Posting minis expressly for sale

[mlavanish]

Is it just me, or is anyone else bothered when someone like Andremanat posts figures that he likely did not paint expressly for the purpose of auctioning them? The figures he posts are primarily from the St. Petersburg line, and are available through the appropriate distributors painted in that manner. They are posted just long enough to be bid upon, and are taken off as soon as they sell. In my opinion, these offer nothing to the site, and rather just serve to exploit its resources.

Any opinions?

 

[idahoan]

I\'d never post something I didn\'t paint. But I do post here for extra visibility and to attempt to help my auctions.

But I like to keep mine up so I can get as many comments as possible.

 

[SaxonAngel]

Nope...

I\'m not bothered. They are very beautiful to look at and... well.. Inspirational!

He doesn\'t post them for very long and never more than one or two at a time. So he\'s not even \"Taking up space\" in the rankings system. Nor has he ever claimed ( or disclaimed ) them as his own.


I see no harm with this really.

Peace!
-SaxonAngel:innocent:

 

[Sturmhalo]

Never noticed the guy to be honest! I do find it a little irksome when people post pics of models that they didn\'t paint. That can cause all sorts of problems! I post pics here of models that are purely done for sale, but I do keep them up here after they\'ve sold. CMON is excellent free advertising! I know some folks won\'t like that mercenary attitude, but it\'s a function of the site and Chern does all of us poor figure painters a really good service! When the money\'s a little better I\'ll contribute to the site with hard cash as well as nice pics!

 

[Big Mean Elf]

Yep...CA is a great help!

Originally posted by Sturmhalo
Never noticed the guy to be honest! I do find it a little irksome when people post pics of models that they didn\'t paint. That can cause all sorts of problems! I post pics here of models that are purely done for sale, but I do keep them up here after they\'ve sold. CMON is excellent free advertising! I know some folks won\'t like that mercenary attitude, but it\'s a function of the site and Chern does all of us poor figure painters a really good service! When the money\'s a little better I\'ll contribute to the site with hard cash as well as nice pics!

> Yep cmon is awesome... i wish i would have been more active here before now,but hay....no pop ups,and soon a list of us pros here to,CA keeps makeing this a better place!
:]

 

[vincegamer]

Yes and No

Like Angela said, they are nice to look at and he\'s not hurting anyone else\'s ranking with stuff he didn\'t do.

On the other hand, if he truly did not paint the stuff, I wish he\'d admit it in his comments. I see from what he has up here Jason Richards has already wasted precious time leaving a long comment which apparently will be soon deleted. He could have spent that time giving us more of his own beautiful work, especially since Andremanat won\'t benefit in the least from the comment if he did not actually do the painting.

In the end, my thought is this: since there is a presumption that what you post is your own work, if you are going to post someone else\'s work you have a responsibility to acknowledge the artist. The question of whether something is for sale or not is irrelevant to me.

 

[barkel]

My opinion is not really different, but for a general consensus I throw in my two cents.

I personally don\'t care much...:|~ for posting minis you didn\'t paint,:|~:|~:|~ but I see no problem in posting for sale :|~ ??? .

I hope that if I ever get my camera situation resolved :duh:, that I could post minis and perhaps sell some.

However, , buying a product available to anyone and then selling it for auction, knowing that your customers are ignorant of how you aquired the product... that fumes me a little.

I once ran into a local store owner who was buying clearanced out good from Target by the cart load. Target is an American store somewhat like Wal Mart or K-Mart, in that it caters to the middle to low income consumers. Less than a week later I saw these same products at the small business owners store for more than twice the discounted price. There\'s nothing illegal with it, but...:flame: it really pisses me off to see people taking advantage of other people\'s ignorance that way.

But,, that\'s somewhat off topic. :innocent:

barkel

ps. Sorry I went crazy with the faces. I\'m feeling somewhat giddy this morning and I don\'t know why. :bouncy:
Perhaps I\'m coming down with something.:]

 

[No Such Agency]

Hmm, perhaps a little less coffee there, barkel

I think people should only post their own work here, except in exceptional circumstances. I can see posting an amazing pic from the GD\'s that you think everyone should see, if you attribute it properly and maybe ask people not to vote on it. I can also see posting a pic of a mini your friend/child/spouse painted if you want to show it off and they don\'t have an account.

