The H Man | 12 Jul 2021 1:08 a.m. PST |
Does anyone know a good low cost bulk painting outfit? (No superhero costumes, please) I'm talking block painting, cents per figure. |
45thdiv | 12 Jul 2021 2:19 a.m. PST |
I just got my 3rd order back from Fernando painting. They do a fantastic job. I do the "collector" paint job and they are simply nice looking wargame tabletop figures. link You need to provide them with the color image to paint the figures. I bag 24 figures for a Napoleonic unit or AWI. Number each bag, "Lot-01, Lot-02, etc". If you want a few of the figures in the unit to be painted a bit different, pull them out and put them in their own bag with the color image. The price is good and the turn around time is pretty good too. Send me a PM and I can take pictures of what I got back last week. Matthew |
pzivh43 | 12 Jul 2021 5:34 a.m. PST |
+1 for Fernando's quality and service. Great comms during the job, with pics sent to check out before they ship. |
rob polymathsw | 12 Jul 2021 5:34 a.m. PST |
I offer an economical painting service with a wargaming 'Warband' painting level. Prices start from £4.50 GBP per figure. I can paint any size force, with long-term contracts available. Have a look here for more details – link If you are interested send me an email and we can discuss your projects further. Thanks! Rob Polymath Workshop |
Extra Crispy | 12 Jul 2021 7:56 a.m. PST |
Cheap and in Bulk – Fernando is the answer. At Under $2 USD for a 28mm figure, they do a great job for bulk troops like line infantry etc. |
Skeets | 12 Jul 2021 8:04 a.m. PST |
I have used Fernando for quite a few years now and have happy with the final product. Only had one problem years ago, he had me return the figures to be repainted and returned to me at no cost to me. |
79thPA | 12 Jul 2021 8:13 a.m. PST |
Fernando is the most inexpensive in the industry as far as I am aware. |
Old Glory | 12 Jul 2021 8:46 a.m. PST |
"CENTS PER FIGURE" is going to be pretty hard to find? Russ Dunaway |
charles popp | 12 Jul 2021 11:24 a.m. PST |
|
Perris0707 | 12 Jul 2021 11:46 a.m. PST |
I have had excellent results with Fernando on multiple lots of many different sizes. Had one minor issue which they resolved to my satisfaction. I consider them a great resource and very reasonable in pricing. Great on communication as well. I live in the U.S. btw. |
Sgt Slag | 12 Jul 2021 12:19 p.m. PST |
Block painting + The Dip/Magic Wash. That is the only way to get them down to "cents per figure," IMO. I paint simple blocks of color, followed by Royal Walnut color of Minwax Polyshades Urethane Stain, applied with a throw-away School Paint Brush from Wal-mart, $0.04 USD/brush. I do assembly-line painting, organizing my mini's by poses, into groups: apply the same color, same brush stroke, to each figure, in rapid succession. I average 10 minutes/figure, and that includes the application of Minwax. At arm's length, they look decent; I view my mini's at arm's length, 98% of the time, so I paint for the 98%. My gaming friends are amazed when I tell them my technique and how fast I paint them. All of my friends feel the quality is very acceptable to play with. Cheers! |
Bobgnar | 12 Jul 2021 2:55 p.m. PST |
Ditto for Fernando. minimum 170 cents per figure USA. You can get elites done for more. I have been getting figs done by him since 2000. If others want to get business, they need to supply a link. |
The H Man | 12 Jul 2021 8:04 p.m. PST |
link Like this? I did try Fernando, but, as mentioned above, they were looking for more than I was thinking. "Hard to find" correct. Thanks all. |
olicana | 13 Jul 2021 8:51 a.m. PST |
People, who do it full time, have to make a living. I pay my house cleaner £14.00 GBP per hour, so go figure. Perhaps you can find some school kids that want to do it for baby sitting rates. 14 year old baby sitters only cost £5.00 GBP per hour. Obviously, you would have to lay out for paints and brushes because they will not have any. Did you spot the sarcasm? |
La Belle Ruffian | 13 Jul 2021 9:22 a.m. PST |
I think the issue with people posting their own link is whether it counts at advertising. Thanks for the thread and Fernando recommendations though. I've a load of 15mm figures that I'll never get round to finishing and don't mind waiting. Does it help to paint one figure to go in the bag? |
79thPA | 13 Jul 2021 11:41 a.m. PST |
If Fernando is too expensive and you literally want to spend "cents per figure", you are going to have to go with spray paint. |
The H Man | 13 Jul 2021 3:16 p.m. PST |
Yeah, I think some people aren't understanding my problem. My fault for not explaining. I'm looking for mass production painting. I do commission jobs myself, see link above. But that's different to my needs here. Think prepainted figures, d&d, Mage Knight, so on. They aren't painted by babysitters. Spraying is a good idea, as it is used in the industry of which I speak. However masks need to be made and usually it's one colour per sprayer, so still more than I can handle, without setting up a full on factory painting company. Hmm…no. I am looking into making a machine to do it, as crazy as it sounds. Should work though. But I don't want to rely on an idea before I see results. |
Sgt Slag | 14 Jul 2021 12:41 p.m. PST |
Such a system would need to be robotic. Furthermore, you would need to set it up to paint the same stroke, same paint, on multiple, same pose, figures (1,000's of copies of each individual pose!), to get the production costs down. Even the D&D pre-paints, Mage Knight, and Hero Clix figures, were all hand painted, in China, as setting up such a machine will not likely break even, let alone make a profit. They did, however, make profit on those ventures (I wish they were still in production -- I made several armies, for little money, buying up lots of them on e-Bay, 10+ years ago). A better option might be color 3D printing. That technology is already available in the commercial market, but each miniature sells for $20 USD-$50. Pennies per figure, is not feasible, today -- give color 3D printing another 5-10 years, and maybe… Cheers! |
The H Man | 14 Jul 2021 4:59 p.m. PST |
"Such a system would need to be robotic. Furthermore, you would need to set it up to paint the same stroke, same paint, on multiple, same pose, figures (1,000's of copies of each individual pose!), to get the production costs down. " Thats it in a nutshell. Though don't be fooled by "robotic" it's actually pretty simple. It is very much dependent on the figure design though, like almost all prepaints. I just have to get around to having a tinker. I understand most prepaints are hand painted. I have heard of automatic spraying being done on tanks, maybe bandi? To me it's just about selecting a minimum number of generic strokes. So it's not very complicated at all. I just have to actually make it. I think the colour printing is tampo (yes the obvious auto correct occured, thank goodness for the edit button)? But that's no good for tiny things with concaves. Unless you mean another process?? Do tell. |