"Market for Painted Boardgames?" Topic

I have been pondering prepainting a couple board games (Super Dungeon Explore and Mice and Mystics) and offering them for sale as finished products. I don't do well with commissions where i accept a set of figures, then paint them, but being able to paint sets at my leisure and mood would be far more acceptable for me and I can do them relatively efficiently.
Market for this? I mean they'd be pretty pricey as SDE has a LOT of figures, Mice and Mystics less so, but still a decent amount. I also considered offering simple cases to send them in so the owner doesn't have to figure out what case to fit them, I'd be using egg crate pistol cases as they are efficient and functional for this purpose.

Thoughts?

This is very specialised , would historical chess sets be something you may try?.
I sold a napoleaonics chess set for three times the price I paid for it just because it was painted.
A pleasant surprise ,but there are a lot of chess fans out there after unique sets as they look beautiful painted up.

Can't you buy the Mice and Mystics figures separately? You could paint those and sell them. they have wider appeal then just the game and people might be looking for upgraded components and grab them for their game.

I own Mice and Mystics and have painted the figures. They look good but I found them to be a bit more difficult to paint than normal miniatures. They're a kind of vinyl that can take some time to dry. Also, flash is harder to remove than on metals and the detail is a bit shallower meaning it's quickly buried in paint.

That said, they do look good once painted. If you were painting them on commission then you could charge for the effort, painting them on speculation though, I'm not sure the return you'd get would make it worth your effort. Your basically hoping to find someone in the market for them specifically (and if they have the game they already have the figures).

Well, I already own a spare copy of Mice and Mystics, so I am going to risk it with that. Even if I don't sell it, then I can just keep it. I was thinking about offering to allow people to send in their figures to discount the purchased set too, as then I don't have to buy figures to replace.

Separately I think would work.

Have seen painted copies of Space Hulk selling on Ebay for $$$$$$$$$$.

Wether or not they SELL for $$$$$$$$$$ is another matter, of course…

The figures are certainly paintable, like I said, I painted mine. They're just more fiddly than I expected (due to shallow detail and their flexible material).

The roaches take virtually no time, the centipede is quick too. The hero figures are tougher, detail doesn't have exaggerated and deep definition so one has to pick it out with paint and precise brush work. Things like the ladybug on Magnus (or whatever his name is)have their legs get buried in the character's body. It's not really an issue when it's a hobby project for oneself, It just took longer than I expected.

Plus the vinyl drying time for the primer--I used black on the bad guys and it dried like normal and paint adhesion was fine. I used a light cream for the heroes and it took forever to dry and paint adhesion was problematic for the first layer. And yes, all figures had been thoroughly washed.

Of course, if I was doing another set I would use only the primer that worked well so it probably wouldn't be as irritating.

The problem with painting Board Games you are looking at having to charge several hundred dollars to paint the amount of miniatures most of the games contain. As for Space Hulk it is a OOP popular game that would sell for over $200 USD unpainted so the price is not indicative of what other games would sell for.

Well I have 4 heroes left for my Mice and Mystics, the figures painted pretty easily to me. Didn't take too long, but they are being put at a decent table top quality, not gonna win any prizes, but a nice looking game, I'll put a pic up when I am finished. I think at the rate I was able to paint them I'd have to charge about $100 USD for the service, plus cost of game.

I just painted two space hulk games for someone, LOL. I have also painted super dungeon explorer and rivet wars. Would love an opportunity to paint a historical chess set!

Most boardgamers want painted miniatures but won't pay the prices. If they already own the game, it works out fine -- they mail you the unpainted miniatures, and you mail them the painted ones. A better idea might be to use the painted miniatures as trade bait.