I think one of the functions of CMON should be to allow people to \"advertise\" their pieces for sale, since so many of us here apparently try to make a little money painting. And more original work posted = good for the site, for sale or no! However if people are posting pics of pre-painted minis (the equivalent of Heroclix or Mage Knight I guess!) just to get eyeballs for their auctions, that\'s pretty dumb, IMO, and not really in the spirit of the site. Rest assured they won\'t get my business.

 

[vincegamer]

Hmmmm.
I wonder how a Mage Knight or Heroclix would be rated here if it were posted just out of the box....

 

[ZaPhOd]

No Biggie

I see no problem with this. i would rather see a person post a few minis for a short time with the purpose of selling them or their services, than a person post say 100 all at once (sorry Justin )....

As for the issue of people not painting them, I feel it should be said in the description. Collecting and selling minis is fine if you personally suck at painting say, but unwittingly misleading people (notice I said unwittingly) is not fair either

Hay, I see no problems with selling. For instance, I cannot use EBAY due to the limitations of not having a credit card, so I might just post a few with a $ price tag in the description and see if everyone digs it or craps on my head

 

[Sturmhalo]

Originally posted by barkel
However, , buying a product available to anyone and then selling it for auction, knowing that your customers are ignorant of how you aquired the product... that fumes me a little.

I once ran into a local store owner who was buying clearanced out good from Target by the cart load. Target is an American store somewhat like Wal Mart or K-Mart, in that it caters to the middle to low income consumers. Less than a week later I saw these same products at the small business owners store for more than twice the discounted price. There\'s nothing illegal with it, but...:flame: it really pisses me off to see people taking advantage of other people\'s ignorance that way..:]

That\'s life! And business I\'m afraid. If you can get something on the cheap and sell it at a good profit then why not?! I\'ve acquired old minis cheaply and sold them at a higher price before. OK it wasn\'t a ton of bankrupt stock or anything, but the basic principle is the same. If someone\'s offering you an army of models for next to nothing, who wouldn\'t think twice about snapping it up and selling it to profit?

Off topic again... sorry folks.

I find it annoying when people post pics taken from WD or the like! I saw one today that looked like a WD type pic. The guy just thought it looked so cool he had to show it off! He did admit it wasn\'t his though.

 

[Chern Ann]

Nothing wrong with posting figures just for sale. Lots of folk do it, s-dean for instance. It\'s encouraged and helps support the site financially. Since andremat is not here for the kudos, the original artist apparently doesn\'t have a problem with it, and I don\'t have a problem with it, there isn\'t any problem

 

[frankietanch]

I think it\'s bad when people just post their items and then do not itend to sell them, or when they \'ve got the money but didn\'t honour the deal.

I also thought a hall of shame should be created to those who had repeatedly dishonour their deals so users of this site can know what they\'re getting...

 

[Chern Ann]

That\'s a bit OT isn\'t it? Anyway, eBay already handles that.

 

[Big Mean Elf]

Originally posted by Chern Ann
Nothing wrong with posting figures just for sale. Lots of folk do it, s-dean for instance. It\'s encouraged and helps support the site financially. Since andremat is not here for the kudos, the original artist apparently doesn\'t have a problem with it, and I don\'t have a problem with it, there isn\'t any problem

> Me love this guy...mo & mo betta....

:flip::bouncy::wow::innocent::]

For all you do...this new converted mini is for you....lol!

When me gonna sculpt `em up nice nice for the next CMON thing-a-ma-bobby?

:innocent:

CA helps suport us \"Pros\" more and more,and I love the guy for being stand up about it all!

Me thinks you guys should to....no fingers pointing,just saying....from my experiance,many site owners/moderators are kinda jerks about this artist for hire/professional artist...I mean as long as folks are being cool about the biz side of being a part of this comunity,I think there should be no issues with it,and the man has our back on this,very refreashing!

