Commision Advice.

[gcsmith]

Heya guys,
So im at university, with only loans to sustain me. I was thinking of how I could make a little extra money.
So i thought about how my painting is improving with a sucessful NMM gold on a Prince althran on foot model. So thought I would try do commision work. To begin with i wanna sell a model on ebay, Currently got a Finecast chaplain for it, so any advice you could give a budding painter. Techniques. things i should paint to sell, and wat chapters best to paint.

Sorry if this is rong area.

[dagonis]

The biggest thing to consider when doing commissions is that you may be making way less be hour than another job. I just like painting, so I don't mind, here is an idea of how much I charge/model.

60mm base $25-50
40mm base $10-25
28mm base $10-20 (IC $25)

I'm working on a Wraithlord right now for $40 and it looks like it will be 8 hours of total work. That breaks down to just $5/hour ($3 less than min wage).

I haven't had much luck selling single models on eBay, I don't think people like buying a drastically different looking model than the rest of their army. I see the same PROPAINTED models listed over and over on eBay.

If you were looking to sell a pre-existing chapter Imperial Fists, Salamanders, Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Ultramarines are pretty popular.

Some good guidelines I have found are:
-At least half of the money up front, non-refundable
-Don't give the client the model(s) until full payment has been rendered (including checks clearing the bank, paypal clearing etc)
-The client must buy the model and any special addons (bases, bits, etc)
-Paint a test model for client acceptance

I don't build in a fee for glue, flock, sand, or anything like that.

Make sure you are at the top of your game, skilled painters can make good money, but keep in mind you are competing with some of the best painters in the scene. Look up Paint Vagrant on CMON to see some of his stuff.

[Nakatan]

Actually, most of people can`t afford to buy a really good painted minis. There are quite few rather wealthy collectors in a world. Sad, but true.

[Build]

There's no two ways about it, unless you're a professional sculptor or GD winning painter you're not going to get paid an hourly rate for commission work and just about any other saturday job, ultimately is going to pay you more.


Some of the commission work I have done worked out as low a £1 an hour.

If you do private commissions rather than Ebay sales, make sure above all else that the person gives you an INCREDIBLY clear picture or what they're after, doesn't matter how someone describes something, what you have in mind and what they have in mind will never match up 100%

[gcsmith]

thanks for the advice, and i know wat ur saying build but the point is i cant find a saturday job atm so trying to make a bit of cash from the hobby i love