Commission Work Pricing?? HELP!!!!!!!!

L

leopardpixie

New member
Ok long story short, I usually paint for myself, but have on occasion sold things on eBay. One such winner of a Gray Knight terminator, has requested for me to paint the new Marneus Calgar box set. In his words, he wants me to pick it up and paint it for him at my leisure and send him a bill. I have never done this before, nor do I know what to charge. That Is why I am asking fellow cmon’ers this advice.
Tiff
 
W

Wolf_Fang

Guest
i just recently asked this question to airhead.. he simply told me charge it on how well you can paint it and on how long it will take you... he said i should be charging 3$ for gaming standard per troop.. of course bigger models more and what not... i think what you need to do is look at how good you can paint it and how much time you think will spend on it and base the cost upon that (plus cost of the models of course!) hope this helps!!
 
R

RHerneson

Guest
Going pro

First off, from experience let me tell you, firm up some of your issues. Give him a completion date or you will run the risk of misunderstanding. While you may think \'at your leasure\' entitles you to hang out at the comic shop or play in a tourney, he may resent the same actions because he doesn\'t have his figs and he percieves you goofing off.
Also, what degree of quality is he wanting? All table top, units done to table top quality and command units super sharp, the whole set super sharp? And what about claims to your work? Can he take the command unit and match it with other figs and enter it in a local competition?
Does he want them flat based or detail based? Does he want carry trays?
Make sure that you and your patron have a very clear understanding of what is to be done and in writing. It may seem anal but it will aviod much pain.
And speaking of pain, that is a good measure of what to price. At what price while doing figure # 64 do you not feel a pit in your stomach about what you are getting paid for the job? Also, at what price will you be ok with your patron telling others you worked for? That will set an expection for future patrons. (As a side note, just because you like working pro, never let anyone low ball you on a commision price just so you can get the work. Your professional reputation will suffer from underpricing your work, but it will grow from walking away from bad offers.)

You are getting paid, that make you at least semi-professional. Time to step up. If your work is worth the money, make sure your business practices are too. Detail the job expections, put it and writing, and price it with a cost that both you and your patrons (present and future) will consider a good deal.

RH
 
mattsterbenz

mattsterbenz

New member
i do contract painting, and for a good model (not quite golden demon winning) i charge $30 a piece.

basically you should charge $10 per hour plus $1 (about) for supplies per model
 
S

sivousplay

New member
Two quick things ...

1). If I\'ve never worked w/ the customer before, I require 1/2 up front.

2). If I\'m to buy the miniature, I require payment for the fig up front.

These requirements can be removed once you are more comfortable w/ the customer and their paying habits.

Good luck w/ the commissions.
jim
 
P

Pigmented

New member
I\'ve been doing commision painting for a few years now and learned the best way to handle purchasing for customers is to get the money to cover the figure costs upfront, that way the customer has invested on the project and likely won\'t back out leaving you stuck with unwanted figures. As for pricing you pretty much have to go with something your comfortable with, the average table top price seems to be around 3-5 dollars per figure. I give my customers a quaote considering the figures complexity and time I think it will take to do it. If I finish the figures in less time than planned I lower the price and I don\'t raise the price if it takes longer to do. Its a good way to gain some trust.
 
L

leopardpixie

New member
Lat month i was contected, by him to paint 2 Tau drones, by forge world. I quoted him $40 for the 2. he wanted them painted for an HQ. And he provided them, and sent cash up front.
But isn\'t Calgar, an HQ? so standard should be much higher that \"troop\" quality? .... Sorry ...so many question, so lil time (and Sleep).... (and school papers) and I agree With trevor :) I\'m not the fastest of painters, Many minis at home 1/2 finished and lost in the cracks where the paints are. O Btw, I\'ve been uing the red from Velejo and it\'s quite \"chunky.\" Watering it down i find many lil grains, that mess up the paint job. *walks off to go sleep** **i\'ll see if theres any thing new tomorrow** ;)
 
mickc22

mickc22

Granddad!
look at lots of other painters website commission & gallery pages, base your prices around what they are charging, taking into account how you rate your finished mini\'s against theirs, for example if you look on Tammy\'s website and think your work is 1/3 as good base your prices on 1/3 of what Tammy charges
I\'m charging £75 for a GW Shaggoth I\'m doing at the moment, it\'s for my best mate as well, so I\'ve given him a discount and not charged him for doing the upper body in oils or building up the base. He\'s happy with the price \'cause he knows the quality of my work
Two reasons for the \'cut\' price:
1. He will extend my customer base (his gaming group) as we no longer live near each other
2. Repeat business, he now has another £500 of work booked for me to do for him
hope this is helpful
-Mick
 
