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So, i have been amassing orks for the last year or so off off EBAY, most have been arriving with basic bases, and a paint job that is basically a 3color minimum, with paint going over the lines, no highlights, no shades, no detail work to speak of, some bases are not even textured.

So I have gone through and improved the paint, re did all the lines, bases, added shading, highlights, and a more details/colors.

I feel as if basically, what was done for me, was they were put together, cleaned, and had a base coat put on, albeit a 3 color base coat that "tries" to stay within the lines (lots of green on the leather bits, and brown on the orky bits)

so would I be a douche saying I painted them?


where do you draw the line for claiming credit on models?

do you feel they need to be assembled/cleaned by you and totally 100% painted, to the point where you will strip models, and re base coat them?

maybe you commision work, get it 100% painted, and claim credit, and feel that is ok.

so where do you stand dakka?

am I being a douche taking credit for my orks?

Absolutley not. It sounds like what you have done is a substantial improvement over what was previously done.

If you cleaned up their base coat, and added significant detail work across the entire model, enough for there to be noticeable difference between the model you got and the model you put on the table, you painted the miniature.

Now, you are leaving significant portions of the model intact, ie not touching the weapons or skin with paint because the job the previous person did is better or good enough, then it gets touchier.

If you've done nothing but base them, or tough up the paint in a couple of places, then no, you did not paint the model.

Sounds to me like you've painted these Orks as you've left nothing that has not been significantly improved by you.

Sounds like you painted them to me.

Is this in relation to participating in tournaments with painting scores or something?

Otherwise, a simple 'A lot of these were purchased already assembled and with a basic base coat, but I've cleaned them up and added a lot of shading and highlights and re-based most of them." Simple, honest, to the point.

Pictures of before and after would have really helped to determine the effort that was put into improving the paint job.

If most of the colour is pretty much the same as how you got it, then you didn't paint it. You can say you cleaned it up though.

In my opinion if the origanal painters work is still visable no. If the model is fully painted by you yes.

Id say it would really depend on just how much work the original painter did. it doesn't really matter how much of it shows. a base coat is a base coat. but the amount of additional details you add into it such as shading, washing, blending, highlighting shows the amount of commitment you put into it as those processes take the most time (for me anyway)

Sounds like you painted them to me. Whether or not you 'painted' or 'touched up' the models is mostly a subjective decision, without a hard and fast dividing line that I can think of, but from what you describe, you're solidly in the 'I painted this' category.

sorry i dont have a good camera to do pics,

but they came basically as primed + based, with green, brown, silver "almost" on the bits where it should be, with different shades of green between the mobs.

re did all the skin so that the skin tones were the same, but the metal/leather was ok with different shades between them (yay orks) and all the washing/highlighting tended to make everything look more coherant.

originally, there were done by a couple of 10 year old with an hour or two on his hands I think.... you would laugh at anyone older then 10 who called them "painted" I think.

really, for time saved, they were the equivalent of arriving cleaned, assembled, with some sand on the base and primed black,

as I think it took me just as much time to paint green/brown/metal right once, as it does to go through and fix all the parts where those colors went over the lines.

sounds like no one would have a cow if I consider them painted by me then

 easysauce wrote:
sorry i dont have a good camera to do pics,

but they came basically as primed + based, with green, brown, silver "almost" on the bits where it should be, with different shades of green between the mobs.

re did all the skin so that the skin tones were the same, but the metal/leather was ok with different shades between them (yay orks) and all the washing/highlighting tended to make everything look more coherant.

originally, there were done by a couple of 10 year old with an hour or two on his hands I think.... you would laugh at anyone older then 10 who called them "painted" I think.

really, for time saved, they were the equivalent of arriving cleaned, assembled, with some sand on the base and primed black,

as I think it took me just as much time to paint green/brown/metal right once, as it does to go through and fix all the parts where those colors went over the lines.

sounds like no one would have a cow if I consider them painted by me then

In that case go a head and say there yours. You pretty much painted the model.

