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I swear this thread is a gold mine for information. A big "thank you!!!" to all the professionals!

TyranidPainter wrote:

winterdyne wrote:
Dipping is using a thick polyurethane toned varnish to shade the entire model by literally dunking it in. Excess is removed and gravity does the work of pooling the pigment in recesses. Because the varnish is quite viscous, you get a smooth gradient in the shade. Extremely efficient for large batches but takes some practice to get the right knack.

A while back there was an extremely nice Imperial Fists army (by a German dude IIRC) that was dipped for the main shading pass. Many of his modes were shown on the GW blog.

Ah I see. Sounds like it requires alot of shade paint. Where on earth does one buy it in that quantity x x

Army painter has these tins of stinky stuff, about the size of half of a soda can. They have three colors, none of which I remember right now. As a matter of fact, i believe any paint line worth it's salt will have a quick-finish/dip.
1.) the stuff reeks
2.) separate the model from its base, and once it's dipped, DON'T YOU BLOODY WELL TOUCH IT!!!!!!1!!1!!!01!!! This means to get the professional effect, you will have to put your models onto corks, with pins through their feet. It may take a day to dry, maybe two to completely seal, for some reason mine weren't quite finished drying till the second day.
3.) Dipping will almost always give you a gloss finish (there's a good chance its in the ingredients). IF you don't want the gloss, just hit it with a matte varnish when dry.

Army painters colors are:
-Soft Tone (brown only pigments)
-Strong Tone (Darker, thinking Devlan Mud here)
-Dark Tone (black pigments only, thinking Badab Black)

The most commonly used would be Strong Tone, unless you want a gentle shading (or, in contrast, an extreme shading). Strong tone is the happy medium!

Dipping is another excellent tool to add to your repertoire of skills. And it adds an almost indestructible coat of protection. Just make it a part of your arsenal, not a crutch, as your painting ability would suffer if you rely on it too much.

Again, good luck. Keep crackin'

Right, the other important thing to note is that dips are usually best for less than minimum effort models. You take your few colors, paint them on flat, and after dipping, they come out with depth to them. This is an effective method for taking a squad of 30 gaunts, and knocking them off your work table inside of 5 hours.

Googled "dipping warhammer models" and this was the second result:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?27857-Dipping-figures-The-ultimate-guide

I'll echo the other comments in this thread, at the price you're charging you aren't making any money, and at the quality you're putting out, I don't think you can expect to make any money either.

Not insults, just an opinion. When I first got into "commissioning" or painting for a profit, I practiced by buying really, really bad 2nd hand models, stripping, fixing, and putting a decent paint job on them, then reselling. I probably still only netted retail or below, but it gave me the opportunity to practice, and turn a profit based on how cheap I got the figures originally.

 poda_t wrote:
Army painter has these tins of stinky stuff, about the size of half of a soda can. They have three colors, none of which I remember right now. As a matter of fact, i believe any paint line worth it's salt will have a quick-finish/dip.
1.) the stuff reeks
2.) separate the model from its base, and once it's dipped, DON'T YOU BLOODY WELL TOUCH IT!!!!!!1!!1!!!01!!! This means to get the professional effect, you will have to put your models onto corks, with pins through their feet. It may take a day to dry, maybe two to completely seal, for some reason mine weren't quite finished drying till the second day.
3.) Dipping will almost always give you a gloss finish (there's a good chance its in the ingredients). IF you don't want the gloss, just hit it with a matte varnish when dry.

 poda_t wrote:
Right, the other important thing to note is that dips are usually best for less than minimum effort models. You take your few colors, paint them on flat, and after dipping, they come out with depth to them. This is an effective method for taking a squad of 30 gaunts, and knocking them off your work table inside of 5 hours.

Target wrote:
Googled "dipping warhammer models" and this was the second result:

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?27857-Dipping-figures-The-ultimate-guide

I'll echo the other comments in this thread, at the price you're charging you aren't making any money, and at the quality you're putting out, I don't think you can expect to make any money either.

Not insults, just an opinion. When I first got into "commissioning" or painting for a profit, I practiced by buying really, really bad 2nd hand models, stripping, fixing, and putting a decent paint job on them, then reselling. I probably still only netted retail or below, but it gave me the opportunity to practice, and turn a profit based on how cheap I got the figures originally.

Thank you all so much. I appreciate all your advice and shall strongly consider experimenting with dips. Thankies =^_^= x x



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 fenrir1997 wrote:
Army painters colors are:
-Soft Tone (brown only pigments)
-Strong Tone (Darker, thinking Devlan Mud here)
-Dark Tone (black pigments only, thinking Badab Black)

The most commonly used would be Strong Tone, unless you want a gentle shading (or, in contrast, an extreme shading). Strong tone is the happy medium!

