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Hi guys i've came a cross a space marine on ebay with a price tag of £200.00.. do these models really deserve to be sold at these prices we are seeing them being sold for even if they have been painted by some golden daemon winner or finalist..? Be great to have your thoughts and opinions .
here's the model i've seen

unforgiven soldier wrote:
Hi guys i've came a cross a space marine on ebay with a price tag of £200.00.. do these models really deserve to be sold at these prices...

"Deserve"? That's an odd way to look at it.

Either someone will buy it, or they won't. You just need a single person who "values" it at £200. What everyone else thinks is irrelevant.

If you value this piece as an OOP (out of print) model with a very clean paint job, extremely sharp freehand, mounted on a custom base, that you'd like in your display cabinet or the centerpiece of your army, and you have the money to spare, then sure. Anyone else? Probably not.

That's the beauty of ebay. There may only be a single person in the world who agrees with the seller's desired price, but that's all the seller needs. You don't price a single piece of artwork for the lowest common denominator; if you have the skill, target the collectors.

Value is in the eye of the purchaser. Someone might find that to be a good price. Me? Not at all.

I find the use of deserve to be a little odd here too. Do I personally think it is worth 200 pounds? No I don't but it is a very nice paint job and it wouldn't surpise me if someone else thought it was worth the price.

Agreed that "worth" and "valued" would be better terms than deserving.

To me, that one model isn't worth $200. Even if that was an ultra-rare, one of a kind mini that was painted by a golden daemon winner, I still wouldn't buy it. Primarily because someone else painted it, and I'd never field a mini that another man painted. Painting and modeling are very important to me. More-so than playing, actually.

But, some people simply do not have the time to paint. They value their time accordingly. Furthermore, this looks to be a show-case piece. Something to put in a collection or in a cabinet. Someone might very well put that value at $200, and more power to them.

Does that answer your question?

I agree with above posters. If you had asked me I'd say "No!" without one second of doubt. But since you're asking the internet I have no answer.

A truly pro painted model has no value attached to it except the one that the buyer has for it. Art has no true set value in my opinion. Its all about whether it appeals to you or not.

The rule of 4 feet - all painted models look good on the table when standing over them.

So as gaming peices, no not worth it.

As a study in technique, skill and patience then possibly if you are willing to part with that sort of money. That's not to say others will later on.

i could see that model going for a 150 US or so. it's really nice. i dont think anyone will bite for 200 pounds.

Simple answer: NO

Long answer: If you'd rather buy a model that is pre-painted in a professional manner, why not? Sure, the artist has taken time to make it look amazing, but when it comes down to it, it's someone else that has painted a model. Guess it comes down to what people value it at, but the way the question is worded, IMO it doesn't deserve that price at all...

I did a google search of "art sale" and found stuff like this that sells for $400 to $1200+:

That marine is way underpriced by comparison.

EDIT: The above was a failure at making a joke.

To get some perspective you can buy (or not buy as it has been on sale over 3 years now) the original artwork by Mark Gibbons from 1993 for the eldar codex... for 700GBP.

But you still have to pay postage and insurance.

Man, does he have any other originals for sale? I'd save some money for his Genestealer picture.

Are the rights to that part of the sale? 700 pounds could be worth it to hold over GW's head for a laugh.

As for the OP's model, I loathe the days when Blood Red was on every single model, and people felt the need to always highlight every damn color up to white.

Yes i guess my use of the word worth was wrong.. deserves would be much better..i guess it does depend on if i person likes it and will part with that kind of money. been very interesting reading your thoughts and opinions.

A model does not deserve.

People can ask whatever they want for their time, i.e. time spent painting, fixing your car or listening to your to your life's worries (see: shrink).

I would not be surprised to see that marine sell for $120-$150 USD, but I wouldn't pay it. Now, if I had $1200 extra bucks to lose, I could see buying that avatar artwork, and I don't play eldar; something like that lends itself to display much better.

As folks have already said, "worth" is entirely dependent on the buyer, and "deserve" is too loaded and morally dependent a word to use for a painted miniature.

Consider, though the amount of effort an artist puts into a piece. Professionals in america who are good at their craft can often make $80k a year. That's an arbitrary number, but follow me for a second...

That comes out to around $40 (about 30 GBP, yes?) or so bucks an hour if assuming a 40 hour work week. If an artist of extreme skill and ability spends 7 hours on a piece, than it seems reasonable that the piece might cost 200 pounds (not sure if I have the right conversion for $ to gbp). Note that that doesn't even include the cost of the model, base, etc.

I'd say no as most painted minis will look good on a gaming table 4 feet away.

Someone that's buying that one mini is prob not going to be playing with it. All that aside, the artist can ask whatever he wants to for it and if people buy it then he has found the right price. Art value is really wild when it comes to price tags. The key thing to remember is this "sure the artist spent 20-50 hours on the model, but in fact his true time spent on the model is the time spent doing every model before that one honing his techniques."

