Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Im not by any means a great painter but at least i put some attempts into my work. I don't have the money to have others paint for me and the enjoyment i get out of seeing my own work come to fruition is enough in itself. (though time is getting harder to find) What BTP did with their money and time is anybody guess but it wasn't put into Tenebre's models.

Proof of my own work:


Tenebre, that new touched up Bull Centaur looks absolutely brutal! The studio thats working on those miniatures is really doing a very nice job of work on the touch ups! I cant wait to see the rest of the army done up

the new Bull Centaur is such a huge improvement, and really highlights the lack of detail painting in the BTP version...
they really screwed you hard...
that photo of the two side by side should be exhibit A in a case against them...

the lack of detail work done is really incredible...
i don't see how thay could have sent that out, without the teeth, eyes, skulls, and jewelry even basecoated...
the lack of gore is one thing, but not even basecoating the details is a whole other realm of "screw what the customer asked for, let's call this done"...

the mind boggles...
these guys need to be taken to court, for sure...

cheers
jah

 tenebre wrote:

So i asked them specifically what levels to get to have a showcase level army. they said 4/6. They set the price. But honestly 2 hours on a single chaos dwarf he should have some details. Their old guide stated "All detailed will be picked out". My models had no eyes, teeth, rivets, leather connections, belts, jewelery, or even beards. just "osl" sprayed over sloppy dry brush.

Here is one of my WiP touched up bull centaurs (which were the best work bt did in the army). on the left. Notice the details. I paid BTP $100 for the one of the right. (level 4). The one on the left was done with the exact same picture and description i gave BTP. The touched op one completely captures what i wanted combined with the tamurkhan artwork. I love the touched up one btw. And yes i really wanted that much blood.

@tenebre - The difference is remarkable. I keep looking at the comparison and it's a world of difference.

What really sets this off is the details. The horns, the beard, the highlighting on the hooves, the teeth, it just looks 100% more alive than the original attempt.

I know this isn't even done, but I am so glad to see you are getting closer to your goal. I am so happy for you right now.

Get a load of this! Sorry if it has already been posted. I can't believe what Matt is doing for BTP. He is hurting his own fan base and doesn't know it!

http://youtu.be/gTMRXJQuHW0

That did indeed pop up a few pages back. My reading of it was that it was indeed a sponsored video ad, so BTP cashed in their "points" and got advertised. Possibly to offset the bad juju floating around following ten's videos.
That said, "We only do this for companies that we'd recommend ourselves..." so ehhhhhh... there have been several posts of the dubious quality of said miniatures, complete with stills. In particular the blue/white land raider comes to mind as a point of facepalming.

EDIT:
For reference, Malik, this is the advertising thingy that BTP did with MWG.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/960/618082.page#7343532

I'm just happy that tenebre is happy.

I think it is also a good thing that it should now be obvious that BTP is 'good' for their "Level 1" only service, and maybe not for anything above that.

Maybe they should only offer one level of service and then give the option to tip them.

Oh for sure, Alpharius!

New touched up mini looks infinitely better that how it started. Thats how it shoulda been from the start!
Massive props to the new studio

I know exactly what MWGing have set up with their program for painting companies. However, it is very obvious the relationship they have with Shawn. I find him to be quite annoying and uninspiring because of the way he dealt with my project. He basically said that not everyone's project turns out great! No excuses! I love MWGing and their great batreps but come on Matt.

Well, painting miniatures is a mystical process. Sometimes you get a half decently painted army, sometimes the gods are displeased and a painter is dragged screaming in to a dimension of unknowable horrors.
Obviously a company that does the volume that BTP does is going to have a high number of angered paint god related fatalities and the lower quality of work on a project that those entail. If there's a better way to paint an army than to put it in a box and have a poorly paid nineteen year old sacrifice a pigeon on top of it then I'm sure Shawn is all ears.

 Flippa wrote:


What happened to Tenebre is like going to buy a Big Mac, I just hope it doesn't happen to you.

