Not entirely sure where to post this...

[obsidianpainting]

I calculated out the cost of products, and how much it would cost to make 1 single, 1oz(30ml) bottle of a wash forumla. And it comes out to around .72$ Thats 72 cents.

So to make some money on this, i believe i would be charging around 3$ maybe less, per bottle. As i also calculated(i tried to figure out a number of bottles, that would allow me to buy the products needed in such a quantity where everything was a nice even number) for 880 bottles, i would need to spend 634 to make around 2000 dollars profit(2640 ish in total).

I'm being quite upfront about this as i want you to understand i also do need to make money, and if i sell this i do want to make money off of it.

Per bottle, if charged at 3$ makes me about 2.28$ profit. Now i'm not saying any of this will sell! Mind you, just that if people do start to get into it, im taking into account the fact i will possibly need some hired hand to keep up with productions. Which means the price is fair, as it allows room for that.

I think Games workshop charges around 4$ + for their washes(and their entire paint line) so this is just a comparison.

Cheers, Gary.

[Rugne]

Don't forget GW sells thier paint 12 ml at a time.

Marc

[obsidianpainting]

Maybe i shoudl charge 6 dollars!

Nah, 3 is fine

Cheers, Gary.

[Chrome]

just remember that the more paint you have in your bottles the less often people buy them, the GW 12ml lasts ages for most people. more for less is a nice idea but you have to take continous profit into account as well.

[obsidianpainting]

I find myself having almost ran out of my GW Washes and only having owned them for a few months. Then again i do commission painting.

However, these are the washes we are talking about, not the paint. And, if you really like the washes then you'll use them all the time!

[RuneBrush]

Just spotted this thread - very interesting and hats off to you to be tackling this on both a personal and professional level

On the current thought pattern, I'd go for a smaller quantity of paint per pot/bottle. As Rugne & Chrome pointed out GW pots are currently 12ml. Looking on my paint shelf I can also confirm that Vallejo are 17ml and Coat d'arms are 18ml. Guessing that you're using dropper bottles (as you're calling them bottles rather than pots), these will have less paint wastage than GW. I'd say that $2.00 would be more than reasonable for a 15ml bottle for example.

One other thing I'd personally love to see is a set of Airbrush ready paints that compliment a set of regular acrylics - yes it's slightly lazy, but who would turn down the ability to just drop their paint straight into an airbrush!

Also and this might seem really strange, but one thing that I'd personally find fantastic is the ability to buy smaller quantities of paint. My logic on this is actually quite straight forward. My collection contains quite a number of paint colours that I either use once in a blue moon, or use tiny quantities of - GW Hawk Turquoise and Rotting Flesh are two good examples. Now I'd not want my collection to not have them, but I certainly don't require 12ml, they'll dry out far beyond my ability to use them which leave me in same situation as not having them, but out of pocket as well

[obsidianpainting]

Hmm...This is interesting

The airbrush thing is insanely easy. Like.. INSANELY. All i have to do is formulate the paint. then add in a very particular medium and voila!

The smaller paint bottles is an idea. The 30 ml thing was more or so for the the washes. I was going to put the paint in them aswell.. but hmm... Yah, i have lots of paints i have not even begin to get to the half way point...I think the lowest i could get in large quantities is 5ml dropper bottles. I think that if i put washes in smaller bottles, they would dry up to fast, or you would run out and just need to buy more(which isn't bad for ME but it isn't to convenient for you). But since it costs 72 cents to make a 30ml bottle of wash... hmm

What size of bottles does anyone have in mind?

I need one for acrylic paint(including metallics)
Glazes
Washes
Ready made airbrush paint

Possibly having the airbrush washes and glaze in a larger container than the normal paint, as they will be used more.

cheers. Gary.

[obsidianpainting]

Maybe i could just offer various sizes of quantities(which i believe i said i could do earlier.. just earlier i said i could bigger! Now i need to be able to go smaller!)

So i could offer this:

3ml
5ml
10ml
15ml
17ml
20ml
30ml
60ml
120ml
240ml

for sizes.

Feedback is nice! Thanks guys.

[Rugne]

Hmmm... unless I'm buying it to paint terrain, then anything larger then 30ml is pretty much too much paint for me, unless it's undercoating, and I think the minimum I'd want of a paint is going to be 5ml, because at that point I'd be concerned that the paint itself was costing less then the container, not to mention I'd keep losing anything that small.

The ready to go airbrush paint is a really good idea, but colours like black and white I would definitly be interested in them in larger sizes, perhaps up to 240 ml

[obsidianpainting]

I would like to keep it simple, so im going to only offer a certain range of bottles.

The ones i mentioned earlier waht i could do, but i crunched some math, and some of the bottles get really complicated when it comes to ratios for the wash mixture. (unless i premade the wash in huge containers and just dispersed it among bottles.......hmmm)

so the bottles i will offer are this:

5ml
15ml
30ml
60ml
120ml
240ml

These are the ones that work the best anything both divisible by both 3 and 5 seems to be good! lol

[obsidianpainting]

So, i know it may be too soon to think about this.

But prices?

