs some help, as it is very basic. I think the flight deck only needs a little extra, but the troop compartment really needs some additional detail added in. Especially around the rear door, way too sparse.

Because the whole top comes off, you can't skimp on the figures either, since they will all be equally visible. The ship commander probably should have a replacement done too... it's just a cheezy knockoff of the Ethereal that came with the original army box. None of the flight crew look like Air Caste to me at all.

So, lets see..... 33 figures, 8 drones.... easy $100-150 for them alone, and that is a very cheap rate at around $2.50-$3.50 per figure considering that 6 of them are Crisis Suits which are annoying to clean up all the seams on, and probably with just one or two highlights and shades for the troops. This part of the job can easily increase the time you put into it if you start going overboard on the detail of the figures, and is where you need to carefully balance the detail with the speed of painting. I wouldn't go too crazy either, because fine detail will probably get lost in the clutter and may detract from the overall look. Thankfully you only have to do the front side of the firewarriors. The flight crew will have to be done to a higher standard since they are more separated and more individually visible.

Then at least the same amount for the Orca itself. Assembly will take longer, but the painting will probably go quicker. This will be almost entirely airbrush and masking work too, it's just way too large to consider brushes for anything but the finer detail.

That makes it around $200-300 in labor, depending on how quickly it progresses and if you have any problems. But to be honest, it's hard to gauge larger projects like that one. You need to charge enough to make it worth your effort, but you have to keep it low enough for the customer to be accepting of the price. And if it takes you 100 hours of work, and you only charge $300.... then you're not even halfway to minimum wage. Manye people won't do things this big except for established customers who they have already done a number of pieces for. Note that this didn't include the price of the kit itself, I don't know if you or the customer would be providing it.

Since you are trying to establish yourself, you might want to take a bit of a hit on this piece and make the whole thing of higher quality than you normally would. Then take a lot of high-quality photos so you can use it in your portfolio (you ARE going to do a portfolio of your work, right?).

Unfortunately, my work internet access has trouble with the ForgeWorld website on a regular basis.... so I can't bring up the thunderhawk to give you an opinion on that one. My guess from memory on what it looks like would be a slight bit cheaper than the Orca, but no less than $200 in labor. But i'd have to look closer before I firm that up.

-Hans

Wow, Hans, thanks for the insightful post.  It's been incredibly helpful, and I really appreciate the time it must have taken to write it.

The customer in question has both of these kits in his closet.

Cost of the kit as a rule of thumb is good to know about.  The way I run my studio, everything I paint is a showcase model, and all that extra time spent is reflected in my prices.  Even if I steeply discount my rate for the crew, I would still need to charge about $900 for the crew alone.  It really adds up fast.  But then budgeting 30-50 hours for the kit (without crew) is more reasonable.  I imagine my customer might be a lot more tempted to pass along the Thunderhawk to me, as I would charge him less than half what I would for the orca.

You must be a lot faster than I am, though, as there is no way I could even imagine doing the kit for $300.  And I pretty much know I couldn't do the figures in 60 hou
urs.    
I've taken some small hits already in order establish myself, but $300 is a little too big of a hit for me.  $300 is a lot less than the price of the kit, btw, which is closer to 5.

But I'll pass all this information along to the guy.  I'll tell him he may be able to get it done for the price of the kit, and then let him decide whether he wants to go with me.  I'll also ask him if he has any other kits to ease into it with.

The parts of your post that I haven't commented on have been really helpful as well.  I'm taking it all into consideration.  Thank you very much again!

If any of these projects do pan out, I'll be showing it off here, so let's see, eh?

That is the problem with bigger projects, is that they really can add up to significant amounts of time being spent on them.   But, customers may have a limit on how much they are willing to spend, so it's a delicate tradeoff.  In this case, the figures are the killer element that skews everything off and makes it probably the most labor intensive job of all the forge world kits by a large margin. To be flat out honest, I'd be afraid to do the Orca professionally because I think it would be very difficult to do at a profit. 

And you're right, the $300 amount is far too low, I realized that as I posted it.  There I go thinking like an armor and airplane guy again, since that is where I do most of my work.  I haven't really done any commissioned figure work, so I'm not very experienced in what to charge for them at all, much less a fair price for show quality work.

Do you only do painting? or sculpting as well?  I'd be interested to see your work, as I may have need of a sculpter for a few things.

