Hammer and Brush website update and Sale continues!

[hammerandbrush]

Hammer and Brush
Painting-Modelling-Terrain

Hammer and Brush studio is open for business and we\'re celebrating with a Grand Opening sale! Until August 1st all orders will receive free assembly! Send us your Greater Demons and Warjacks in their boxes and we\'ll put them together for no extra charge.

As of June 12th our website is updated! New photos replace some of our original pics and lots of shiny new pics of minis including shots of some of our first commissions. So come on over and check out the site:

www.hammerandbrush.net

And if you like what you see why not look over our price and services guide and see if there\'s anything we can do for you!

And please email, IM, or PM us anytime with feedback or suggestions about our products and services, your contacts can only help us improve our business.
__________________

Dan from Hammer and Brush

www.hammerandbrush.net

 

[Dark Seraphim]

Great to see more commision painting out there, and I\'m sure you will get the right kind of people to use your service.

I have to say, after looking at your website, that you are not lying when you say it\'s for wargaming and the occational spilling of coffe... On CMON, thoes minis would recive very harsh comments, the only fairly nice mini, was the one in the various category, she looked alright!

This is in no means a dis or flame, but mearly an observation

I hope you get some good buisness and wish you luck in your endeavours!

 

[hammerandbrush]

Coffee spills!

Well thanks Dark, I looked over your site too and thats some amazing work! Which is why your charging $30 well earned dollars for a infantry model and I only ask $4.00!

As for the spilled coffee, well thats just a bad situation all around isn\'t it? Gets your table wet, gets your minis wet (Varnish! Varnish will save all!), and then gets your terrain wet! Which depending on the materials used could be very very bad.

Not as bad as a housecat jumping on your table and tossing the minis about though right?

Unfortunately at the moment we have had very few commissions, it is our first week after all, and the pics we have up are from our personal collections. Frankly we do much better work for other people then for ourselves. The vixen you mentioned in the misc category was our first commission and I love how she turned out and so does the client!

I might put her up on CMON just to see how she does. And as soon as more folks get the chance to try us out their commissions will be up on our gallery and I hope it\'ll improve people\'s perceptions of our service.

Thanks for the well wishes, I\'m sure your doing just fine with the business yourself but I\'ll say good luck to you too!

 

[ZeCorto]

Hi there,
Right now you seem to be using the hammer more than the brush lol, but you site is nicely done. You will want some more impressive pictures of your models to attract clients. Your pictures need resizing to
1) fit in anybody\'s browser
2) hide the fact that you are not Da Vinci or Rembrandt yet
I would say good luck to you, but keep practising since you will encounter a lot of very talented competition.
CMON is a great place to better your painting skills, just make sure you have a hard skin before posting, some comments are harsh but lead to great improvement.

 

[hammerandbrush]

more hammer?

Well I know sometimes I REALLY feel like using the hammer more then the brush. Actually the name comes from an brainstorm my partners and I had for a site mascot of a dwarf running around with a warhammer and a paintbrush he accidently picked up instead of his axe (well you know dwarves and their ale!) But we decided that might be too silly, but we liked the name.

The pictures process is a continual learning experience, which is why I keep switching out and adding different pictures. Thanks for the feedback I\'ll try and get some more reasonably sized pics on there.

And actually I don\'t really want to hide the minis, otherwise people might think I was being dishonest in what I\'m selling. If you like what you see then I hope you\'ll buy from us, if you don\'t then some feedback is also appreciated!

Thats also why we offer cheaper rates for models then most of the competition that paints to display or even Golden Demon levels. We can\'t go there so why charge you for it? I wish I could really lower my prices but there has to be a point where I have to balance the labor and costs to the amount paid for each mini. I\'m also not running an Asian sweatshop painting studio like some I\'ve seen that charges $1.00 per mini cause everything is dirt cheap where I live. I live in the USA and I make a wage that reflects where I live.

 

[Sonnyslayer]

well it is kinda cheap.. when i started out i got 1.5usd per mini. including basing and assembly.. good luck with your service

 

[Dark Seraphim]

@Hammer&Brush: Awesome idea for your logo, I can see it for me now I would go for that. As for your prices, for what you get, 4$ right now, might be a tad too much... but then again who knows... MAYBE if you in a months time, after promoting alot and having alot of hits, you might want to tune the prices, I know I will, or give out special deals, just to get things rolling. I\'m not in a hurry to promote my services just yet, so I\'m sticking to my prices. Thank you for your kind words

 

[Dragon Forge Design]

Hey theres a big market for this kind of service. Many people just want a army with color on the table top. They don\'t want or need countless hours of shading and highlights and NMM for an army..just painted. If he can crank through an army and make money by doing do good for him. Keep in mind the people who actually play games in this hobby happily do so with unpainted minis on a daily basis and a guy who will paint minis at $4.00 each many will jump at that pricing.

I get contacted all the time, will you paint my army.. sure I will but at my prices most would have to take out a 2nd loan on their house. I find most are just looking for a good $5.00 paint job.

Good luck to you.

 

[hammerandbrush]

Paintbrush wielding dwarf?

So maybe the dwarf wasn\'t such a bad idea eh? Might have to have my business partner come up with a good sketch and such. We were going to go with a logo of crossed hammer and brush like the old Soviet symbol but maybe the dwarf would go over better. Thanks for the feedback.