Spoiler:

 Ramos Asura wrote:
That did indeed pop up a few pages back. My reading of it was that it was indeed a sponsored video ad, so BTP cashed in their "points" and got advertised. Possibly to offset the bad juju floating around following ten's videos.
That said, "We only do this for companies that we'd recommend ourselves..." so ehhhhhh... there have been several posts of the dubious quality of said miniatures, complete with stills. In particular the blue/white land raider comes to mind as a point of facepalming.

EDIT:
For reference, Malik, this is the advertising thingy that BTP did with MWG.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/960/618082.page#7343532

This. I'll be honest, for saying that BTP is such a good company, he seemed pretty devoid of passion. If I really wanted to sponsor a company like that, I'd put much more emotion in my pitch

 Azazelx wrote:


When were they taken down? And where on the site were they located. Anyone who can answer those two questions should be able to find them pretty easily:

https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://bluetablepainting.com/

It wasn't taken down, the youtube video got switched to private.

 jreilly89 wrote:

 Ramos Asura wrote:
That did indeed pop up a few pages back. My reading of it was that it was indeed a sponsored video ad, so BTP cashed in their "points" and got advertised. Possibly to offset the bad juju floating around following ten's videos.
That said, "We only do this for companies that we'd recommend ourselves..." so ehhhhhh... there have been several posts of the dubious quality of said miniatures, complete with stills. In particular the blue/white land raider comes to mind as a point of facepalming.

EDIT:
For reference, Malik, this is the advertising thingy that BTP did with MWG.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/960/618082.page#7343532

This. I'll be honest, for saying that BTP is such a good company, he seemed pretty devoid of passion. If I really wanted to sponsor a company like that, I'd put much more emotion in my pitch

When I watched it, there seemed to be some irony in the endorsement. Matt did say BTP is a place he would personally recommend, then went on to give a slightly lackluster endorsement. He kept pointing to what he called his favorite models and none of them were really exceptional, the only real standout was the Nurgle Heldrake (which, incidentally, is really only clever because of the assembly.) The models at the end of the video were less than spectacular, you would think he'd be showing off their best work. His points about their production process and the fact he's toured their studios rang hollow, and he did not do much to make the case it all results in enough quality to justify their prices.

Also, there was the length of the video. 8 - 9 minutes is an odd amount of time for an endorsement. Not that there's a proper amount of time for such a thing, but there were a few things missings that I would have expected to hear if he was really enthusiastic about the service.

I have listened to some of Matt's commentary over the years, he can be very articulate when he wants to be and make a good point supported by evidence for things he is passionate about. This video did not come close to that level of argument. If he was railing to BTP's defense, I would have expected him to hear some evidence to support the view that BTP is a good general service that delivers good results to the community at large. Instead of providing details about their production process (which he states he has seen personally) or talking in more depth about the experiences other people have had with them, he only focused on the things BTP has provided to MWG. This is kind of telling. He's asking viewers to rely on what the service has done for MWG and the 8,000 projects figure as evidence for the quality of their work without really bringing in examples of those 8,000 projects. There's a hole in his presentation that can't be ignored.

This makes me wonder how persuasive his message was, and I tried to put myself in the shoes of someone deciding whether or not to use their service. If I was looking at that video, the BTP website, and a spreadsheet that lists prices, would the video really make the difference for me in a way where I would want to buy a service from BTP? I don't think so, there wasn't anything there that would have made me think BTP is a standout service.

This video doesn't really register as a compelling ad for me. When MWG announced they were looking for people with good BTP experiences, I took it as a response to fair criticism of the company (and an indirect attack on tenebre) but now not so much. Maybe Matt wasn't able to get enough people to say nice things about them in his letter, but there was nothing in that video that contradicted the criticisms being directed at BTP. At a substance level, I don't see this as a win for BTP.

But there are some people who will make decisions without considering the substance of what was said, and the video will serve to direct some people to BTP's page. MWG has a large (not huge) group of followers, which means it's probably safe to say the video is going to be effective as link bait. But it is safe to say this is very expensive link bait. After doing a little research, BTP probably could have generated much more traffic at a lower cost through traditional SEO techniques and by making effective use of Google Adwords. Instead, they have incurred the cost of giving MWG a lot of models that they spent time and effort converting and painting to get enough 'points' to do this ad.

