"Why Don't You Use A Painting Service?" Topic

I was wondering why gamers who have large lead mountains and plastic piles don't use painting services.

A – I'd rather spend the money on more shiny lead and bare plastic because I get joy from the collecting.

B – I play with unpainted miniatures, so painting is a nice to have at best or simply not necessary at all.

C – I feel that painting services are too expensive for what they are

D – I couldn't afford the standard of paint job I can do myself, even if I only paint 10% of my stuff

E – I don't trust anyone else to paint them

F – Having someone else paint my figures is cheating

G – I am more comfortable paying for "things" than "services"

H – I don't have much of a lead mountain or plastic pile

I – I will get round to painting them all one day, despite all past evidence to the contrary

J – I buy all my miniatures painted in the first place

K – Something else

For me, I like to think that it's F, but I feels much more accurate. :P

K, I suppose.

For me, painting miniatures is one of the most enjoyable parts of the hobby, so I wouldn't outsource it.

Actually, every part of the hobby is about equally enjoyable: building things, kitbashing, painting ground cloths, writing scenarios, writing house rules and scenario rules, playtesting scenarios and house and scenario rules, running games, playing games, writing AARs, participating in internet forums, going to conventions, seeing my friends, and crushing my enemies, seeing them driven before me, and hearing the lamentations of their women.

I think the only part of the hobby that I outsource is the writing of entire rule books and game universes. Those aspects of the hobby represent a degree of work that is probably beyond what is enjoyable for me as a hobbyist.

D and K, I like painting and I like my style.

A little bit of C, D, E, F, and I'm sure that I applies too.

K – I would be happy to have a painting service paint my figures. And have had a few do some small batches. But I'm too cheap to pay for large amounts of them to be painted.

K, I enjoy painting and am quick enough about it that actually building up a lead mountain would require far more disposable income than I have.

Also I actually paint figures on commission for friends so I guess I am a painting service.

Robert

L. Eventually I might. It's taking a fair amount of work finding and organising all the painting instructions for them to follow that's been the obstruction.

D and I

A bit of K – Painting actually helps me relax and reduce stress

L

Painting IS the hobby for me. I enjoy gaming, and I fit it in when I can, but I paint every day.

A, D, and I. I'm closing on retirement rapidly, and I'm not at all sure how much money I'll be able to spend on figures once I retire,, so I'm trying to finish up purchases for projects now. On the other hand, retirement will give me more time to paint (maybe).

Since I usually build both sides, I had hoped at one time to have some money coming in to have at least some of the "bad guys" painted, but the extra money came in about once, then went away, so that never happened.

Grelber

K bad experience with two different painting services.

Did have a local who painted superbly and he did
many of my figures for me.

D I paint, therefore I am !

Another D.

And while some services produce impressive paint jobs I have my own view of what the final result should look like.

It is also gratifying to get favorable comments on the miniatures.

A and H

C I guess. I have thought about it but never decided to spend the money on it. The standard of their painting would probably be much better than mine anyway.

Painting is half the fun of it, and granted services paint miles above my skill level but its my quite time.

A. And as others have said I enjoy painting even if I a bit slow and not that good. If it wasn't for the painting I probably would have dropped out of the hobby years ago.

K. I like to paint my own figures in my own way and I couldn't afford to pay someone else anyway.

L.

Should note the overseas painting services seem to have regular trouble with customs.

And I take it that "all the evidence to the contrary" is your personal situation? For 40 years, I had more money than time, and the pile of unpainted castings mostly grew. For two years I've been retired with more time than money, and I'm very glad I have that surplus lead.

K I enjoy painting.

And I take it that "all the evidence to the contrary" is your personal situation?

No, apologies, it was just a light-hearted aside as a nod to some gamers who take this wry view of themselves.

M – I do use a painting service.

Wargaming and painting are both hobbies. My hobby is wargaming.

Rick

D, K, F
I enjoy painting, and am usually pretty productive. With well over 10,000 painted 28mm figures, I shudder top think what it would have cost to have someone else do them!

Painting _is_ the hobby. I would be more inclined to pay someone to play games with my figures than pay someone else to paint them.

yup…I agree…for me, painting is the hobby. When I field my own painted troops in a game…there is nothing like it…serious…love the hobby for this reason. I feel a connection to the troops.

C, inveterate cheapskate who still deludes himself with option "I"

N. I enjoy painting my own figures but have had thousands of figures painted by an old friend, Terry Sirk, and a painting service, Fernando. During the glory years of building armies for different eras my megalomania outstripped my ability to turn out painted figures so I turned to others to help. Now that I'm older and retired I don't have the desire or disposable income to build new armies. I'm just augmenting existing collections, filling in gaps.

