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Maybe Matthew doesn't believe that BTP are scum. Hasn't BTP been shooting straight with MWG for a long time?

I'm sure BTP is very careful not to step on other youtubers toes. So Matt might genuinely believe Shawn is okay, but surely Dave who is so harsh on GW for every little thing would have a problem with this?

Either cognitive dissonance or money is playing in this and it's depressing.

It sounds bad no matter which way you cut it Robam. And yes, I too once liked MWG.

I think asking for any deposit for paint work is a poor choice. You have the model itself as collateral. And you'll be able to sell the finished model to someone else for the same price. That's if you bought the model for them or had the customer furnish it themselves.

You can always up the paint level of an unclaimed model and sell it yourself. Someone will pay the cash for a model if its truly painted professionally.

Asking 65% deposit is downright extortion, especially for someone who has a reputation thats a little tarnished.


Honestly, looking at these Chaos Dwarves, I could have done better for half the price. At least you'd have had some more colors, maybe less OSL.

Well it's official, I've canceled my gold membership. If MWG changes their mind about this, I wouldn't have a problem coming back at copper level but I doubt that'll happen. I almost feel bad giving them 20 dollars a month for so long.

sorry, Grey Templar, but it is quite normal to ask for a deposit on a commission...
65% for a company with a bad rep does seem like extortion, but 50% down to a reputable studio is the norm...

there is a lot more to commission painting than just painting...
there is not only customer satisfaction issues, like we are seeing here, but there is also the question of scheduling, which is the point of the deposit...
if a customer is willing to put down 50% of the commission rate, then you can be pretty certain that they will still want the minis when the job is done...
while working on a commission, especially one that takes a while like an army, there are a lot of other commissions that are getting turned down, or scheduled to wait 6 months in the queue...
the point of the deposit is to secure a client's place in the queue, and also to ensure that the time spent on the work is not wasted...

if you think that it is automatically easy to recoop lost money when a client backs out on a finished commission, you obviously haven't tried to sell a custom conversion, painted to a client's specifications on ebay...
the price is never what the original commission would have brought in...
without a deposit, the artist really gets screwed...
it just happened to a friend of mine earlier this month...
time is lost, other potential clients are lost, and it really throws a monkey wrench in the works...

the point of this lesson here with BTP, keeping the customer happy is rule number one...
instead, BTP chose to extort this guys minis to get the rest of their payment, even when he wasn't happy with the work...
now they are going to lose a lot of business over it...
that is not how a good commission painter does business...

a commission painter is there to serve the client, and exceed their expectations...
at least, that's how i see it...
i have clients that are happy to pay the whole fee up front (even though only half was required) because they know thay are going to get amazing work, that most people don't provide...
in my experience, nobody has ever balked at dropping a 50% deposit if they were serious about the commission, and always receive something even better than they expected...

people need to understand that BTP is an example of how not to do things, and not the norm of how work with a good studio gets done...

cheers
jah

 jah-joshua wrote:
sorry, Grey Templar, but it is quite normal to ask for a deposit on a commission...
65% for a company with a bad rep does seem like extortion, but 50% down to a reputable studio is the norm...

there is a lot more to commission painting than just painting...
there is not only customer satisfaction issues, like we are seeing here, but there is also the question of scheduling, which is the point of the deposit...
if a customer is willing to put down 50% of the commission rate, then you can be pretty certain that they will still want the minis when the job is done...
while working on a commission, especially one that takes a while like an army, there are a lot of other commissions that are getting turned down, or scheduled to wait 6 months in the queue...
the point of the deposit is to secure a client's place in the queue, and also to ensure that the time spent on the work is not wasted...

if you think that it is automatically easy to recoop lost money when a client backs out on a finished commission, you obviously haven't tried to sell a custom conversion, painted to a client's specifications on ebay...
the price is never what the original commission would have brought in...
without a deposit, the artist really gets screwed...
it just happened to a friend of mine earlier this month...
time is lost, other potential clients are lost, and it really throws a monkey wrench in the works...

the point of this lesson here with BTP, keeping the customer happy is rule number one...
instead, BTP chose to extort this guys minis to get the rest of their payment, even when he wasn't happy with the work...
now they are going to lose a lot of business over it...
that is not how a good commission painter does business...

