Even if you\'re not painting solely for the money, Scott, you still need to figure out what your time is worth. True, most people don\'t want to pay $120 for a Warhammer unit; there\'s plenty of outfits they can send units like that off to in order to get a paint job at a couple cents/figure.
Some people get excited when they figure out there\'s a market for being paid to paint large units/armies, yet turn around days/weeks/months later when they realize they\'ve taken a huge chunk out of their life painting figures for relatively little to no compensation.
I tell a lot of people I teach this, over and over again, don\'t sell yourself short when it comes to commission rates. Since you\'re not doing it for cash, how would you rather see yourself? Missing out on work because your fees aren\'t rockbottom/sweatshop but enjoying painting, or having commission work come in yet being miserable at churning out huge groups of figures?
Another thing people don\'t take into account when starting out on commissions (I got this nugget from Jen I think) is that, along with everything else in life, you tend to do whatever it is you do the most; if you paint really fast, quick jobs, you\'ll train your eyes, hands, and brain to lock in on that level of detail. Some painters have an easy time knocking their brains into different gears, but others get stuck and have a difficult time swapping out. If you\'re not needing the cash, and aiming more towards improving your painting, I\'d take that into account when you\'re looking at doing large groups.
In the end it all comes down to what you enjoy and are good at, of course. There are people who can churn out unit paintjobs faster than I can clean a moldline and they don\'t get burnt out, get decent rates, and enjoy it
. Then, there are others who break into a sweat if they have five unpainted figures in front of them. Take the time to figure out how much of your painting time you want to devote to working for others, and then how much that time is worth to ya.