Dipping is another excellent tool to add to your repertoire of skills. And it adds an almost indestructible coat of protection. Just make it a part of your arsenal, not a crutch, as your painting ability would suffer if you rely on it too much.

Again, good luck. Keep crackin'

Thank you. So when do I apply the dip? Is it after fully painting the model (Prime, Base, Wash, Layer etc) or is it instead of the wash x x

TyranidPainter wrote:
Ah I see. Well like I said I want to sell my items cheap to give poorer people access to quality mercandise. Besides, it should also increase the portential market x x

You need to decide whether you're running a business or a charity. Insisting on low prices so poorer people can buy them is just absurd, someone who is really poor can't afford commission painting at all (especially when that commission painting isn't any better than what they could do themselves). So all you're really doing is making sure that your profit will be pretty much nonexistent. If you really want to help poorer people get into the hobby you'd be better off donating some time and money to buy basic starter sets and teach kids how to play.

Ooh peregrine. You just gave me an idea. Cheers dude. I was thinking of starting a gaming group anyway.

 Peregrine wrote:

You need to decide whether you're running a business or a charity. Insisting on low prices so poorer people can buy them is just absurd, someone who is really poor can't afford commission painting at all (especially when that commission painting isn't any better than what they could do themselves). So all you're really doing is making sure that your profit will be pretty much nonexistent. If you really want to help poorer people get into the hobby you'd be better off donating some time and money to buy basic starter sets and teach kids how to play.

........good point. Ok, you want the honest truth? I wouldn't feel comfortable charging a great amount. I'd feel like I was ripping my clients off. Besides, from what people have been saying my quality isn't yet good enough for me to charge the average going rate. I wanna charge what my skill is worth x x

TyranidPainter wrote:

Thank you. So when do I apply the dip? Is it after fully painting the model (Prime, Base, Wash, Layer etc) or is it instead of the wash x x

no washes. Dip replaces wash. Painting is also minimal. I've seen people apply paint directly without priming, and then dip them. Because the dip also contains the gloss varnish, you shouldn't experence issues with paint flaking. The only other drawback of not priming is not having anything for the paint to bite into when your are applying it, though.... I fail to see the issue here with expendables on the table top being done like this. Additionaly, be prepared to receive flak from puritans who have an inherent need to sneer when somoene mentions washes, and outright condescend at the mention of dipping models. I don't know what's wrong with these people.. dombthumbs, a former user on dakka, went and mocked these puritans by (i believe) making his own brush using his own hair clippings, and using food products for painting. (Actually, when you brew a strong coffee, and then boil most of the water off, you can get a darn nice dark ink for painting/calligraphy on paper. Not sure about the effects on models....)

despite op not being a professional painter, the title of the thread is still apt. There's oodles of handy stuff in here.

 poda_t wrote:

TyranidPainter wrote:

Thank you. So when do I apply the dip? Is it after fully painting the model (Prime, Base, Wash, Layer etc) or is it instead of the wash x x

no washes. Dip replaces wash. Painting is also minimal. I've seen people apply paint directly without priming, and then dip them. Because the dip also contains the gloss varnish, you shouldn't experence issues with paint flaking. The only other drawback of not priming is not having anything for the paint to bite into when your are applying it, though.... I fail to see the issue here with expendables on the table top being done like this. Additionaly, be prepared to receive flak from puritans who have an inherent need to sneer when somoene mentions washes, and outright condescend at the mention of dipping models. I don't know what's wrong with these people.. dombthumbs, a former user on dakka, went and mocked these puritans by (i believe) making his own brush using his own hair clippings, and using food products for painting. (Actually, when you brew a strong coffee, and then boil most of the water off, you can get a darn nice dark ink for painting/calligraphy on paper. Not sure about the effects on models....)

despite op not being a professional painter, the title of the thread is still apt. There's oodles of handy stuff in here.

Err, I am the OP lol. But yeh I guess it is. Which is good 'cos I don't know how to change it :S. And thanks, I've seen a few video's on it and I think I minght use it to turn out Massive quantites of gaunts and sell them on ebay. It should be a good way of getting the funds to start bigger projects.

That's literally the purpose of dip. It's for armies that contain many miniatures which aren't going to be individually picked up and examined, such as the gaunts for a tyranid army, or ork boys, or guardsmen. A solid neat basecoat followed by a 'strong tone' army painter dip provides a very solid tabletop standard that will satisfy many gamers.