a commission painter is there to serve the client, and exceed their expectations...
at least, that's how i see it...
i have clients that are happy to pay the whole fee up front (even though only half was required) because they know thay are going to get amazing work, that most people don't provide...
in my experience, nobody has ever balked at dropping a 50% deposit if they were serious about the commission, and always receive something even better than they expected...

people need to understand that BTP is an example of how not to do things, and not the norm of how work with a good studio gets done...

cheers
jah

I tried doing digital concept art for a while in photoshop. I know what he's talking about, he's exactly right. (Though digital concept art and painting minis is loosely related, the process is the same. (Except Digital artists deposits are less up front than miniatures, as we control how much of a digital image the client previews, etc, going off topic...)

Anyways.

Exalted and QFT.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think asking for any deposit for paint work is a poor choice. You have the model itself as collateral. And you'll be able to sell the finished model to someone else for the same price. That's if you bought the model for them or had the customer furnish it themselves.

Wouldn't it put you in extremely shaky legal territory to sell the models someone else has bought and sent you to paint? I imagine there is some circumstances where you'd be able to do it, but to me it would seem like a mechanic selling your car because of a disagreement over the work done.

You can always up the paint level of an unclaimed model and sell it yourself. Someone will pay the cash for a model if its truly painted professionally.

You'll never (or very rarely) sell a model randomly on the internet for the same amount as someone commissioned you to do it, especially if you're only painting it to a tabletop standard.

Honestly, looking at these Chaos Dwarves, I could have done better for half the price. At least you'd have had some more colors, maybe less OSL.

Half the price is probably a bit of a stretch, maybe, but you'd be looking at maybe an hour per infantry model and that includes cleaning/assembling/priming. It'd take me at least 2 hours per model to produce something I'd even consider selling.

But if you gave me that much money I think I'd produce something better. Of course I wouldn't do it... because I'd be earning less than my current day job

xxvaderxx wrote:While i am not familiar with the detail regarding the titan, people in general tend to over estimate what they have.

Say you have a fig that retails for about 1000. If you trade it in to a retailer, you will be lucky if you get 500. You are not dealing with another particular, you are dealing with a retailer and they tend to double up on their merchandise cost. Many will actually buy it for 500, list it at 1000 and cut a deal when some one ask for it for 750 and call it a day. Again not commenting on this deal in particular, but i see a lot of people trading in to retailers expecting to get the same they would get from a particular.

xxvaderxx wrote:Not talking about that, just in general, your 1k mini is not worth 1k to a retailer.

Whilst I agree with you about the cost to a retailer, it was the retailer himself that said the mini was priceless and cannot get it anywhere... like anywhere!

At the time Titans weren't available and they were selling for astronomical prices, take a look at the current Armorcast Great Gargants sell prices.

Not wanting to start a flame war here but it seems you're being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse. The OP has spent thousands of $'s on a spectacular army full of custom pieces and conversions, he didn't get anywhere near the service he paid for, and you say the community are overreacting?

Back OT, Tenebre I truly hope you get this sorted fella, I have my own CD army pre forgeworld and I love them to bits, I would loathe to see what happened to yours happen to mine, or indeed any other army.

I've been following this case since the beginning, and want to say that I fully support tenebre in this matter - I hope that you reach an amicable resolution.

As to the MWG promotion mentioned earlier in the thread, I have emailed Matt detailing my concerns about the nature of it, and that I would have to seriously reconsider my Vault membership status should it proceed as an 'only positive experiences allowed' project - I strongly urge other MWG Vault members to do the same. It's entirely possible that MWG arn't aware of the details of the case, but it's equally possible that they are compliant with it being a PR move on BTP's behalf - either way, they should be made aware of the community's thoughts and the possible consequences of their actions.

Check the MWG channel - they did a 3 min video at about the same time as sending out the emails.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2hMBX8VN3k

In the comments they replied with this:

"That's still anecdotal evidence, or one well documented case. What it comes down to is that BTP does a LOT of commissions on a regular basis, so of course there will be more people not happy than the next guy who does a handful per year.