A, C, I I really enjoy painting, and once I'm rolling on a project can turn things around pretty quickly. If painting services work for others, that's super, but I'd rather do my own work.

All of the above? Particularly C, E and F.
I didn't see "I think I do a better job than some of them" as a choice.

I don't like to paint and I'm not very good at it. I prefer to find one of my customers who is a good painter and swap painting for product(usually 4:1).

Dave
WargamingMiniatures.com

I just like to paint my own models … DOH !

+1 Jeffreyw3.

I do if I need to. IF I have the funds I can ship off projects that I want to complete (as I did for my Napoleonic Prussians and Russians). But then I tend to want several hundred figures painted.

Some projects, like ACW, I just go ahead and do my self. Smaller project (100 or less figures) I do my self as well.

So I guess the follow up question is, if you have a huge unpainted lead mountain why do you keep buying more?

Maybe *shopping* is the real hobby after all, like Imelda Marcos and her shoes….

Wolfshanza and Extra Crispy for the WINS !

:K" for me I guess. I enjoy painting the figures, and I like my style. However, I would consider having a service do the painting for various native hordes if I ever returned to colonial gaming. That is th eone thing that keeps me from it.

I could not afford the paint job for quality better than I can do myself. I keep buying more so I have something to do after the apocalypse. Or retirement. Whichever comes first.

K, I like to paint, however recently I found I had way to many figures than I needed, so I swapped painting for figures.

M for me. I do send figures out to painters.

I like painting and paint all the time. I think my painted figures look good. But I send stuff out to the painters when:

1) the figures are boring to paint (eg., classical Greeks, WW2 figures)

2) the figures are difficult to paint (eg., Samurai and Imjin era Koreans)

3) the figure just are no fun to paint (eg., ACW and Fenian Invasion figures)

4) the figures are sculpted to be non-paint friendly (eg., anything by Wargamers Factory)

5) having a big pewter/lead/plastic pile is more depressing than anything else.

D through F
Also K – I like all my figures to have the same style, and as painting is part of my hobby, I'd like to do it myself, no matter how clumsily. Along with getting the basing the same – this really helps tie in all the figures in an army or gaming system. (Yeah I know I *could* request a painting service not to do this but that would be a really boring job on receipt of the finished product)

To paraphrase a book comment, we don't just buy a figure, but the time to paint it.

I can't afford it, for the most part, but I'd rather paint them myself anyway.
And I've enough painted figures to play with as it is, so my gaming is not slowed by my glacial painting speed.

E – I don't trust anyone else to paint them

I have had a lot of crappy jobs where the painter doesn't understand what he is painting.
Sometimes, explaining would take so long that it is faster for me to paint the figures myself.

Most of my figures are painted by others since 1980. Bought of eBay or directly. Painted by Fernando, Nick N, and others. Now am retired, like Robert P so not so much money. I am trying to exist by just playing with the 50,000 painted figures I already have. So what to do with the 29,000 unpainted that I have?

I started out paying for professional painting. I paid $3 USD-$4 per 25mm figure -- this was back in the mid-90's. I don't feel that it was excessive in price, actually, I feel the quality was worth the money…

However, after I paid out around $700 USD in figure painting, I realized that the $700 USD I spent on the services of a friend, who is a pro-painter, would buy me a trunk-full of craft paints!

I decided that my painting skills were up to the task, at arm's length. I paint slowly, but I do paint. I also am a huge fan of The Dip and Magic Wash techniques. This accelerates my painting, dramatically.

My painting is GEtGW quality: Good Enough to Game With, at arm's length. I'm past 50 years of age, so my eyesight is not what it used to be, either. Hence, the GEtGW standard. It is also why I only game with 25-28mm figures, as well as 54mm figures. Anything smaller, and high quality painting is a waste of effort and time: the details cannot be seen unless the figure is 6" from my eyes! Why bother if I game with them at arm's length?… YMMV. Cheers!

K: I have used about 4 or 5 services, but all of them had issues. They would not follow direction, they delivered a year later than planned, etc etc.

A, C, I, basically I am just too cheap.

I have other things to spend the money on.

I accumulate figures faster than I paint because I use 1/72, and they often go out of production. So a plastic pile means I have what I want when I want

C and D

What exactly am I buying? I recently checked out one website that had different levels of painting service, showed examples and offered price quotes. The basic paint job with no detail ran around $10 USD per miniature ( something I could do myself). They had several other levels of service and their top notch service ran around $25 USD-$30 for a quality paint job (something I cannot do). To paint my Necromunda gang would have cost close to $300. USD I would hate to think what an army would have cost. The quality paint job could easily get into thousands of dollars for an army and is now unaffordable.

In spite of that I might break down and use the service because I detest painting. I would rather play games, design scenarios and GM campaigns.