How about this commission - yay or nay?

[bakalla]

Hello everybody,

I have been offered about $400 in order to paint a 2000 point High Elf army. It\'s about 50 models in total, including heroes and core units.

Now, for me, $400 is a lot of money, so I\'m going to go ahead and do it. I\'m just curious if you would paint that many models for that kind of money, and how much you would normally charge for such a large commission?

 

[finn17]

Depends what standard you are talking about....

Yeah, sure..even I would paint 50 minis for $400. But they\'d look like a pile of crap:bouncy:

You would need to negotiate the expected level of quality.

I don\'t take commissions, but I do commission others. For the rate you are being paid I would expect a solid CMON rating of 5.5-6.5. With no special jobs for the characters etc.

For something a bit extra, I might agree to do all the preparation etc myself.

If you were expected to do everything, procure the minis, remove them from their sprues, file, prepare etc...then you are halving your painting time.

Then again if you are the sort that would paint them for free anyways, you have a good deal:flip:

 

[Gearhead]

I agree with Finn17; it really depends. When I do commissioned pieces, I set a rought price based on my estimate of the final outcome, but the actual price depends on what I think they\'re worth in the end. Personally, I\'ve never had problems with that method, but then I\'ve never done such a large order...and I never will. Unless you\'re an accomplished speed painter, my guess is that $400 won\'t seem like so much when you\'re halfway done with the buggers, and you\'re already cross-eyed suffering from constant migraines.

Although I will admit that $8 apiece for pure painting isn\'t a bad price...

 

[Valander]

I haven\'t done any commissions this large, but I think I would accept it at this rate, with the following conditions:

1. All models are provided to me assembled and with mold lines cleaned.
2. The level of painting expected is \"Rank & File\"--that is somewhere between a 5.5-6 rating here on cmon.
3. ALL shipping costs, both ways, are paid for by the buyer.

Now, depending on exactly what you\'re painting, this may or may not be a lot of work. If you\'re doing many of the same models, the biggest problem is going to be avoiding boredom! If they\'re a very wide mix of figures, though, it\'s a bit more work to complete.

Either way, for a commission this large, you\'ll want to really concentrate on \"assembly line\" painting. You won\'t be able to give much detail to anything because a) you\'d wind up making around $2 an hour, and/or b) you\'d take a year or more to get done.

Best of luck!

 

[Legacy Account]

An hour a mini equals 50 hours. It\'s gonna take longer than that, so your eventual \'wage\' is gonna work out at between $4-$8 an hour (at best!). I may be wrong, but don\'t McD\'s pay better than this?!!! I don\'t think ANYONE can expect any sort of decent job doing for this price. Base colour, no highlighting and flocked bases would take an hour a mini! Slave labour lives on!

 

[Greymane]

materials

I think that the only advice I can give is try to negotiate an extra $50 for materials it\'s alot of paint, glue, flock and brush wear to be accounted for. If you see it as a \'fun\' project and practice then $400 seems low but ok and by goodness you\'ll have army painting mastered by the end.

 

[KatieG]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
An hour a mini equals 50 hours. It\'s gonna take longer than that, so your eventual \'wage\' is gonna work out at between $4-$8 an hour (at best!). I may be wrong, but don\'t McD\'s pay better than this?!!! I don\'t think ANYONE can expect any sort of decent job doing for this price. Base colour, no highlighting and flocked bases would take an hour a mini! Slave labour lives on!

You\'d be surprised what you can do with an hour a mini, particularly if you do them in groups of 10 or more. I can basecoat, shade with a wash and highlight plus basing in an hour. I can\'t quite get the prep time in there, but its close. If you take a look at my minis, all the Hig elves are done this way...
--Kaite

 

[t_haye2]

it\'s a bit low, for fully painted models. even if you\'re a superfast painter it won\'t actually be worth your while in my eyes. you have to be careful that you don\'t end up working for $1 an hour. Don\'t forget that big commissions like this are soul eaters, they kill the love of doing it really quickly. Armies are tricksy little sons of female dogs, becuase the repetition makes it easy on the one hand, and deadly dull on the other. i\'m stuck painting armies till feb now, and although I\'ve been doing it on a pro level for a long time, i\'m glad to work on my GD entries now.

 

[bakalla]

Thanks for the hints and bits of advice!

I was thinking that will probably spend between one and two hours on average per finished mini. I think I will be doing most of the assembling also, but I\'m not sure about that yet. I will spend a lot of time on the general and the \"elite\" units, and much less time on the average spearman and basic cavalry. Of course, this adds up to an hourly fee that is close to slave labour, about $4-8 per hour as someone pointed out. But I LOVE to paint and never get sick of it so I\'m doing this primarily just for the FUN of it :bouncy:

I was thinking about painting an High Elf army for myself, but decided to wait because I\'ve just gotten started with warhammer 40k and my Eldar army. So painting an army for someone else will still be fun, and I can spend the money that I make on buying an army for myself Even though I will probably be quite sick of brightly coloured elves when this commission is finished, so I probably won\'t buy a High Elf army for myself Maybe I\'ll use the money for a big Skaven army.. or maybe something totally different but equally fun.

I don\'t paint as a proffession by the way, so I\'m not using this money to pay my rent or bills BTW.. in that case, I would agree that working at McD would have been a better idea!

Take care!

 

[Valander]

Well, as long as you\'re doing it more for the \"experience\" and \"love\" of it, then you\'re not getting the short end. Just remember that assembly-line painting is (though boring) your friend in cases like this...

Like Tammy said, though, big commissions like this can really make you start to dislike your hobby sometimes.

Best of luck!