All I can say is that I've been very happy with the work they've done for us, and I have seen their business from the inside out, so I know what systems they have in place to protect your miniatures and get the job done well."

So they DO know of Tenebre's trouble. They just choose to disregard is as anecdotal whilst using their own anecdotal evidence as a reason why everything is fine.

If you look around they get some flakk for the planned video... they knew and they know. We'll see if they go through with it now.

Ok wow, no respect for MWG left. First thing I heard in that video was that BTP hosted something at Valhalla for them, which at the moment I am guessing was paid for by BTP.

Interestingly I had a few people message me about similar experiences, but they even admitted they either had no ability to make a video or were too "afraid" to do so.

This isnt like its one bad experience, as i pointed out every step of the process was riddled with "issues". also the size and nature of project speaks volumes to the work. If a large high profile project gets treated as such, then what would become of a smaller project?

The bottom line is most people would have pulled the video or never posted it as that is the first thing they demand.

I was not aware of so many other "bad" projects or situations but as you all have pointed out this is not an isolated case which makes its far from anecdotal. (i too watched a lot of MWG videos. :( )

I don't think you can have honest reviews or even critiques if you are taking money from the supplier. You can't expect GW to give insight into their own product because they want a positive review so customers will buy.

 jah-joshua wrote:
sorry, Grey Templar, but it is quite normal to ask for a deposit on a commission...
65% for a company with a bad rep does seem like extortion, but 50% down to a reputable studio is the norm...

50% was the norm when I was using BTP 6+ years ago. seems to have changed quite a bit.

So MWG comented that I asked for a "pretty ridiculous refund"

for those that care i asked for a 60% refund (this was based on the cost estimate of another painting service to paint them up to the agreed standard)

Shawn proposed using GMM to do the work. I agreed to this and then he retracted the offer after i agreed because GMM wanted 150% of the project cost. in other words the entire price of my project plus another 50%.

So it appears my "pretty ridiculous" request was not so ridiculous.

Man, talk about a bad turn of events. I am really disappointed by MWG's take on this. I really thought Matt had more integrity than this.

But... woldn't be good reviews anecdotal as well? I'm not getting the point.

If MWG was smart (which obvious they are not) they should not get involved in this situation. I am glad I don't scribe to any thing that MWG puts on the Internet would not give either BTP or MWG a nickel of my money

What bothers me most is that up until now, I have seen MWG as far more interested and invested in the players. Looking at the way they hammer on GW for its policies and decisions, you'd think they are firmly on the side of the individual players and gamers.

But now they are participating in the same kind of victim blaming and marginalizing that BTP is doing because, more or less, they are in collusion with another company. Now I don't expect them to go on the offensive, because maybe they have had great BTP experiences (would make sense) but when thousands of dollars are in the lurch, to minimize it with "one documented case" is just disgusting.

Yeah MWG has been doing the slow circle ever since they had to get rid of their store. Matt has also taken a holier than thou attitude since then and the batreps have taken a nose dive. I have to say though the old world wars haven't been half bad.

 tenebre wrote:
So MWG comented that I asked for a "pretty ridiculous refund"

for those that care i asked for a 60% refund (this was based on the cost estimate of another painting service to paint them up to the agreed standard)

Shawn proposed using GMM to do the work. I agreed to this and then he retracted the offer after i agreed because GMM wanted 150% of the project cost. in other words the entire price of my project plus another 50%.

So it appears my "pretty ridiculous" request was not so ridiculous.

I have the feeling that 60% will be a drop in the bucket compared to lost commissions over the long term. Shawn seems to be doing absolutely everything wrong as a business owner.

This isn't the first time that MWG is jumping to help blue table, i think it was around the time that blue table got a lot of flak for the kickstarter and some bad projects arose that they decided to do a 'hey were just here at btp studios lets say hi' video.

 curran12 wrote:
What bothers me most is that up until now, I have seen MWG as far more interested and invested in the players. Looking at the way they hammer on GW for its policies and decisions, you'd think they are firmly on the side of the individual players and gamers.

