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This model was a "leftover" from the battleforce box but why let it sit unbuilt. That and lately I've been trying to make some scratch from mini painting. Anyway here's the finished piece, over at cmon it's getting voted pretty low but that seems to be usual.

Very nice and clean. Its hard to see the highlighting because of the lighting, but the highlighting that I do see is pretty good. It should get no less than an honest 7 on CMON, but due to photography, it will score lower.

I think it is a very saleable model.

Do you paint models professionally, or just the random mini for cash?

How long did it take for you to paint?

I'm just starting up profesionally and hoping it works out. This one took 9 hours roughly to go from bare plastic on the sprue to fully finished.

I try to squeeze as much out of my digital camera as I can but honestly it just isn't made for mini photography. My lighting rig is pretty good as well, but my only option now is dropping a lot of money on a nicer camera, but that requires a lot of cash. Now it's time to go and take a new pic at a higher exposure setting.

Edit: I edited in some slightly brighter pics.

Very clean. Too dark for my pallette but extremely clean.

That's some sexy Alaitoc Warwalker you got there.

First, great job. I hope the "going pro" works out for you. You certainly have the skills for it.

Second, I don't like the pose. It looks like it is skipping. You have it going off the back foot and barely touching with the front. It just doesn't look right. The weight should be more toward the front.

Oh, and as a caveat... way better job then I could have done.

ender502

I'm glad you guys like it and thanks for the well-wishes.

As for it skipping, that's exactly what I was going for. I figure that being a scout and being Alaitoc means it's going to be zipping around the edge of the field of battle and taking some flank shots at good targets.

Anyway, I invested in a better camera (which I've been wanting to do for a while) and here are the results. Granted, this camera has so many settings to adjust I'm certain that I'm not getting the best pictures that I could, but they are a lot better than the old ones. My monitor is old and dark and I can still see a dramatic increase in quality.

I hope you don't mind all the pics.

Very neat!!

It looks as if the picture compression or something is going really wrong? The pic is pixelated.

Experience should teach you the most ime efficient to results techniques, as that is hugely important in painting for a living. I don't think you'll get what you'd deserve for a nine hour effort with this one.

I can't thank you enough Migs. I had forgoten about the most obvious thing in the world. I had my jpeg compression settings on medium. Now the pics look a lot better, and are about 10 times the file size...

Anyway, thanks for the crits too I really appreciate them. A lot of the time I hear how "great" or "fantastic" stuff is (which is nice don't get me wrong. It's good to have your hard work validated a little) but it's hard to improve without people telling you what sucks.

Also, do you mean that I should be able to paint things to this quality faster in order to make it worth the money?

(The pics above are now the new ones so let me know if those suck as well.)

It actually looks a ton like the ones I did, but your base is sexier. I hate to talk about the base instead of the model, but I just like the effect you got there.

Dramatic indeed. I didnt even see the multi colored alaitoc splotches in the original pics.

These pics will go a long way in promoting your paint service, so the investment in anew camera was a sound one.

Thats said, they were looking good before, now they look pretty damned sexy.

This good work and the better photos really do the mini a service.

It looks so much better and its tragic sometimes that a bad photograph can misrepresent a model so badly.

In terms of crit all i would comment on is the ink washes on the metalic sections, they stand out a little and are slightly lower quality than the rest of the work.

In particular the areas where the ink hasn't washed across the mini evenly but gathered in little splotches. How did you thin these for the wash? Did you just use water? I find that mixing with something like thinner or a little turpentine can really help the consistency for a wash. Some people also use washing up liquid to help.

I think if the blending on the metalics and inks was a little smoother it would help.

Having said that theres no faulting the quality or the overall work. Very high standard and easily Heavy Metal quality, I'd fully expect to see that as artwork on the box set or a mag article. Very professional, its important to remember that not every person who asks for a commission painted mini wants a Golden Daemon Winner. Some people just want clean crisp and professional "just above" table top quality.

I think you should be able to do 80% of that in about half the time to get the maximum oomph/money ratio Transfers are great too for nice and fast effect. Just use micro-sol and they look as if painted.

Now that the pics are great, it obviously looks much better and my critisism feels a little harsh. Looking forward to seeing more and hearing about prices. I have a lot of friends who are using pro painters.

I try to keep the freehand small to keep the time invested down, but I'm not a big fan of transfers. I'm asking $80 for the walker on the two forums I'm advertising it on. I've looked around a lot at what other people do to try and get a feel for pricing as well. I think it's a fair price but I'd love some opinions on the matter.

I am curious to see how it works for you as well. I have been really curious about the economics of painting for money, mostly since I can't see how one can do it fast enough to make enough money to get by. Now, I would never try it myself, mostly because I get way too attached to my models I paint, even assuming they are above average enough to sell, to let go of once painted. Still though, I would be curious to see how you can turn that around.
Off the top of my head, War Walkers are what, 20$ a pop in the box? So if you sell for 80$, you are making 60$ off 9 hours of work, discounting paint cost. So you are making ~6.66$ an hour, which beats retail at least. Now, of course if you are not incorporating the cost of the model (it is given to you to paint) or you are getting them cheaper, that helps. Honestly though, I would think box art quality or better models should be pretty salty, to shoot for 15$ an hour. Obviously that makes larger, more complex models more expensive than squads (which you can assembly line for efficiency) if they are to be fancy, but more reasonable for solid quality. I figure for "center piece" figs, those big eye catching fire magnets, high prices and commensurate quality make a lot of sense, but for line troops, a more solid but functional look is probably the best for efficiency, as previously noted.

Now, of course these are just the musings of someone who has cursory knowledge of the industry coupled with their own training and experience, so your mileage will vary. I just want to know how it does when it does