-Hans

 

 

It is a difficult tradeoff for such a large project. Because of all the variables I probably wouldnt take it on myself . The sheer amount of time that will go into proper assembly alone gives me a headache. The closest thing that I've assembled and painted was a Valkyre. Getting everything to fit together right was very tedious. If you want a chance to play around with some cool models go for it but its gonna be difficult to make it worth your while unless your client has deep pockets. The 5-6 month time frame sounds about right too.

FWIW, I used to do a fair amount of building and painting on the side for customers.  I wound up doing mostly Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy stuff, and a bit of Ork stuff to boot.  I usually worked part-time, say 2 to 3 hours a time, maybe 3 to 5 days a week.

Out of the Imperial Guard/Navy stuff, I've done at least 8 Valkyries and 2 Vultures. The first one or two Valkyries were difficult, but I also found there was a learning curve in terms of the kit and the assembly process.  After a while, experience allowed me to streamline the building and painting process quite a bit, to the point where I could turn out a Valkyrie or a Vulture in relatively short order.  After a while, the hardest part ceased to be the assembly, but in refining my airbrushing skills to do new an unique paint schemes for the customers. 

I would agree that Hans had a lot of good advise on this subject, and I would relegate an Orca as being a model that you don't typically get a lot of work in building, perhaps only one or two in a career.  You will have a steeper learning curve, and you won't get to re-use a lot of the specific knowledge about the model very often (unless you live in a disgustingly wealthy area and every 12 year old is bringing you a fresh FW Orca that Mommy bought them at the bunker for their new Tau army of the week but I digress...)

I'd say Hans estimate of cost of kit + cost of assembly is right on.  If you think that you might be able to generate a lot more business with a good build on the Orca and some favorable word of mouth, I wouldn't hesitate to go with that cost.  If you wanted to build a bit more good will, you might consider cost of kit plus 1/2 to 3/4 of the cost of assembly, or agree to do a few more crisis suits or broadside suits  that the customer might also bring in at no extra charge. 

Finally, I'd like to leave you with one other thought.  Do the work because you like it, not neecessarily because you want to make money.  I ultimately stopped doing building and painting for customers when I started to lose interest in the hobby as a whole.  My personal interest and work for my armies started to suffer, and I didn't even enjoy gaming as much as I used to.  I guess 5000+ points of Mordian Infantry will do that to a man, not to mention the FW and Armorcast stuff I did on top of that.  That's not to say I might not be coaxed out of retirement for a truely challenging model, like an Orca or a Warhound Titan, but I'm not in any big hurry for such a project either.  I have a friend that is waiting on a Salamander's army that he had shipped off over a year ago.  To date, he's seen about 15 or 20 models of a 2500 point army.  I suspect his painter got overextended and somewhat despondent about the jobs that he had piled up.  I feel for my friend because I think he is going to take a bath on those models, and I'm not excusing the painter for his actions or inaction, but I would again remind you to do it because you enjoy it.  Once you cease to enjoy it, all the money in the world won't make the job any more palatable to you. 

Thanks for the continued help with this, everyone!

Work with figures are where I'm coming from. But I'd really love to branch out with vehicles, especially the Forgeworld stuff. But I also see my studio as a business. I'm willing to take hits (which I've been doing) in order to build my repetoire and customer base, but I can only go so far. After all, if I'm not making money at it, I have a closet full of my own projects that need attending to. But as for fun v. business, so far I don't see a conflict. So far, this is probably the hardest I've ever worked, and I cringe at what my "hourly rate" is right now, but at the same time I've been really enjoying doing it even more than I thought I would. What's especially rewarding is how fast I'm able to progress with my skills, and put away new techniques in my bag of tricks. Yes, so I'm kind of under-the-gun to get faster, but I don't see my interest in painting waining anytime soon. If anything, it's made me more excited about my own projects, and more confident that I can turn them out without getting bogged down in the minutia (which is my habit of old). The aim of course is to get fast and good enough to be making a decent skilled crafstman wage.
Also, Tiberius, I paint all the figs I sell to showcase standard, which means several things. I paint a lot fewer of them than most pro painters. And there's more room for artistic fulfullment. These things buffer me a little from burn out.

Hans, (and anyone), you can see my work at nullhorizon.com. As for sculpting, funning you mention it. I'm actually trying to find time here and there to hone my sculpting skills. So far, I'm pleased with my conversion work, and I hope to move to sculpting some complete figures very soon. Down the road, I do have an eye out for the possiblility of freelance sculpting. What's the nature of your sculpting needs? Whole figures, conversion work, or other? If you'd like, I could show you some of my conversion work.

As for the project, even if my client doesn't have a smaller kit to start out on, I'm going to try convincing him to get one. Valkerye and Vulture sound just right.