After that, work with blending, wash, highlights and detail for miniatures such as your lictors, warriors, tyrants and so on.

This is the reason why many companies and painters offer multiple standards of painting. Mine included.

If you're going for commission paining, wouldn't it be better to just start off using oil washes rather than dips? I'm not an expert on the matter, so I'd like to hear what some higher level painters have to say, but I thought that's more what the pros used rather than dips, as you have more colour options, more consistency control and easier post-application cleanup.

I tend to use acrylic washes most of all as they are the quickest for me personally to use, but I want to get in to using oils as I've seen some really impressive results from people using them.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REMOVED BY THE CREATOR

I just started experimenting with dip in order to get an orc and gobbo army done quick. It is really fast. My workflow was prime-base coat-drybrush flesh and stone-dip-dullcote.

You can see the end result at the link below. I used army painter strong tone:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/532070.page#5711391

TyranidPainter wrote:
........good point. Ok, you want the honest truth? I wouldn't feel comfortable charging a great amount. I'd feel like I was ripping my clients off. Besides, from what people have been saying my quality isn't yet good enough for me to charge the average going rate. I wanna charge what my skill is worth x x

You need to stop thinking about what you deserve to be paid and start thinking about what you can get people to pay you. Your prices should be set to the highest level that people will still pay you to do. Rather than try to do the cheapest possible commissions work on your painting skills and get to the point where you can charge enough that your entire profit doesn't disappear into new painting supplies.

 Peregrine wrote:
You need to stop thinking about what you deserve to be paid and start thinking about what you can get people to pay you. Your prices should be set to the highest level that people will still pay you to do. Rather than try to do the cheapest possible commissions work on your painting skills and get to the point where you can charge enough that your entire profit doesn't disappear into new painting supplies.

I understand what you're saying and it is true that to begin with most of my money will be going back into the hobby however I now intend to make most of my money by using the dipping technique to produce many gaunts and selling them on.

one thing I've gotta say is that one the first model you showed, you put the scything talons on upside down

the shrouded lord wrote:
one thing I've gotta say is that one the first model you showed, you put the scything talons on upside down

No gak. They're converted boneswords.

If you are planning on just dipping and selling on then,

1. Why would people pay you enough to make a decent profit on these?

2. Have you realised that even this technique requires a bit of practice.


I'll be up front and say I dislike dipping, but it just seems like you really need to work on your painting and dipping will slow that down. I get that cash is obviously short and you are struggling for a job right now, but you might just need to accept that this isn't a solution. It might be in the future, but I think another source of income is the best way forward, sorry dude.

The Division Of Joy wrote:
If you are planning on just dipping and selling on then,

1. Why would people pay you enough to make a decent profit on these?

2. Have you realised that even this technique requires a bit of practice.


I'll be up front and say I dislike dipping, but it just seems like you really need to work on your painting and dipping will slow that down. I get that cash is obviously short and you are struggling for a job right now, but you might just need to accept that this isn't a solution. It might be in the future, but I think another source of income is the best way forward, sorry dude.

Eh, I think your personal prejudices against dipping are blinding you. I can guarantee that there are tons of 'Nid players who don't have the time/patience to paint up the masses of troops a 'Nid army requires. Plus, if done well, dipping looks really good.

I do agree with you that commission painting as a job isn't a good idea. I earn more than minimum wage doing commissions, but I'm only doing commissions because it's that or get a "real" job earning $7.50 an hour bagging groceries and stocking shelves at a store. Once I get the chance to get a better job, I'll probably start doing one commission a month, or none at all, depending on the job.

~Tim?

I just don't see why someone would pay a decent amount for someone to paint on a couple of base colours and dip them, when they can do it themselves. And by decent, I mean enough to cover costs and postage, and more than a couple of quid profit

Hi there, I read the whole topic and I am just so tempted to show you my pink land raider.


This is taken with a iphone 4S camera and also I personally think its a above average table top quality.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/488198.page

This is the link, don't want to flood your thread with pink lol, and I really need to finnish that army lol, its been on hold for so long.

This is to show you that Iphone camera can take good pictures and what quality people expect on the internet.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
Seeing as I'm 18

For some reason I thought you were much older than that. Now I unreasonably hate your painting skills even more

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
Seeing as I'm 18

For some reason I thought you were much older than that. Now I unreasonably hate your painting skills even more

Hey, you aren't half bad. Actually, I really like your stuff! Those Marines are excellent.

~Tim?

OMG. That land raider burned my eyes. Lol, I never thought pink could look that good.

