Getting into commission painting

[winterdyne]

Hi all. I\'m looking at starting out doing some painting on commission - what\'s a good way of getting out there? At the moment I\'m planning on putting together a nice simple portfolio site (I see a lot of people using simple blogs with galleries) and getting a load more pics up here.

Any other hints or tips to enter the market on this front would be greatly appreciated, and also whether it\'s viable to hit an income of around £300/ month?

 

[ScottRadom]

Well your CMON gallery looks good to me.

I have recently started dabbling in this and I will give you the advice that\'s been given and worked for me so far.

-Start on eBay and put available for commission in your sales. It started a little slow for me but after about half a dozen listings I started to get a couple inquiries.

-Get the pics up here on CMON. Right now I see you paint Dark Angels, and do them well, so let\'s see some more stuff!

-As for rates to charge.... that\'s kind of up to you. I am dirt cheap but I don\'t really offer much more then a decent tabletop until my skills grow, so I don\'t expect to make the mad \"David Duchovny\" money. I am more or less looking to make enough money for my hobby to pay for itself now, and maybe a little more later.

My best advice would be to click on some of the links in the sig of some of the posters on here. A lot have their rates posted. Compare your work to theirs and see.

But my advice is to start on eBay. Nobody really takes anyone too serious until you\'ve got about 10 stars or so for feedback so I wouldn\'t try selling anything you want to make big bucks on until you get established.

Good luck!

 

[generulpoleaxe]

much ebay pimpage like scott said.

after that it\'s down to standards and speed.
you won\'t earn big bucks without winning the more recognised comps, big reps pull in the money, dosen\'t matter how good you are.

 

[winterdyne]

I\'d best get my competition head on...

 

[alextheartist]

Most of the work i have had is from people off forums, so getting into the community is vital

I whore myself out like scott, but i dont mind cos i\', doing what i love and it pays for the addiction.. lol

 

[Aliengod3]

Originally posted by winterdyne
Hi all. I\'m looking at starting out doing some painting on commission - what\'s a good way of getting out there? At the moment I\'m planning on putting together a nice simple portfolio site (I see a lot of people using simple blogs with galleries) and getting a load more pics up here.

Any other hints or tips to enter the market on this front would be greatly appreciated, and also whether it\'s viable to hit an income of around £300/ month?

I received commission work from painting miniatures and selling the minis on ebay. If you paint a mini really well and then use the auction as a way of informing viewers that you are available for commissions then they will respond. I actually do not do commission work very often unless I can make a lot of money doing it and I have had about 4 commissions that I accepted that have made me a lot of money. Again, they all came to me after viewing miniatures I painted for sale on ebay.

Also having a website is helpful too.

 

[Joek]

I have utmost respect for folk who paint for a living and retain such wonderfully consistant (and high) standards. I dabble with it, but this is my hobby, and as such I\'m happy painting the stuff I want to paint, and selling things on eBay.

However, I\'d definitely agree with Scott and the good General - eBay is very good at getting folk to inquire about your work, as is having a nice \'portfolio\' of work on CMON for people to glance at.

I rather stupidly said yes to a commision, and am currently wading my way through some Ultramarine Veterans, and whilst I like painting them, I can honestly say I\'d not want to do this sort of thing on a regular basis - whilst the client is in no rush for completion, I still \'feel\' rushed, and want to get them done to as high a standard as I can, but in a fairly reasonable time. At the end of the day, my real job leaves me little time for quality painting, so at most I\'d be spending an hour or so each day - which is not ideal really.

Still - I wish you all the best for your venture

 

[winterdyne]

Heh. I\'m self-employed and my work is giving me a little too much me-time, which has been nice seeing as I have young kids I get to see a lot of, but is a bit of a pain in that come October, the house needs a bit of a cash injection.

I\'ve actually painted professionally before (in the mid 90\'s), on a paint-then-sell basis (a few 110mm Poste-Militaire figurines to RAF Hendon) and enjoyed it. I actually have one of the kits stripped and ready to repaint (Adolf \'Sailor\' Malan), which\'ll be interesting, as I\'ve learned a lot since those days. Back then we sold the models to Hendon for about £110 each, with a 200mm Verlinden one (I forget the name) going for around £250... not too shabby for a couple of weeks evenings...