Claiming you have painted them is as valid as a lower level cook doing all the work, and a chef coming along and adding a swirl of 'jus' to it and calling it his.

I'm not a fan of little blokes doing the work then a fat bloke in a red suit claiming the credit.

If you did the work, it's yours.
If you did PART of the work, it's NOT your work. It's part of that collective thing that is just a complete PITA to work out. Call it a team effort.

I don't get stuff commissioned because I'm cheap and my hobby is more modelling than gaming.

OTOH, if the car needs work, or the utilities around the house, I hire pros to do the work (by law, I can't touch electricals, plumbing or a lot of building unless qualified AND certified). It's part of the right tool for the job philosophy.

I do the exact same thing as you OP. If they are ugly when I get them and nice when I'm done with them, it's my work. If they're nice when I get them, and I simply re-do klan colours etc, I don't hide that fact.

you can credit them for the assembly if you really want. the paint sounds more or less worthless.

It is one of the rules of Ebay that anyone selling Orks is someone who couldn't paint them. I think that there is an unspoken honour code that prevents well-painted Orks from being sold.

 gossipmeng wrote:
Pictures of before and after would have really helped to determine the effort that was put into improving the paint job.

If most of the colour is pretty much the same as how you got it, then you didn't paint it. You can say you cleaned it up though.

This.

Without a comparison, we have no objective opinion to offer.

I recently got some Grey Knight terms that i did similar stuff with, the base coating was nice and clean, but i did all the highlighting and detail work on them. I usually tell people "well, the blending and highlighting i did, along with the nemesis weapon effects, but i bought them from someone that had done the basecoat."


I say this, because, it's exactly what happened rather than finding some arbitrary line where i either have to say "no it wasn't me" or "yes i painted these". Just explain it. I got these basecoated, i cleaned them up, did the line work, shading, highlighting, and detail work.

Most people will give you kudos for rehabbing models in crappy condition.

I don't get it. Why do you need to claim you painted the mini, poorly or not?

You didn't paint them, you added to them. So why claim you painted 100%? Just say you did 50% or 25%.

Why do you need to claim you did 100% when you did not? You want to be like the Golden Deamon winner who won, but didn't paint the minis?

You didn't even put the minis together, so why claim you painted them. It shouldn't matter but if someone asks, just say,

" got them off eBay, they were poorly painted, and I touched them up and tried to fix them as best as I could."

It only takes a dot of paint to claim you "painted" the model in question. But in reality, painting is definately one of those, you get out what you put into it. I really would not stress over whether folks are going to care. Most folks do not care if you or someone else painted your models, or if it is somewhere in between those 2 lines.

I guess I'm confused as to when and why you'd ever need to claim you "painted" the models unless you were entering them in a contest.

And ultimately, if you did all the detail, highlight, and finishing on them, the final paintjob is "yours".

I buy nicely painted (not pro-painted, but good enough) minis off eBay sometimes, and change the colour scheme to match my own. I painted them. So, yeah, you did too.

You have merely titivated them.
Without pics it's hard to say how much work you have actually done.
Generally for my speed painted armies the basecoating takes the longest.
Washes and drybrush highlights and the bases take far less time than assembly and the basecoat.
Normally.

Also, you wouldn't be asking this question if you had painted them all by yourself.

I have to redo it myself or prefer to get them unpainted.
The reason is I want my models within an army to "match". having a model with a different scheme just doesn't look right to me.
Idiot me bought a painted manticore from a pro (won a golden daemon away) over a year ago and have YET to use it because his paint didn't match mine and I just don't have the heart to paint over his excellent job.

I would NEVER claim credit for someone elses work. I have a few converted models I bought that people love and they ask me how I did it. I always pipe right in and say it wasn't me, I only did the paint job. I find taking credit for someone else's work to be distasteful. That being said, I don't care if you hired someone else to paint your army. Just don't enter it in a painting competition saying you did it (I've seen this done).

From the description you gave, you have spent more time and effort rehabbing them then it would have taken to prime, basecoat and wonder wash new orks. So I'd say you painted them.