"Bad Painting Service" Topic

Partly due to my idiocy using an un-established painting service, but I got bit hard by "In the Name of the Empire" painting service. I had paid the guy and sent him my army. In the first few weeks he gave me uplifting messages like 'half done' and 'what color would you like these units'. But after about a month he stopped communication entirely. It took reassurance from my lawyer that he was facing theft(he initially refused to send the models back, saying the army now belonged to him) for him to send me back the army(without refund). When I received my models, everyone had spray paint literally caked on, with randomly placed 'blobs' of paint on them. My metal HQ models were physically broken.

Just posting this for others to beware.

Note*

Not affiliated with EMPIRE PAINTING SERVICES

This guy was based out of Virginia. The guys name was Alex.

This guy? link

Those prices look cheap. I may be mistaken but you get what you pay for in my view.

Sorry about your luck. I used a cheap painting service once and got back figs with blobs of paint on them. Some I salvaged and some I just threw in the trash.

I sympathize with anyone who gets ripped off by a painting service but have to agree with Combatpainter, if it looks to good to be true then it almost certainly is. Any painter worth his salt will have lots of previous work pic,s and a recommendation or two by previous customers ( unless it,s his first job then you have to take that chance), let,s face it if your proud of your work you take pic,s.
You only have to think , how long would it take me to paint a fig to a good quality and what would i need to charge someone so i earned a living. Even us painters have to eat :).
Really sorry you got ripped off though,

kev

Sad to hear you got ripped off, but it's unfair to say that "if it looks too good to be true, it must be". When I do painting jobs for people, I deliberately charge less than I probably should for the simple reason that I am a good painter, but I'm not doing it for a living, and I am also slow (I turn out figures at about half the rate or less that I am told I should be able to produce at). People would not pay the prices I would otherwise have to charge (probably double that of other painters). I estimate what it's worth for me to paint it, and quote that as the price, rather than figuring an hourly or so. My painting has been praised by professional painters (those who earn a living doing it, not the ones on eBay), but they also recognize (having told me so) that I will never get what the figures are worth based on their estimation of my painting. It comes down a choice between making a few bucks to pay for the hobby versus not.

Perhaps i should of emphasized the ( almost) sundance, i was aiming my comment at the so called pro painters and the ebay 20p a skip full merchants not painters like yourself,

kev

Sorry, kev, missed the 'almost'! I wasn't offended or anything, just explaining another potential side to the issue. On the other hand, I also don't take figures from people and not return them, or take them and treat them like crap because they aren't mine.