"Recommended painting service" Topic

Have purchased some Perry 28mm Napoleonics and am thinking of getting more to send off to have painted. Thinking of starting with battle of Quatre Bras. Many different uniforms, maybe confusing for painters. Can anyone recommend a painting service. Looking for good value, decent turn around time, most important-dependability. I know of these five painting services: Old Guard, Reinforcements By Post, DJD, Fernando and Dragon Painting Service, but have no experience with any of them. Any recommendations, helpful information?

I am familiar with Perry and Napoleonic era, and have had plenty of practice over the years at uniforms, cuffs and collars etc.

You can find plenty of photos of my work on my site. This link in particular should take you to Naps –

link

I charge £2.50 GBP per model, have a waiting time of close to 4 weeks now, but tend to have a fairly decent turn around time (approx. 40 models per week).

Hope this helps your search. If you want to contact me, please drop me a message here, or my email is on the main page on the blog.

thanks
Chris

I have used 4 of the 5 services you mention (sort of). I have bought ready-painted units from Old Guard. Okay painting, nothing amazing. Good value tho and delivered promptly. I would use them again.

I had all my 6mm SYW done by Reinforcements By Post. Neil knows his stuff, buy with confidence.

I have bought a lot of Lord of the Rings from Dragon. Top notch, but priced accordingly.

Fernando is good but I would say you need to send good references.

I spent tonight painting Line Lancers of the French…Ligne Chevauleger Lanciers, who have been sitting there for weeks waiting for my attention.

I then see what professionals can achieve, as shown on this forum, so often. If you then pay £2.50 GBP per figure (slightly more than for the casting itself) for that quality, you have to ask…why bother?

If you are solely a wargamer, the answer is do not. What you get at that sort of price is beyond your skills and dirt cheap frankly. Pay a bit extra for it…and love it.

Some of us want something unique, so we convert figures, we add Greenstuff and we paint to the best of our skills. Then each time we get better. I, so recently, learnt from von Winterfeldt about how to do a red stripe on an edge. A little thing, that was. It has been a lesson ++++

Do you want to just look at them or push them around a table? I favour the former, it suits me. The end results actually serve no purpose…other than to me

I've used Fernando and PhilGreg from Sri Lanka due to cost. They are cheaper but it will take 2-3 months to get the figures back. Of the two I recommend Fernando only because he does a better job of packaging and protecting your figures.

Didn't realize Reinforcements by Post was still in business?

Dragon Painting Service in Hong Kong are my go to guys. Check out their ebay store for samples of work.

dragonpaintingservice.com
auction

Steve Spence in England is great. He is the house painter for Eagle figures and does a great job for a good price. Steve is also highly reliable, does not ask for money until you are satisified and will order castings for you in the UK. I think his only requirement would be that a client put in an order of sufficient size to make it worthwile and pay promptly upon receipt and satisfaction with the work.

I have hired many painters and Steve is the best. He is the second best painter I have engaged, but the most reliable and consistent.

If you want we can get his email address to you.

Kevin

The Emperor's Own, I have about 2500 figures painted by them, great quality at a great price.

Hello, I've stared my own venture into painting service fulltime. Here is link to see some of my work. Drop me a line and I can quote prices better.
yngtitanenterpises.blogspot.com

Or go on facebook and search for Warfare in the Age of Resaon page. You will find many samples of my work from Syw to Acw.

Dale

I Second "The Emperor's Own" – Absolutely smashing service . Large amount of Prussians , Russians & French painted by Scot & his team.

An excellent painting service in the UK is Mili -Art (in Cornwall) Owned by Andy Hazlehurst. Over the last 20 years he painted thousands of figures for me.He really knows his Napoleonic stuff (has been a re enactor for many years too) and paints details as you ask it. His turnturn over is amazing (at least for me) usually a 100 plus order is returned within a few weeks. He charges 3£ for 28mm, real good quality.

I've used Old Guard and Fernando for 28mm Napoleonics. Fernando is much cheaper and the paint job is excellent. Old Guard is excellent the only criticism is I do not like how they paint faces. Everything else is beautiful but the faces are very blockish. But I would still recommend them.

I do use another service from Thailand and it has been around for quite a while. It is named Big Battalions. Their painting is the best and their pricing is in between Fernando and Old Guard. Turn around time is not too bad so I'd look them up.

link

Sorry, Big Battalions has changed it URL. Here is the correct one –

bigbattalions.co.uk

I used Reinforcement by post and The Emperor's Own. Both very very good. Two different styles. RBP comes with a brown wash and TEO is clean. RBP gives more of a campaign look, TEO more of clean/parade look. TEO is slightly more expensive but the amount of detail is just amazing. What I like about RBP is that all you need is the name of the unit: no need for pictures or instructions (big time saver). Note, I used them for 18mm, not 28.