But now they are participating in the same kind of victim blaming and marginalizing that BTP is doing because, more or less, they are in collusion with another company. Now I don't expect them to go on the offensive, because maybe they have had great BTP experiences (would make sense) but when thousands of dollars are in the lurch, to minimize it with "one documented case" is just disgusting.

I'm not sure where you're getting this "hammering" they give GW on the part of consumers... unless your version of hammering is gingerly brushing them across the face with an child's woolen mitten. The only time I've seen them get riled up is when THEY as a RETAILER were negatively affected by the change in retailer terms and posted a long video about it. Other than that, they take a very neutral "who knows" stance on horribad GW policies that basically amounts to them saying "maybe that isn't such a good idea... dunno". That is about as pro-consumer I've seen them get. That said, it's not their job (figuratively and literally) to be some sort of consumer watchdog for the pew pew toy soldier industry. I do, however, think that despite their personal friendship and professional partnership with Shaun and BTP that they should stay out of the mess that the painting company has created.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think asking for any deposit for paint work is a poor choice. You have the model itself as collateral. And you'll be able to sell the finished model to someone else for the same price. That's if you bought the model for them or had the customer furnish it themselves.

Wouldn't it put you in extremely shaky legal territory to sell the models someone else has bought and sent you to paint? I imagine there is some circumstances where you'd be able to do it, but to me it would seem like a mechanic selling your car because of a disagreement over the work done.

You can always up the paint level of an unclaimed model and sell it yourself. Someone will pay the cash for a model if its truly painted professionally.

You'll never (or very rarely) sell a model randomly on the internet for the same amount as someone commissioned you to do it, especially if you're only painting it to a tabletop standard.

Honestly, looking at these Chaos Dwarves, I could have done better for half the price. At least you'd have had some more colors, maybe less OSL.

Half the price is probably a bit of a stretch, maybe, but you'd be looking at maybe an hour per infantry model and that includes cleaning/assembling/priming. It'd take me at least 2 hours per model to produce something I'd even consider selling.

But if you gave me that much money I think I'd produce something better. Of course I wouldn't do it... because I'd be earning less than my current day job

1) Not at all. The model is collateral for the work. If you aren't paid, you keep the collateral. Its best if you put it in writing, but its not totally necessary. Asking for a cash deposit on top of everything is a bad faith gesture.

2) It is if you include the price of the model itself. The paint work will be discounted, but you will make the price of the model as profit. Thats working with the assumption that you didn't also pay for the model. in which case that is to only cash I would condone asking for upfront. Basically the client either mails you the model OR send you the retail price of the model and asks you to purchase it for them. That way, you're never out for anything other than the paint and time. SO when you sell it for price of model+75% of the paint work, the model's cost is basically profit.

3) Well duh. But when you break down painting to hourly, its not a bad hourly job.

 Grey Templar wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
I think asking for any deposit for paint work is a poor choice. You have the model itself as collateral. And you'll be able to sell the finished model to someone else for the same price. That's if you bought the model for them or had the customer furnish it themselves.

Wouldn't it put you in extremely shaky legal territory to sell the models someone else has bought and sent you to paint? I imagine there is some circumstances where you'd be able to do it, but to me it would seem like a mechanic selling your car because of a disagreement over the work done.

You can always up the paint level of an unclaimed model and sell it yourself. Someone will pay the cash for a model if its truly painted professionally.

You'll never (or very rarely) sell a model randomly on the internet for the same amount as someone commissioned you to do it, especially if you're only painting it to a tabletop standard.

Honestly, looking at these Chaos Dwarves, I could have done better for half the price. At least you'd have had some more colors, maybe less OSL.

Half the price is probably a bit of a stretch, maybe, but you'd be looking at maybe an hour per infantry model and that includes cleaning/assembling/priming. It'd take me at least 2 hours per model to produce something I'd even consider selling.

But if you gave me that much money I think I'd produce something better. Of course I wouldn't do it... because I'd be earning less than my current day job

1) Not at all. The model is collateral for the work. If you aren't paid, you keep the collateral. Its best if you put it in writing, but its not totally necessary. Asking for a cash deposit on top of everything is a bad faith gesture.