I was wondering what would be more cost effective, reaching out to a network with around 150k followers for a paid endorsement, or getting that same number of people to come to a website through search engine marketing. Given some of the current CPC rates for keyword phrases such as 'miniature painting service,' 'commission painters,' etc, I estimate the cost to get about 150k people to come to a site over a 6 month period would be around $500 in online advertising (the rates are not high for those terms and phrases, and there's no need to be the top link when people are comparison shopping. You could actually come in at $0.01 per click and still get to those numbers in a relatively short amount of time.)

I am sure someone could argue the endorsement itself is going to lead to higher conversion rates on that traffic, and maybe that's true. But how much does it cost BTP to actually get that conversion through endorsements like this? Based on what tenebre had to say about the process of finding BTP, I am willing to bet the cost to bring paying customers in through organic searches is much, much less than the cost of cultivating this relationship with MWG, probably pennies to the dollar. Just look at the number of models being shown off in that video and think about what it must have cost to get someone to convert and paint them. Matt did not show off all the stuff they have gotten from BTP, and there's also the sunk costs in appearances / sponsorships of things like Valhalla (so people will think you are one of them.) Making a completely OOMA guess about BTP's costs of operations, getting a decent ROI off ads like this means BTP would need to be getting around $300k in business back from MWG on an annual basis, and I don't see that happening.

So, a few observations to soothe the nerves of anyone concerned about the endorsement video:

1) It is hard to consider this video a win for BTP based on the substance. It's a discussion about what the service has done for MWG that only touches on the benefits to the community with unprovable assertions (i.e. "8000 projects - they must be doing something right.") The argument lacks merit at all sorts of levels, and would probably not be the thing that pushes anyone over the edge to do business with BTP.

2) Financially, this video was very expensive for BTP. There are much more effective forms of advertising than securing endorsements that rely on providing a service to the endorser. It takes about 5 minutes of research on Google to find more effective ways to reach out to much larger audiences who are probably more motivated to spend money on painting services.

3) The ROI on this video is likely unjustifiable at any level. Happy to be proven wrong here, but the sunk costs that got BTP to the point where this could be produced probably don't translate into a profit sufficient to justify this kind of marketing activity. This is true unless there is something completely shady going on, which is also a possibility.

4) @tenebre - your money went to supporting this kind of effort. You remember that when your lawyer gets an offer back from BTP. In general, when you are dealing with someone who is a weak operator of their business, they are weak negotiators for their interests and get themselves into bad situations. Be that bad situation and do not settle for less than what you are owed.

Personally, it reminded me of a video miniwargaming did a while back to advertise the values of Finecast:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0GeqNN_BY8


I got to about 1:40 in this video before there were so many red flags I thought I was at a racing event where every driver crashed into each other.

"...many layers of highlighting and shading, with even the primers as the possible deep recesses...."

WHAT???? I'm not the best painter by a long shot, but for me leaving primer showing is a bad thing. Every time.

 JudgeShamgar wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0GeqNN_BY8


I got to about 1:40 in this video before there were so many red flags I thought I was at a racing event where every driver crashed into each other.

"...many layers of highlighting and shading, with even the primers as the possible deep recesses...."

WHAT???? I'm not the best painter by a long shot, but for me leaving primer showing is a bad thing. Every time.

Overspraying is just another way of saying "we spray on top of black to create color gradients." Which is really just another way of saying "basic color theory doesn't enter our work if we can help it."

Compare the models in that video with ones in White Dwarf to see the holes in this approach. I suppose it's right for some armies, but is it right a) as a technique for a studio or b) at the prices they charge?

Can't answer that question, it's subjective, but this seems really, really sketchy. It's the sort of thing I would expect from a Chinese injection mold manufacturer, not from a custom painting service.

 heartserenade wrote:
Personally, it reminded me of a video miniwargaming did a while back to advertise the values of Finecast:

That video mostly just sounded ignorant, like they didn't actually try and work with any finecast models before posting it (to know how many small bubbles that aren't obvious at first glance, the extra tabs that are often in hard to reach places, how brittle it is and how badly warped bits of it often are)

And how bad the actual finish on it is.
Just the feeling of not having smooth surfaces makes me hate Finecast from the depth of my blackish soul.