If i charge 3$ per 15ml bottle(which is standard for companies like vallejo and reaper)

the rest of the sizes woudl look like this.

5ml= 1.5$
15ml= 3$
30ml= 5$
60ml= 10$
120ml= 15$
240ml= 20$


I coudl have gone with simple math and just doubled everything cause the volume is doubling.

5ml= 1$
15ml= 3$
30ml= 6$
60ml= 12$
120ml= 24$
240ml= 48$

But that seemed a little ridiculous with the 240ml. However, i do not have any containers around that are 240ml, so i cannot judge if that is appropriate or not.

Either way, i am still making a profit. (the second one yields greater profit for me though)

cheers. Gary.

[Rugne]

I would say to forget about the 240, if you need that much paint you might as well go and buy a can of spray or a tin from a hardware store that won't cost anywhere near that sort of money.

Marc

[mickc22]

the 30ml would be handy for black and white, seem to go through those two quicker than most

[Chrome]

I agree with rugne, you would never sell enough of the big bottle to make it worthwhile, better keep the 120, and if people would ask for a larger bottle perhaps you could make it(the 240) a special order instead of a stock one. People would just get the right colour blended in a hardware store and get a liter or two for that price(am talking about the lower of your examples).

I like the idea of having black and white together with the washes in 30ml bottles (although I think I'd prefer the washes in pots.) and the rest of the range in the smaller sizes. as standard stock that is.

[obsidianpainting]

Sorry but i won't be doing pots. I plan to only use dropper bottles.

I think i will keep the 240 in case people would like to order large bottles of the Washes.

If you check out the WIP section of the forums, i have a wip called archaon and beelphegor. Most, if not all, the models on there will be for sale.

The money i make from that will be going into this project to get a test batch all up and made of both paint, the washes, and the glazes.

If you would like to help speed this along, go check out what i have and buy some stuff!

(if you want the models without being painted that could be arranged as well. however i don't want to sell the models without doing something to them, so i would possibly convert them or assemble them for you then send them out. just PM with details.)

I also do commissions so anyone interested in pricing just let me know.

Cheers, Gary.

[airhead]

just a bit of quick math from my old college econ days:

$50 materials for 2 gallons (256 oz.) (U.S. - but you are Canadian so YMMV).

That is for a single color.
Now, how many colors in the line? 50?

$2500 for matierials for 20 colors. Not a great investment. Some of my mad ideas have involved a lot more.....

Need equipment. Mixers, tanks, (assume you are buying ground pigments, not grinding yourself?)

Place to keep all this inventory...Going to do this as a garage based business?

OK, charge yourself rent after you need the tax break.
Business licence when you have to move to a 'real' space - or get caught (the UPS guy gets a reward for turning you in...)
Home office overhead, sales overhead, payroll clerk, etc. (look at all the hats you get to wear...)

$50 material cost for 128 oz... = $0.39/oz.

***
Rough rules of thumb...
***


Double that to cover your overhead.
Your cost $0.78/oz.

Double that to sell wholesale:
$1.56 to the distributor.

He's got to make a profit and cover shipping and breaking boxes:
$3.12 from the distributor to the retailer.

He's got to make a living too:
$6.24 per paint... that is an ugly number, so $6.49 just to make it sound better...

That is a tough sell.....

If you could knock $0.02 per ounce off of your material cost, they could be right at $5.99/ 1 oz bottle.

***

This same exercise works in all your bottle sizes. The exconomy is in the bottle cost and handling cost.
I had a friend that bought 55 gallon drums of Marvel Mystery Oil and repackaged them in 2 oz. bottles and covered his model airplane hobby selling Dave's After Run Oil.

[obsidianpainting]

I plan on shipping and distributing myself. I already have a business liscence

In the paint line, at the moment we may only have around 6 colours to begin.

The washes are what all the calculations are for by the way. they are the cheapest to make. (around .36$ for 15ml and that is a rough estimate) The wash line would consist of two colours for now. Black and Brown(as those are the most popular)

The equipment i am using to make the paint is all done by hand. glass muller, glass surface. This is the refining process of the pigment into the acrylic paint by mixing it with the binder. After that the paint is then hand mixed with water and medium into its final state.

The washes just call for pouring of materials.

So far we are just going to be doing the washes while we still work on the paints. (trying to find pigmet that isn't toxic in certain colours is a little tricky)

Once again, i think i may just be doing custom colours. With only a base set of colours for the paint line. That way people can just send me a colour card or a colour swatch of the colour they want and presto! colour made.

Thanks for the input. It's appreciated

Gary.

[Necroghast]

The idea of slow dryign paints is a cool one. In terms of sizes, 15 and 30ml seem like they'd be the most useful. I too would be happy to test paints!

[Chrome]

I love this slow/fast drying paint discussion, I remember not long ago(yeah, I know, it WAS a long time ago, just let me, okay? :P) when I was completely amazed about finding colours taking less that six hours to dry enough for a second layer... And nowadays the colours are drying too fast!

[victoria]

If you can come up with a replacement for GW brown ink, I'll buy it.
BTW I am not a fan a of dropper bottles.
Vic.