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I'm considering setting up and eBay storefront where users can pay for pre-assembled and primed miniatures. How much would you pay for a ten-man squad? (AKA a box of intercessors, Ork Boyz, ect)

The real question is how long would it take you to clean, assemble, and prime models?

Multiply that amount of time by minimum wage where you live. Would you do that for that amount of money?

For example, let’s say I spend 3 hours taking a 10-man squad from on-sprue to primed. $14 an hour would be $42. Plus some super glue, $5. Plus some primer, another $5. How much time did you spend getting the supplies? Another hour? Another $14. You want to make 30% margin on your parts, $3. That adds up to $69.00 (CAD, or $51.50 USD)

Would you pay someone $50 to assemble and prime your minis? Can you convince someone else to pay that... possibly plus shipping on top of that?

Better off with a part time job flipping burgers.

.

Do I get to pay someone to play with them for me as well?

Simple answer, I wouldn't. It's not that I'm cheap, nor because I have anything against people who pay others to do it.

It's because modelling and painting are THE hobby for me, with the playing games with the models coming in a very distant nineteenth.

I wouldn’t pay for this, I don’t really enjoy the assembly but I and fussy about the poses for each model so I’d rather do it myself. Also if we’re talking GW kits here, they are already expensive enough. However I would pay GW another 5 quid if they were more careful about where the part is connect to the sprue

I don't think I would need such service because:
1 - It is part of me hobby
2 - I do not want to pay for shipping
3 - I like to paint models in pieces un assembled because I hate undercuts.
4 - Already assembled and primed models I can pick up in consigment case at my local hobby store, granted its random things people are trying to sell, but it is always full and rotating.
5 - I like to convert and pose my models

greatbigtree made great point!
I just remember that it took 2 days for me to take every tiny piece off spruce, and clean mold-lines, and group and prep each piece for painting and priming.
Now as of 2020 Cali minimum wage is $13/ hr, and that was about one full day of work for me lolz
Would I pay $104 bucks to de-sprues and de-moldline and prime 10 wyches? No, I would pay maybe $20 with shipping.

THE only way that will make sense to do, is if you live somewhere where you living costs is so very low and be ok with $2.5 dollaz and hr.

not for me - I want fully painted models but good luck

I generally wouldn't. In common with the other posters, I really enjoy assembling and posing my miniatures, and there often some head options I like better than others.

What would be more interesting(for me) is if you were offering magnetisation, which I find can be both onerous and tricky.

I guess everyone before me likes to remove mold lines and fill in gaps. Me, I hate them.

I would suggest you set up a 3D printing service. Not everyone has a high-end 3D printer, you can deduct it as an asset, and I hear the money is good. You also don't have to wait for models to be shipped to you. The Architects of Destruction guys have several 3D printers working all day, and have a backlog. You could even reach out to the .stl-only KS, and see if you could work out an agreement that benefits you both.

From the thread title I thought this would be about a hypothetical Nolzur's-esq. line for 40k. Ignoring the fact that several Nolzur's minis still need cleaning, gap filling etc. despite being ready to paint from the box...

As for that idea? Nope. Not a chance. For many of the reasons stated above plus several others.

There is actually more to this than it seems.

I don’t mind assembling or priming, but there are a lot of factors.

Lots of people build in sub assemblies for painting and often use magnets for switching weapons, that will need consideration.

Some will be more than happy for a service if they are tired of mass troops (gaunts, boys, most skaven etc)
The other customers you may find are FW projects.
This again depends on how deep you want to dive in.
For me, I have no issues.
A lot of people nearly had a stroke though while trying to assemble things like raptor gun ships due to how warped every part is and it being a hybrid kit.

You may also get people that want sub assemblies done on titans.
Again though, that’s down to the person.

Expect a ton of pinning and greenstuff work though if you dive in deep on this.

By assembling and priming the minis you've devalued them for me. Let's start with a £50 rrp kit, I can probably buy it for £40 from a reseller/independant, take away maybe another £10 for my lack of customisation and another £10 for me not knowing your quality of work or not being happy with it and perhaps having to rectify things. You're down to perhaps £20 for a £50 kit. And that's not even factoring in that you've taken away a lot of the enjoyment for me.

There's already hundreds or thousands of listings on ebay for preassembled and or primed minis, and they're nearly always trash imo.

The only ones i buy like that are DUST premiums, i get a full 5 man squad or heavy weapons team- fully assembled and fully painted with weathering for an average price of $65 per unit.


The assembled/primed stuff from them runs about $35

Vehicles are of course a bit more.

I think this poll is in the wrong forum to be honest.

Asking in a dedicated painting and modelling forum if people want to pay for someone else to do their painting and modelling for them is probably not a great start

 JBSchroeds wrote:
Zero dollars. Assembly is my favorite part of the hobby, and priming is usually a pretty trivial time investment.

Same. It's probably the glue fumes.

I think most people detest removing mould lines. However as much as many detest it, I don't think many want to pay more to not have mould lines.


I'm sure there is a market for it, but I doubt its very big.

The other issue is Ebay is a bad place for it. You only see one or two stores selling commission work on ebay in general. Most who are doing omission paint work aren't on ebay, they are running their own store fronts (most likely now on FB). Thing is when people want to commission an army or model they go to look for that, they don't turn to ebay. People turn to ebay to find rare, out of production or discount models.

If they see current models prebuilt and primed on ebay they are going to expect to pay less than retail - in fact less than 3rd party store discount retail. Heck even if you sell brand new models in boxes on ebay, if you're not a store, people are still expecting discount.


Basically you'd have to start your own shop front to push your deluxe service and then work hard to advertise and find the market that wants what you're offering in order to find people who will be willing to pay extra for models already prepared.



Thing is a lot of people who will want the building and priming done for them are likely going to be in the same bracket as those who want the models prepainted for them. So chances are they'll bypass you and go straight for a painting commission website. Where not only is building and priming done, but so too is all the painting.


The prepainted models have the bonus that basically the work time for the mundane stages is paid for by the quality of the paintwork in the latter stage. Basically people will pay a lot more for a good paint job than they will for just a black spray-painted model.