"Flames of War. Need painters ever work again?" Topic

auction

I cant paint. My Italian's are splotchy desert yellow with bubonic brown rifles leaking all over their uniforms. Their bases are Goblin green and unflocked.

These Shermans are painted by someone who can really really paint.

They may have taken him 15 hours to get to that standard and I admire the work.

It just seems to me that these days wargamers must have money to burn.

A decent painter could at this rate, make as much as a Teacher in a week.

That is only if you can sell them consistently at that price though.

There awesome, and yes FOW stuff that is painted like that usually goes £200+!

But! But! But! It's four tanks!

I don't see it as a Warpainter standard sorry to say. They are nice but That is a $100 USD a tank. I don't know. I think these are over priced. But who the hell am I????

ok let's assume 370 GBP for the sake of the exercise:

paypal + ebay fees: 12 GBP

cost of models: 22 GBP

taking pictures, putting them online, communication with customers, going to the post-office: 5 hours in best case

buying, painting up the stuff plus modelling 15 hours per tank: 60 hours

total 336 GBP for 65 hours = 5.16 GBP/hours for top quality work. Something is wrong.

Let him get whatever he can. Heaven only knows that I don't get it :)

Ehhhh, I really doubt 15 hours per tank. Maybe an hour per? Probably less, they're just drybrushed.

That's 37 GBP/hour. Plus, if you were active and selling a lot, the 5 hours for pictures/posting/communicating/posting would be shared over multiple items.

Oh well, I'm off to buy some Battlefront tanks.

They are nice. I am more impressed by the little dudes than the tanks, though. Although the tanks are quite nice.

They look very nice, to be honest the only reason I'd purchase these was if I had a toy store and needed something really nice for one of the display shelves, mind you the FLGS I play at have had some of the BF dioramas on display and from time to time the BF lends us their tables to play on, but yea I would buy them for table-top gaming.

I'm with mweaver. The tanks are nice, but mostly drybrushed. I like this guy's micro-detailing skills though, like the handpainted logos on the tanks and the troops. The basing is also quite nice.

They look good, but they're not worth that much (not to me at least. Not even if they were RC… ;) If those are the Airfix Shermans (and they look like it), it would have taken longer to glue them together than to paint them. But hey, if he can find someone to pay for'em, more power to him….

Looked again. Nice clean work. Very realistic. Nice! I guess if someone pays that amount they must be worth it. Again, who knows. You need them and you have the bucks. Go for it!!!

Yeah, I mean good luck to they guy.

I reckon it's more than a hour per tank mayby 3 per tank.

5 hours for e-bay admin? Nahh,I run E-bay rules sales and once youve got a flow going it's a hour at most.

God, I wish I could paint.

I should start working up my ebay trade. I would paint tanks to match those & not expect it to take more than 3 hours a tank.

This isn't "sour grapes" however. Congrats to the guy. He's found his market, much like warpainter has done. The problem for meis that ebay is unreliable. I have sold a few auctions for what I consider to be, in all honesty, silly money. I had one auction sell, then the customer asked to commission more & I droped the price considerably & still felt guilty that I was over-charging him!

but I've also had many occasions where things of equal, or greater quality have failed to sell.

If they can get the results they want & need consistently, all power to them! I'll stick to safe(er), reliable commissions for my bread & butter earnings ;o)

Cheers,
Paul "TuffSkull" T.
mercenarybrush.com

U.S. secret services did their part in murdering Diana as a favor to the British Monarchy. Even at that time these services were dominated by right wingers and the ideological proof is in the pudding which is smeared all over our face if anyone cared to look.

We all know deep down how right wingers of any stripe just love Feudalism, and Monarchies do fall under that category. Thank you for the repay for you great assistance in Iraq. I guess it's our turn again to scratch your back. Citizen.

hugh??? yes?

lol, that's funny, I didn't write that :]

but obviously, this is a conspiracy behind the painting, CIA or Mossad mosty likely… :]

Nice painting. And nice to see a painter getting something near the right price for their work. Makes a change.

There is no way on earth those tanks took 15 hours each. They are just washed and drybrushed, the detailing is good but not outstanding – the tac markings are just as wobbly as the ones I paint. They are however very well researched.

It is all in the presentation, if people are willing to pay that much, then fine.

Good for him.

The value of a thing is that which you are willing to pay for it.

Those people who think more than an hour per tank, remember they are 15mm.

But to stand in a turret drawing a bead on an unsuspecting Panther as it lurches out of cover …

… priceless.

The opening bid was 15 GBP. It's the bidders that have gotten carried away.

Good for the seller.

These were posted on the FoW forum. The painter reckons they took 6 hours. I'd say that was a pretty good return, but then they are nice.

Looking forward to taking on your Italians, Pete.

They are nice models. Not the best I have seen, but very well done regardless. I see no reason to go off about the cost of them-- if the winner of the auction feels he got a good deal and is happy with it, then that's what he got. A good deal. What the rest of us think about the value of the models is completely irrelevant.

The scary thing is that the auction's not done for another two hours. The cost should go up a little more.

This is the first time that I've seen work that I could do* going for that price -- obviously, the FOW market has hit a point where a painter could actually make a living.

To me, this is a good thing.

(Though it's also a bad thing, because now I'm tempted to ditch it all and professionally paint.)

