my worthy painting woes

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**Tommie Soule**

winterdyne wrote:
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.

Wise words Maz.

T

**Battlegrounds Wargaming**

Spot on with what he was saying

Automatically Appended Next Post:
A successful store can help a painting company greatly or hinder it

**Some_Call_Me_Tim?**

winterdyne wrote:
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.

I'm not gonna argue with that! They are wicked fast, but you could never hope to get anything painted by them to this quality(image not mine):

For BTP, speed trumps quality. Which is, frankly, cool with me. They attract exactly the opposite kind of customer I want. I really hope they don't go under, because they keep the speed-demon clients happy.

~Tim?

**winterdyne**

Like many other things: Fast, good, cheap. Sustainable business models usually mean you can pick two.

**Loki Odinsson**

Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
winterdyne wrote:
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.

I'm not gonna argue with that! They are wicked fast, but you could never hope to get anything painted by them to this quality(image not mine):

For BTP, speed trumps quality. Which is, frankly, cool with me. They attract exactly the opposite kind of customer I want. I really hope they don't go under, because they keep the speed-demon clients happy.

~Tim?

Nice pictur! Who did that? thanks

**Jacknife**

In the video about them closing down, it sounded like they were going into administration, so that might be why they left your commission for so long. Nick also said the administrators told him to keep it quiet, which they could have taken a bit too seriously, and not talk to the clients at all about why their projects are not finished

**Matney X**

Karnophage wrote:
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.

Or ebay. (Example)

I like BTP, and I really wanna support a local company (they're about an hour and a half drive from my house), but unless you're going with a very specific color scheme or loadout, Ebay will almost always have a full army for you.

**Tommie Soule**

Glad you guys like the farseer

**-Shrike-**

To be fair, Tommie Soule, I wish I could paint like that.

**Capamaru**

Cheap.
Fast.
Good.

You can only choose two regarding commission painting. It is fast and good then it ain't cheap. It is cheap and fast then it ain't good and so on.

Regarding WP I believe that if they were scamming people like the OP then it is good they went out of business, cause no one will miss them. Regarding BTP I strongly believe that their job is mediocre at best! The biggest joke of all is the exchange program.... Send in your minis and we will take them at half the retail price (at best!!) and will provide painting services for that amount? To all you people out there!!! HOW DESPERATE ARE YOU ?!?!!? Put them on ebay and get real money!

If I was to employ a commission service I would go for a small commission studio and not for a slave's painting factory.

**Tommie Soule**

-Shrike- wrote:
To be fair, Tommie Soule, I wish I could paint like that.

If you are ever down the studio I'll spare minute to teach a bit here and there

T

**Davey80y**

Cheap.
Fast.
Good.

You can only choose two regarding commission painting. It is fast and good then it ain't cheap. It is cheap and fast then it ain't good and so on.

hum dunno... all depends on what you class as cheap I'm certainly not charging WP prices.....

**Capamaru**

Davey80y wrote:
Cheap.
Fast.
Good.

You can only choose two regarding commission painting. It is fast and good then it ain't cheap. It is cheap and fast then it ain't good and so on.

hum dunno... all depends on what you class as cheap I'm certainly not charging WP prices.....

Well I don't have an exact margin in mind but you get the idea of how I feel it works.