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Does anyone know where to find a good index of painting service reviews? I'm looking for a service for a whole army and while I find a lot of options, it's hard to gauge the output other than the pictures they put in their gallery. Would love to hear about services folks have used, their painting quality levels, prices, and turnaround time. Thanks!

Preface: I’ve never used a painting service, but I know a couple of people who have.

From my understanding there’s a (modest) amount of websites but how functional they are is questionable; the people I know didn’t get a response from a single one when they were inquiring, or so they say.

To which end they both ended up using Fiverr to find someone to paint their stuff. From a brief look at the website there seems to be a glut of options in various price ranges, many of which have reviews and pictures of the models included.

Your best bet with anything like this is to find someone you think will do a good job and then send them a couple of pieces to test; say an infantry squad and a transport / mid-size battle tank. This will give you a gauge of their responsiveness and their abilities, as well as any negligence. Then, if you dislike the results you aren’t in deep, and if they ruin it you can get a refund (at least if you go the fiverr route).

I never used any but I sometimes go to my local hobby shops (one is large and focused on tabeltop/wargames/mtg and the other is a small adorable old-school shop focused on 35/72/historical/modeling)
Both have display cases, and beautifully painted work displayed from the visiting customers.
If I asked, I am 100% sure they have a list of local artists who left their info on file for the commission work.

I personally know one local guy who I would hire for sure, nice guy, good quality work. And i also know a local guy who I would stay away from, scamy, arrogant.

But I would firstly go to your local hobby store and see if you can meet local painter. Go out for coffee and discuss times, deadlines, costs, ets. I find it much easier to work with a local artist than over emails over seas.

If there are no good local painters for a reasonable price, then Id gamble on some big name studios that various youtube channels advertise.

Id first try to support local business and local artists. But that be me. Hope this helps.