I'm a painter and I enjoy it... I treat every model as practice to better myself and it is clear to me this person does the same thing.

Do you paint yourself? If you do, you will soon realize that it is a complete waste to spend so such time on a figure to put in so many details. No one is going to look at it with a magnifying glass. On the table top with so many other figures around, you can hardly notice the amount of work involved. A complete waste unless you want to take a picture of it and blow it up 5 to 10X.

unforgiven soldier wrote:Yes i guess my use of the word worth was wrong.. deserves would be much better...

Comes to the same thing. The painter 'deserves' whatever they and their buyer feel their time and talent is worth. That's how it works with any artistic production.

wildger wrote:Do you paint yourself? If you do, you will soon realize that it is a complete waste to spend so such time on a figure to put in so many details. No one is going to look at it with a magnifying glass. On the table top with so many other figures around, you can hardly notice the amount of work involved. A complete waste unless you want to take a picture of it and blow it up 5 to 10X.

As someone else pointed out earlier, this is not a gaming miniature. And having seen more than a few Gold Demon standard miniatures up close, you don't need a magnifying glass to see just how awesome they are.

 pretre wrote:
Value is in the eye of the purchaser. Someone might find that to be a good price. Me? Not at all.

Yup, this pretty much sums it up... Close the thread.

 oni wrote:

 pretre wrote:
Value is in the eye of the purchaser. Someone might find that to be a good price. Me? Not at all.

Yup, this pretty much sums it up... Close the thread.

agreed, a good rule of thumb on value is something is worth as much as someone is willing to pay

i'll chime in here, as a painter who aims at collectors when painting, and asks more than 200 pounds per mini...
the collector may be a gamer as well, but collecting display minis painted by a world renowned painter ( in this case, Darren Lathem, aka Razza, a former 'Eavy Metal painter) is not even in the same realm as painting for gamers...

collecting display minis is like collecting art, the name of the painter brings as much value as the skills on display...
if you have no interest in that, fair enough, but don't belittle the guy who spends thousands of hours honing his skills, winning awards, getting published, building up a name for themselves, just to make a few hundred bucks for a piece of art that takes a huge amount of skill, thought, and manhours to produce...

Van Gogh died penniless in the madhouse because people did not appreciate his work...
his paintings now sell for millions of dollars, and hang in the national galleries of many countries...
it's just a little paint on canvas, WTF???
but it has a unique style, and came from crazy Vincent's hand so, 30 million dollars please...

the art world is crazy, and only a few actually make it...
mostly it's a lot of poverty, and ramen noodles, so if a guy is having a little success as an artist, cut him a break...

this piece is being sold by a collector anyway...
this is not the painter's auction...
that little piece of information may have helped in the OP...

cheers
jah

Jah-Jashua,
Thanks for bringing your professional point of view to the discussion. One question if I may, how many hours would a figure like that take you (or him, if you have some idea) to complete?

I'm just curious to what the per-hour wage works out too. Not that it's really a determiner of value, just something I was wondering about.

 Waaagh_Gonads wrote:
To get some perspective you can buy (or not buy as it has been on sale over 3 years now) the original artwork by Mark Gibbons from 1993 for the eldar codex... for 700GBP.

But you still have to pay postage and insurance.

Sadly, that site of Gibbons is long abandoned. I tried to buy some stuff from it awhile back and the messages bounced. He's in the US working for Blizzard these days.

I have in the past, payed some cash for display miniatures. From a practical perspective, its a waste of money. At 28mm scale, nobody really sees the work and effort that has gone into the piece. You really need to get up close, preferably even handle the miniature before you can get a fuel for the work. Which is now why I display statues and only figures of 54mm and up!

I would not get the miniature especially because there are people like Camelson (link: http://camelson.blogspot.com.au ) that do commissions for less and in my opinion painted to a better quality.

-ironhandstraken

The only way I think you could attach a work like 'deserve' is if we're talking about hours worked.

Assuming that miniature took a few days to paint, that means we're valuing the time of the painter at around £70 per day.

That's actually very cheap for a skilled freelancer.

It's not so much the actual art itself, but the person who did the art. as jah pointed out this guy is former eavy metal and has won awards etc. If someone painted starry night and tried to sale it, it would not go for ANYWHERE close to what Van Goghs goes for...it's about the person behind the brush. As I stated earlier the person spends their lifetime building their name, skills, style, etc its not something that happens over night. 200$ for the model versus the artists time put in does not even meet minimum wage if you look at it as painting just this one model. I prefer to look at at the time put into learning the art and not the actual product itself when trying to figure it's worth. Like I said before this painter has ALOT of hours logged in behind the paint brush and that's why his work is so polished. If its a collector selling it then they are prob trying to get what they paid plus a little profit /shrug. But the actual artist does have the right to sale his work for whatever price they want and if the people want it they will pay.