*Or could, if I weren't so lazy about my basing. If I were actually gong to try to get into this market, that's what I'd have to fix.

caused a bit of a stir havent I!!

in my defense I put them on for £14.50, they did take me about 6 hours and co-incide with the release of Battlefront's D-1 supplement. Am I surprised? H*ll yes! I could and maybe should have put a buy it now on them but I suspect this thread would now be discussing my hubris at setting such a price for them :O)

Ebay funds my figure habit and as someone said its very unreliable, some I've barely covered costs on. Regular commissions fund my wife's credit card :O)

cheers
Matt

Tarny, Gratz on the sale. Indeed they are great models.

What make were they? BF?

yep BF and I have to say their Sherman III's are a right pig to put together but nice once completed.

cheers
Matt

What gave you the most trouble, Matt? The guns and mantlets (That seems to cause the most problems assembling BF Shermans).

Nice work and a nice sale. Looks like the buyer needs some opposition for his Michael Wittman Tigers (by warpainter)!

Allen

Hi, its the side skirts, there is about 2-3mm difference in width size between the two sides. The end result is you either position both flush and end up with a lip on one side of the tank only or have to shift one out slightly leaving a nasty gap. Only BF model I've ever had to use vices and grips on.

Cheers
Matt

FWIW,

By trial and error. I found that an invaluable tool for attaching BF's M4 Mantlet/Gun, is a diamond coated round file. Also, drilling and then pinning the Coax/veiwport.

Congratulations, Matt! That was a fun one to watch.

'Also, drilling and then pinning the Coax/veiwport.'

the bit I forget to do every time I build a BF tank!

'Congratulations, Matt! That was a fun one to watch.'

here's hoping for much more entertainment :O)

Cheers
Matt

This guy buys only expensive stuff on Ebay. Look at his past purchases. He bought tanks at $200 USD a pop each. he is getting a bargain here at $125.00. He is probably a lottery winner of some kind. Money i burning hole in his pocket.

Tommi, I too wish you could paint !

Where ya been BTW ?

Tarnowski done well on this one! I like the brass etched railings use, I got the same stuff but have not got round to using it yet.

Nice hourly rate but it does not always work out like that. You need 2 keen bidders to make a good price, now one of them has his 'toys' how much do you think an exact replica will get next week? Like Tarnowski said he has taken losses so when you even out the profit the big sales can get cut down quite a bit.

Ive dipped my toe in the ebay painting waters, sold some Russian inf for a bit of a profit, put some WH painted Ogrs on and not a sniff – I wouldnt use it to make a living…but as a nice bonus its OK and fun.

Anyone noticed how if you put "Waffen SS" in the description the money doubles ?

LAWL

Explain, please?

"LAWL" is the phonetic pronounciation of L.O.L which is the abreviation of "Lots of Laughs"

Oh. New one on me!

Obviously… 8)=

Just our of curiosity, how many people out there do not paint their own armies? And, if prepainted armies were available at a reasonable cost, would you purchase them?

Thanks.

Tim

To be completly honest the best thing about painting is being able to set your self up a deadline and achive it however being up till 4am the day of the tourney cos I thought 120 82nd and American flag patches would be fun on 15mm soldiers I consider it bad to be honest as a painter for other folks I don't know how or why you'd do it.

It's interesting to see that the big money seems to go to "diorama" style figures. There are some really nice 1940 figures on sale that don't fetch as much.(BEF, Romanians and 1940-41 germans) I know, I painted them! My next painted stuff will feature more terrain and see what happens.
I have a lot of painted stuff that will never be used, and selling them is better than having them sit in a cabinet unseen. I would be willing to do commissions but only when a ton of stuff has gone.What do gamers/collectors want?

Steve Walker

Tim, pre-painted armies are already available from many vendors in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and here in sunny Bangladesh. Not to mention a ton of people from all over the first world selling on ebay.

Matthias, (Steve Walker). I think I saw your stuff and was going to bid on them to relist and sell again with better pictures. I had a feeling they were quite well painted but it was the pictures that lost you the potential price. Plus some FOW stuff is 'flavour of the month' and early war is not the flavour at the moment.

Thanks warpainter.
I'll drag out some mid and late war!

I've found people to buy the strangest things. I see beautifully painted models go for pennies on the dollar and then turn round and see what I think looks like garbage go for big bucks. Miniatures are the strangest things economically speaking. I haven't found any logic to them at all. A large part of this has to do with what is "hot" at the time like Warpainter mentioned about the FOW stuff. I prefer early war games, but theyre just not that popular with the "in crowd" at the moment. So I can buy early war stuff for reasonably cheap but God forbid trying to sell it at any decent return. Same goes for GW stuff. It comes and goes in cycles. I have made a lot of money at times but not made anything and even lost money at other times. Warmachine seems to be a reasonably steady market presently. If you paint for cash, I might recommend doing some of this stuff. Historical stuff is in a slump for the present. Though there are some die-hards out there who still pay top dollar for painted models. A friend of mine just sold some ancient Chinese for $8 USD a model and they were gorgeous. But I have also found historical gamers to have a completely different taste in painting styles than that of fanstasy/sci-fi gamers. I prefer mixing and blending and such (GW style) to(what I feel is) the simplicity of historical styles. But once again it boils down to individual tastes and no one style fits everyone.
Best thing I have found for selling painted armies or models is going to conventions and getting a flea-market table. Dealers pay far too much for their tables and if you don't have their stock its assinine to pay those prices when the $5- $25 USD dollars for a flea market table will suffice for these purposes.Have any of you tried taking your wares to conventions rather than doing EBay?