"What Price for High Quality Paint Jobs?" Topic

I know and no offence taken, but the point I was making is that "cheap" is comparative. You want to pay you staff a decent wage, and make a profit, so you can't go for rock bottom prices. Cheap we are not, but I think we are value for money.

If anybody comes back to look this up, I have been buying already painted figures on ebay and flea markets and find I get the most bang as a buyer doing it. Many times the seller is probably not making much of a profit and neither do I when I sell painted figures at flea markets. I am always willing to pay at least $2.00 USD for a painted figure en masse and that just about covers the original retail price for many figures unless they are ten years old or so.

You only have to look at Bring and buy stands, the prices vary and so does the standard of figures.
Most wargamers seem to place little value in time spent by the painters painting actual figures.

We sell 20mm pre-painted figure packs containing 10 figures, with prices starting from £14.99, so it works out at about £1.50 GBP per figure. Which equates to about £1.00 GBP for the actual painting per figure.

So I suspect that £1.50 GBP to £2.50 GBP should be a average rate per figure for reasonable wargames standard 28mm figure.

I use a Sri Lankan painting service all the time, Philgreg. If it is merely a "copying serice" I don't have a problem with that. My figures come back with the correct coloured paint in the right places and adequate shading and highlighting. The occasional error or substandard job has been rectified and I pay 50 pence a figure for foot and £1.00 GBP a figure for cavalrymen in 15mm. Postage costs are quite high but not exorbitant.

I'm very happy with the service and have no reason whatsoever to believe that they, or any other painting service, employs child labour or is a sweatshop. As a Socialist I'd not be impressed by that kind of employer one little bit.

It's a tricky decision, as well as being a Socialist I'm an Englishman and I do believe that wherever possible jobs should be kept in the UK, but we are not talking about steel making or aeroplane manufacturing here and I would hazard a guess that not many people are making a living out of figure painting in the UK anyway.

If people want to charge big prices for painting figures and others are willing to pay those prices, then fine, it's not my money or my business, but certainly in 15mm I think the law of diminishing returns applies. By that I mean the best painted element of figures I possess is my Macedonian commander and bodyguards professionally painted in a kind of Kevin Dallimore style, but without the meat chart musculature (is it only me that thinks that real people just don't look like he paints them?) but at the distance I see them on a wargame table they don't look much better than the sub commanders and their bodyguards painted by someone in Sri Lanka at a fraction of the cost.

With 25mm I think, yes, the more you pay, the better job you get, but there does surely come a point when you are paying for detail, shading and highlighting that is pretty much impossible to see without peering at the figure whilst holding it under your nose.

I can paint minis to a reasonably good standard, and I have a job shelf stacking. This job pays 1 to 2 pounds above min. wage, about £6.50 GBP / hour. Now even if I sold a single figure at that price, with all the preparation, undercoating , varnishing & basing, a good part of that hour is gone.

Given this I can't be bothered painting minis for others when I have stacks of unpainted lead lying around awaiting paint. Sometimes its useful to me to E Bay a few bits, or there is something I want to try to paint but don't want to keep etc.

I agree that it is a market place and the price is what people will do it for, not what its worth in terms of my personal time. Annoyingly for me it is the only real skill that I have and it's pretty much worthless in the money making arena, if only I had been a stock broker….then again……

Will

Interesting thread. Back to the original question I would pay less and have for high end 25/28mm figures then I have for 15/18mm figures. I got some Napoleonic mounted figures (15mm) for around 20-25 US each and I have seen them go for as much as $50 USD at times. As for 25/28mm I have purchased some as high as $5 USD to $8 USD dollars each (including the figure) but mostly I can get them at $2.50 USD to $5 USD range all the time off the Flea Markets at HMGS-East conventions, E-bay and custom shops. While I have not seen a 25/28mm figure I would be willing to pay more then $10 USD for, I am sure there are some out there.
VR
James Mattes

IMHO each to their own you use who you are happy with regarding what company you use to paint your figs etc.
My only gripe and thats mainly with sellers on Ebay is that you see figures listed as pro painted and in reality they looked like they have been painted by a shaven chimp.
Whe ive listed figures before on ebay i dont label them pro-painted, wargame standard etc i leave that up to the buyer to make their own mind up.

IVE PURCHASED FROM BIGBATTALIONS.THE FIGS I BOUGHT WHERE OF A VERY QUALITY FINISH AND VERY REASONABLY PRICED. HOPE THEY ARE AT COLOURS 2009 NEXT WEEK SO I CAN BUY MORE..QUALITY, VALUE, SERVICE WHAT MORE CAN ONE ASK FOR.

As a U.K painter that runs a business specialising in smaller scales (6mm/10mm) I can't speak for the 28' market.

However as smaller scales go, there is no shortage of business for the U.K painter. My order book is rammed until January. I also don't believe that overseas services mark the death knell for western painters. There will ALWAYS be a sizeable number of people that want their work done domestically, for various reasons.

On a final note, there is also an issue of quality. If you produce a quality product, and have a reputation for doing so, people are going to buy it, no matter how much you charge, because at the end of the day the customer knows they are going to get a product back that is second to none. There are superb painting services in the U.K and U.S that produce quality figures that are difficult to beat east, west north or south, and they will never be without work.

Finally I applaud BigBattalions comments regarding overseas labour (I similarly have always had concerns regarding possible exploitation), and I'm delighted to read that he's combined a quality service with a well cared for work force. For what it's worth I've seen a fair few of his companies figures before, and they certainly are a superb advert for the emerging quality of far eastern painting services.

Slainte

Rhys

as far as what i charge, its $5.00 USD USD per 28mm foot figure; $7.50 USD USD for flagbearers (flag included); $10 USD USD for basic cavalry; $12.50 USD USD for cavalry ensigns; and about $30 USD USD for complicated figures (chariots, artillery pieces with 4 gunners, etc.) i offer the customer black undercoat and a choice of finishes, quantity discounts, and include shipping and insurance. i promote my work as "museum quality", which for me means as much detail as possible: eyebrows, eyeballs, teeth, lace, fringe, etc.

Dear Forum,

Best advice I've gleaned from those using the Indonesian painters, for commission work on say 15mm Napoleonics' miniatures, is to provide along with the unpainted miniatures, as much suggestions on the details to be painted as possible. Provide color photo scans as well, if possible.

Do the historical uniform's research yourself and in advance of mailing out the miniatures to be painted…never expect the painter, or the painting service to do the historical research for you.

I've used American professional painters in the past, even those who had asserted that their knowledge of the Napoleonic uniforms was top-knotched….still, I provided my own specics on the uniforms to be painted, so that no surprises would be forthcoming on the "finished work".

Those who appreciated my up front researched information, continue to be patronized, whereas, the few that received my input, yet produced their own finished painting commissions to me, with creative differences, were no longer of value to me.

Use painters and painting services, that can read! Also, painters that are so certain of their "artistic talents & skills", as to be arrogant or sarcastic, should be approached with a degree of caution….

With respects,
Wayne