E

Equus

New member
Well, I don\'t do NEARLY GD stuff, but I charged $25 for the latest piece, which was a Chaos SM Lord for a friend. I don\'t do commission work for others at this point, since I\'m a lot more comfortable doing stuff for a friend and they understand how much time I put into them, even if they\'re not fantastic quality. ^_^

The prices I charge differ widely, and are normally cheaper if I really want to do the mini or whatever as well. I\'ll probably be charging about $85 plus paint costs to paint my friend\'s Forge World Bloodthirster (if he ever gets the darn thing...he\'s ordered it but I may see it arrive sometime before the fall), which probably won\'t break down to very much seeing as I\'ll probably eat a lot of time just doing assembly since he actually wants to run around with it on the table. :p
 
M

MarkusTay

New member
Originally posted by Wolf_Fang
i just recently asked this question to airhead.. he simply told me charge it on how well you can paint it and on how long it will take you... he said i should be charging 3$ for gaming standard per troop..
Click to expand...

What?!

Are you insane? That means if it takes you 3 hours to do a decent paint job you just made a dollar an hour! Minimum wage here in NY is $6, so unless you can complete a mini in ½ hour you just accepted that your skill is worth less then flipping hamburgers at the local fast-food! I don\'t know about you, but God has only given me so many hours on this planet, and I cherish each and every one of them. I\'m not even a good painter and I would have to get $75 for a model because that is what my time is worth to me. You would make more money painting and selling armies on Ebay then you would on commission work.

I\'ve never sold painted minis, but I have sold sculptures when I was younger, and all I can say to you is charge what you feel you put into it.
 
B

beowulfthehunter

New member
Inreguards to the 3 bucks a figure I have a few comments on that. First I started painting for 3 bucks a figure. I had nothing better to do and it allowed me to experiment with different schemes and what not. Also 3 bucks a figure might be looked down on, but my question is this. Who paints one figure at a time? It has been my expereince that those who learn to paint doing squads do a bunch of figues at once.

Now another issue is this. Do you enjoy painting the figures you do for commision. If I take a commision job I try to agree to jobs I want to paint.

So i wish you luck.
 
T

Trevor

Brushlicker and Freak!
@ Markus Tay

Which is why I will never do comission work.

However, I am willing to paint for people for specific reasons (trades, gifts etc).
 
M

MarkusTay

New member
@Trevor - I here you, I never will either.

Sorry about the rant, but I think even a \"tabletop\" job should get 9 dollars a mini. A local guy sells painted minis for $12, that means after minusung the cost of the figure he is only making $8. I\'ve only bought a couple of his pieces, but I feel like I\'m ripping him off. His stuff is on display at my LGS, and around Christmas he needed money and had a 1/2 price sale. six bucks for a well painted mini! It was just sad \'cause the guy is very good.
 
F

Frustrated Father

New member
I have done a commision piece recently, as well as ebay, and the only reason I really do it is so that I can \'support\' my hobby.

Myself, I\'ll never get rich doing it, but I do enjoy the paint time as long as it is something that I am interested in, and if it will keep the wife from hollerin\' at me because I spent fifty on some miniatures (whereas now I just have it in a paypal fund that she doesn\'t see, nor really cares to) all the better.

Me, I price them as I think that they are worth at minimum to me. On ebay, if they sell, the sell, if not, I\'ll just let them roll until someone is interested in them or ... not. If they go for the starting price, well, ok, that will work. If they get more, fantastic - keep on biddin\' babbeee!

Not really a big thing really and it provides me a bit of incentive to paint and to try out new things. If your goal is to really make bill money on it though, I figure shoot high and go from there. If they don\'t bite, it wasn\'t worth your time.
 
N

Naukhel

Active member
My first commissioned mini was for $30, canadian, which is like, $22 american, give or take some loose change.
I was given carte blanche on the mini to be painted \'as long as it was an ugly, mean looking monster\'.
But that\'s probably extremely unusual circumstances for such a transaction.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back To Top
Top