The Division Of Joy wrote:
If you are planning on just dipping and selling on then,

1. Why would people pay you enough to make a decent profit on these?

2. Have you realised that even this technique requires a bit of practice.


I'll be up front and say I dislike dipping, but it just seems like you really need to work on your painting and dipping will slow that down. I get that cash is obviously short and you are struggling for a job right now, but you might just need to accept that this isn't a solution. It might be in the future, but I think another source of income is the best way forward, sorry dude.

........Ouch man. Look, I understand there's a chance I'm going to be making a loss but until I do I'm not giving up. This is my chance to generate an income doing something I enjoy and I'm not going to let this opportunity pass me by. If after selling a few models I've made an excessive loss then maybe I'll take your advice but until then I'm going to continue painting Orks, Magnetizing Nids, Fitting green LED's into Necron gun's etc, whatever the people want to keep me going until David Cameron stops being a lazy coward and sorts this country's job market out so that I can get a full time job that I enjoy and that also pays the rent and even than I may continue with the commissions. It just depends on whether people are interested in my work or not.

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:

 SilverMK2 wrote:

 Some_Call_Me_Tim? wrote:
Seeing as I'm 18

For some reason I thought you were much older than that. Now I unreasonably hate your painting skills even more

Hey, you aren't half bad. Actually, I really like your stuff! Those Marines are excellent.

~Tim?

Haha, thank you - I should really finish off that army at some point...

 Marthike wrote:
Hi there, I read the whole topic and I am just so tempted to show you my pink land raider.


This is taken with a iphone 4S camera and also I personally think its a above average table top quality.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/488198.page

This is the link, don't want to flood your thread with pink lol, and I really need to finnish that army lol, its been on hold for so long.

This is to show you that Iphone camera can take good pictures and what quality people expect on the internet.

Wow man that's very good. Very pink but very good. Certainly above tabletop standard. And perhaps the Iphone's camera isn't that bad. Maybe I just don't know how to correctly use it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

The Division Of Joy wrote:
I just don't see why someone would pay a decent amount for someone to paint on a couple of base colours and dip them, when they can do it themselves. And by decent, I mean enough to cover costs and postage, and more than a couple of quid profit

A couple of quid profit is all I would expect from this method but to put it bluntly, most people haven't got the patience to paint swarm armies so they would be willing to pay people to do it for them even if it is just tabletop standard.

 TyranidPainter wrote:

The Division Of Joy wrote:
If you are planning on just dipping and selling on then,

1. Why would people pay you enough to make a decent profit on these?

2. Have you realised that even this technique requires a bit of practice.


I'll be up front and say I dislike dipping, but it just seems like you really need to work on your painting and dipping will slow that down. I get that cash is obviously short and you are struggling for a job right now, but you might just need to accept that this isn't a solution. It might be in the future, but I think another source of income is the best way forward, sorry dude.

........Ouch man. Look, I understand there's a chance I'm going to be making a loss but until I do I'm not giving up. This is my chance to generate an income doing something I enjoy and I'm not going to let this opportunity pass me by. If after selling a few models I've made an excessive loss then maybe I'll take your advice but until then I'm going to continue painting Orks, Magnetizing Nids, Fitting green LED's into Necron gun's etc, whatever the people want to keep me going until David Cameron stops being a lazy coward and sorts this country's job market out so that I can get a full time job that I enjoy and that also pays the rent and even than I may continue with the commissions. It just depends on whether people are interested in my work or not.

Blah, blah blah. Look, you are simply not up to the point where you stand a reasonable chance of making profit. I've said this before, but perhaps wasn't clear enough.

You. Need. To. Practice. Paint and photography.

You won't get paid for it, it will cost you in models, materials and time. To save cash, get metal models for practice. These can be cleanly stripped in cellulose thinner.

Right now, as your recent eBay experiment showed, you're simply not producing the required quality, attempting to sell or perform commissions right now will only serve to harm your finances and/or reputation. You could even end up in small claims court if a client is particularly unhappy.

A lot of the start-up 'commission' services you see are actually just doing things for their friends or on a very local basis. As soon as you're touting yourself as an actual professional, what people expect of you changes massively.

With ANY business, you need to know your stuff, before you launch the ship, so to speak. I wouldn't become a hairdresser; although I know how to use comb, scissors and clippers I am in no way skilled in coiffure. Even for mates. The chance of me ballsing it up is simply too high.

I echo, if you need cash now, another job is what you need. Get to the job centre - its their job to help you find something you can do, and if you're genuine about it, as opposed to the usual sullen dosser, they're much more helpful.