2) It is if you include the price of the model itself. The paint work will be discounted, but you will make the price of the model as profit. Thats working with the assumption that you didn't also pay for the model. in which case that is to only cash I would condone asking for upfront. Basically the client either mails you the model OR send you the retail price of the model and asks you to purchase it for them. That way, you're never out for anything other than the paint and time. SO when you sell it for price of model+75% of the paint work, the model's cost is basically profit.

3) Well duh. But when you break down painting to hourly, its not a bad hourly job.

1. No, it is not, unless there is a written contract to that effect. It is in fact not legally shaky, it is outright illegal.

As a commissioned painter I typically do ask for half up front on larger orders - there is no joy in getting partway through and having the customer cancel. Faith has to go both ways.

I prefer to break a large order into manageable pieces - so I charge for a unit, get half up front, paint the unit, send a photo to the customer, make any corrections, get the rest of the money, and ship. Then repeat on the next unit, and the next, etc..

When I was doing more commission painting I got into the habit of buying pistol cases at WalMart and using them for shipping (the pistol cases back then went for $6US) - and never had models get damaged in shipping. I added the cost of the case to the order, but then they had the case and could use it for toting their minis around.

I do not ask for an up front payment for single miniatures, unless I have to buy the mini.

More often than not I am working for a local gamer when I am painting for commission at all these days- so they can watch me painting away at Burger King or wherever. (I have an easier time painting when there are people buzzing around... do not ask me why. most often it is Burger King, but sometimes Wendy's.)

Painting for locals also means that whether I buy the mini or they buy the mini we both know what the start is.

The Auld Grump

Did anyone else notice MWG's Kris commented on tenebre's original video? He seems a little more sympathetic, which is nice.

 Lt. Coldfire wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Then there's this.

http://bluetablepainting.blogspot.com/2014/10/btp-fantasy-camp.html?m=1

Live with Shawn for a week for $1200. He will business mentor you and let paint miniatures with the BTP crew. For another $1200 he will mentor you more.

Wow, that made me laugh out loud pretty good. A few quote gems:
"Here is your chance to change your life." - Finally.
"Shawn (that's me! I'm writing this) will be glad to mentor you and give you ideas for life and help you find your own way OR business mentoring." - One OR the other, not both. Good try, scammer.
"Learn to paint awesomely and efficiently..."
And below "Comments" at the bottom: "I only approve comments that are well-worded and thoughtful."

LOL

Are there really lessons in endless drybrushing over primer?

 FatherKnowsBest wrote:

 Lt. Coldfire wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:
Then there's this.

http://bluetablepainting.blogspot.com/2014/10/btp-fantasy-camp.html?m=1

Live with Shawn for a week for $1200. He will business mentor you and let paint miniatures with the BTP crew. For another $1200 he will mentor you more.

Wow, that made me laugh out loud pretty good. A few quote gems:
"Here is your chance to change your life." - Finally.
"Shawn (that's me! I'm writing this) will be glad to mentor you and give you ideas for life and help you find your own way OR business mentoring." - One OR the other, not both. Good try, scammer.
"Learn to paint awesomely and efficiently..."
And below "Comments" at the bottom: "I only approve comments that are well-worded and thoughtful."

LOL

Are there really lessons in endless drybrushing over primer?

How to paint a Necron army in time for the tournament?

For all the outrage against MWG and BTP, has no one tried to gather a list of folks BTP has screwed? So far, I've heard a couple folks say they were, but mostly, it's "My friend was unhappy", "This person can't make a video or is afraid to".

Focusing on just one documented case -even one as totally egregious as this one- is not going to really hit BTP or make MWG break ties with a company that seems to give them free (or reduced) painting services and possibly also lodging and space at BTP conventions.

You all are in the right, but if you want to make a difference, you've got to cast a wider net and catch something to show for it.

MWG seems stuck in an odd place. They can't go back on BTP's contract probably due to similar reasons on why Corvus Belli doesn't dump them outright.

MWG also seems to have run into bad luck. They got screwed by Games Workshop and closed their storefront. They seem like a group of people that honestly is trying to make right, but are contractually obligated to take sides because of their dealings with BTP. It's doubtful that they knowingly made deals with BTP considering their history. Their dealings may be a lingering contract.