Also ridiculous how BTP actually ADVERTISED with having primer showing... Are you effing KIDDING me?

 tenebre wrote:
So i asked them specifically what levels to get to have a showcase level army. they said 4/6. They set the price. But honestly 2 hours on a single chaos dwarf he should have some details. Their old guide stated "All detailed will be picked out". My models had no eyes, teeth, rivets, leather connections, belts, jewelery, or even beards. just "osl" sprayed over sloppy dry brush.

Here is one of my WiP touched up bull centaurs (which were the best work bt did in the army). on the left. Notice the details. I paid BTP $100 for the one of the right. (level 4). The one on the left was done with the exact same picture and description i gave BTP. The touched op one completely captures what i wanted combined with the tamurkhan artwork. I love the touched up one btw. And yes i really wanted that much blood.

I quoted this with the slightly larger version of the image that it was linking to. I have to say, the mystery studio doing the touchups have indeed salvaged it, even though as another poster mentioned, they could have done so even easier without the unwanted OSL that BTP added (like on the foot). But it looks absolutely brutal, and I think will look great as an army, and you can actually run your chaos dwarfs!!

It's amazing to me that BTP would simply not paint the skulls at all, the tusks in the mouth, any of the details in the beard, etc... the whole face looks like basecoat and drybrush and that's it with a little unfortunate OSL red catching the bottom of the beard. No details at all. This paint job should have been listed as "basecoat, drybrush" and priced accordingly.

Now, you do them unjustice.
It's "basecoat, drybrush, horrid OSL and for whatever reason glowing horns".
Those horns just keep bugging me.

 Thairne wrote:
Now, you do them unjustice.
It's "basecoat, drybrush, horrid OSL and for whatever reason glowing horns".
Those horns just keep bugging me.

McDonald's horns. They are painted like a fast food chain. More terrifying, really, but not what tenebre paid for.

The new touched-up model is incredibly good, don't get me wrong. It's just that the base still bugs me. From what I have seen so far the base is the most lackluster in all of BTP's painted models. Then again, if they're doing it for free it might be too much of a hassle?

The base could use the addition of some bright yellow. That way it would look more like real lava.

 heartserenade wrote:
The new touched-up model is incredibly good, don't get me wrong. It's just that the base still bugs me. From what I have seen so far the base is the most lackluster in all of BTP's painted models. Then again, if they're doing it for free it might be too much of a hassle?

They charged me an extra $2 per base for "lava" that was not part of the model price. at least with the new paint job my eyes are not drawn to the base

It kind of looks like those guys have been stomping through a Martian desert.

Yeah BTP screwed up that lava so bad. A simple google image search would show you what real lava looks like

 tenebre wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
The new touched-up model is incredibly good, don't get me wrong. It's just that the base still bugs me. From what I have seen so far the base is the most lackluster in all of BTP's painted models. Then again, if they're doing it for free it might be too much of a hassle?

They charged me an extra $2 per base for "lava" that was not part of the model price. at least with the new paint job my eyes are not drawn to the base

I don't know how you've envisioned the final look of the army, but if you took the time to repaint the base in more "earthy" tones, I think that that would make the new paint job pop even more.

As it stands all those red tones on the base still draw too much attention IMO.

You could totally redo the base, but then the OSL on the models would look out of place. I think just making the lava a little better would do a ton.

Some two-brush blending with bright yellow and more subdued orange, as well as patches of black, would make the lava a little more believable. Even just a tiny bit of yellow and black spot additions would go a long way.

 heartserenade wrote:
Personally, it reminded me of a video miniwargaming did a while back to advertise the values of Finecast:

What is the tittle of that video? "First Impressions", if i remember correctly, they latter did a video about how they would not sell Fine cast any more because of the high failure rate.

As a new product first impressions, i would say that video is adequate, the detail in Fine Cast is and has always been awesome, like any other well done product resin, the problem has always been failure rate(miscasts), which is not immediately apparent as to be mentioned on a first impressions video.