At the moment I\'m going to keep the prices where they are and see what more folks think. If you read the services guide there are ways to get discounts and such off that basic price, and it includes basing and assembly in that $4.00 price.

And we are in fact running a sale for our opening where assembly is free, which can be a lot of money if people send us those complicated Forgeworld or Greater Demon kits.

The other thing about the prices is that I\'m not just trying to support myself here, I have 2 partners who are starting this up with me so charging $1.50 a mini would run me outta business real fast.

Thank you all so much for the feedback, hope a lot more people check out the site too!

 

[Ran The Cid]

Even though you\'re selling a $5.00 paint job, it might we worth it to post some of your high end work. A fast & cheap paint job from a good painter is more valuable than a slop job from a beginner.

If your worried about confusing people, post your better work to either a non-sales gallery or just create new rates for high end work. If nothing else, having the option for a $15 paint job or a $5 paint job should push more sales to the level you are looking for.

Since your out of Chicago, you might want to advertise on some of the local sites:
http://www.adeptuswindycity.com/
http://www.iwfb.org/

 

[hammerandbrush]

Thanks!

Well in response to all the wonderful feedback I am redoing the gallery of the website. I was never really happy with some of the photos and after fiddling around with our photo setup I finally got the pictures to the size and quality that works better for everyones browsers.

And as I\'ve said as people buy commissions I\'ll be putting their pics up on the site to show better examples of our work and eventually replace all the pics that are there now.

Thanks so much for those local links, I forgot Adeptus had a forum!

Check back soon I\'ll be posting another update notice on the forum!

 

[TyronMagda]

x hammerandbrush :

I wish you good luck for your project!
And I\'m sure you\'ll improve and many people will contact you!
Congratulation for your website, i very like it!

 

[hammerandbrush]

Thanks, new thread!

Well I would just like to say thank you to those who tried to give us at Hammer and Brush constructive criticism and also to all the well wishers. We have been taking the time to do a little revision of our photo gallery, service guide, and prices and along with a new set of photos have updated our site thanks to all the feedback we have received from the emails and forums we\'re part of.

I have posted a new thread advertising the new site and I hope everyone will take a moment to look it over and hopefully you\'ll like what you see.

 

[Dark Seraphim]

You know there is a button to create a clickable link right ? The globe with the link.. much easier for people (lazy)

Anyways, looking good... I do have a suggestion for you, do you know about Dipping? It\'s a simple process of painting the miniature in 1 layer paint on top of a white undercoating, just as your doing now, with no shading involved... after that, dipping, hence the name, the miniature into a substance that is similar to wood paint (not sure what it\'s called). It\'s a method that has been used in Historic wargaming for a long time, and can produce some amazing results...

Here is a few pics from Jonas Færing, who have created a FAP, Fanatic Army Painter, for the danes He painted this army in 5 days up to a GW tournament, and got nominated for best painted army... incredible but true! This is done with ONE coat of the highest color, then dipping and done. <<< step by step guide (danish, but take a look at the pics) >>>

This would give your minis alot more character and look even better...

Just a tip

 

[hammerandbrush]

Dipping

I do know about the dipping process you speak of, its been getting a lot of attention in many of the forums I\'ve been reading both for and against it. At the moment I do not normally perform the dipping techinque, I prefer to use inks and washes, even if it requires a few different applications.

From what I\'ve read of the process it can be fast however it can be excessively messy and if done wrong or with the wrong material can seriously mess up an otherwise good paint job. Since we do not have an office yet I really don\'t have any place except out in my parking lot that has enough ventilation and I can set up someplace to keep the excess dip after is splatters off. And I don\'t think my neighbors would like it much.

That said I have mentioned in our services guide that if a client wants his figures dipped that I will be happy to do so for them all they have to do is ask! Its just a request, not a standard practice for me.

 

[hammerandbrush]

Thanks

I want to thank everyone for all the feedback, and most of what your saying seems to be pretty much the overall feeling from everyone whose given us feedback. Rest assured that for the money we ask (which I do feel is on the lower price end) that highlights and shading are included. We are currently working hard to bring you all pictures of our current works and commissions to better illustrate this point.

In the pipeline at the moment?

1. Plague Monks, as nasty and gribbly as the Plague Marines that folks have had such positive comments on!
2. More Kroot to go with the poor lonely Shaper up on the page....
3. Word Bearer Chaos Marines bringing the gospel of Chaos to you all!
4. A commissioned figurine in much the same vein as the vixen in our miscellaneous section.

Keep a lookout for these minis to add to our collection of pics and hopefully improve your feedback to us! And don\'t worry there won\'t be any gloss finish anywhere to be found.

As an aside as I\'ve pointed out in our service guide once we finish a project for you the customer has the option to have his minis finished with gloss or matte finish or even no finish at all! So the gloss finish is not necessarily the end product you will get from us. Its all up to the customers wishes.

Also I am more then proud to report that our posted figurine on CMON has rated a 7.0 out of 10 from the fellow voters. I take this as a pretty high compliment considering the kind of competition we are up against on this famous website.

 

[hammerandbrush]

Plague Monks

Speaking of Plague monks we\'ve put some of the unit up on CMON so people can see them before the whole unit is finished! Check them out before they get the website and please vote on them so we know what you think!

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics10/img44995c8c927d9.jpg

http://www.coolminiornot.com/pics/pics10/img449bff90cabeb.jpg