Chern for Pressident!
:innocent:

 

[Big Mean Elf]

What he said...& I don`t want to work at Mc D`s...

flame: it really pisses me off to see people taking advantage of other people\'s ignorance that way..:] [/quote]

That\'s life! And business I\'m afraid. If you can get something on the cheap and sell it at a good profit then why not?! I\'ve acquired old minis cheaply and sold them at a higher price before. OK it wasn\'t a ton of bankrupt stock or anything, but the basic principle is the same. If someone\'s offering you an army of models for next to nothing, who wouldn\'t think twice about snapping it up and selling it to profit?


> well guy the artist is selling a # of things when he offers his junk to you all.

1) The high level of artisrty....the product quality ect.

2) His work at a fair price(hopefully many try to anyhow)

3) The raw materials*

*= This is the part that is more practical,if your components are of high quailty,but you are getting them as cheaply as you can...surely you can understand this concept...right?

:innocent::]

I mean if we paid full price for all that is required for a good dioramma ect...we may as well go work at a food chain,for the profit marine is to low other wise my freind.

I mean this past winter GW had an event where they where selling all bits at a discount,if you went to this special day long affair you could buy up all the metal you wanted,and amoung the items i purchased that day where selveral pair of large demon type wings.

For half the normal cost.

Now when I begine offering my humble art to you guys and on ebay,and I have lets say a sexy Slaanesh demon princess with these wings on her back....am I doing my bidders or you fine folks wrong,if I start the bidding at $50 which is $35 over my total cost for the components,then there is the 3 to 5 days I spent makeing the thing look good,so who am I takeing advantage of here....well,if by a miracle the figure goes for say $250,I made about $6 per hour...am I evil now?



it`s mentalities like what you have express that send many worthy artist to hamberger land...lol!

Not trying to be a tail hole here,just hopeing to inlighten you a bit,on life and working for a living.

Hay Strumhalo,herd of any sales on plasticard or GS?


:innocent::]

 

[halon]

For what it\'s worth. The St Petersburg figures are 54mm and are available in the US at http://realminiatures.com. The US site has not had any of the figures that have been posted here. The retail price that they are asking for these pieces is pretty close to what they\'ve been selling for on ebay. So nobody is getting rich here. I for one don\'t have any problem with these pieces appearing here because they are so incredibly well painted. So whether the poster is painting them or not they\'re some fine art work.

 

[mini-goddess]

Originally posted by Chern Ann
Nothing wrong with posting figures just for sale. Lots of folk do it, s-dean for instance. It\'s encouraged and helps support the site financially. Since andremat is not here for the kudos, the original artist apparently doesn\'t have a problem with it, and I don\'t have a problem with it, there isn\'t any problem

Wasn\'t there originally a problem when CMON began with pics of other people\'s stuff put up willy nilly? I\'d hate it and fight it. Many mini artists hate having people use and abuse their hard work.

Now, I\'d respect your answer a great deal more, Chern Ann, if you tell me you\'ve contacted St. Petersburg about the issue and they\'ve given their approval. Otherwise, it\'s abuse of our time and bandwidth and fraud if he implies he painted it.

Where are you drawing the line? It\'s great to support us painters who sell, but when you say it\'s not a problem to use CMON the way this guy is, you\'ll soon be back to people putting up lots of pictures of stuff they didn\'t paint, and pro painters no longer supporting CMON.

There\'s a place for saying \"hey! check this out\" and giving a link to someone else\'s work...and it shouldn\'t be in the Gallery where the focus is on voting and commentary.

 

[mlavanish]

Well, opinions I asked for and opinions I got. Thanks all for posting. I certainly don\'t have any problem with people posting itmes for sale or advertising their work. But I think somewhere therein it is implied that it is their own work, or they are representing the artist. I really just don\'t like seeing people taken advantage of, or fall prey to someones shenanigans. I really like this community and it would pain me to see someone abusing the users.

 

[Chern Ann]

Originally posted by mini-goddess
Wasn\'t there originally a problem when CMON began with pics of other people\'s stuff put up willy nilly? I\'d hate it and fight it. Many mini artists hate having people use and abuse their hard work.

Now, I\'d respect your answer a great deal more, Chern Ann, if you tell me you\'ve contacted St. Petersburg about the issue and they\'ve given their approval. Otherwise, it\'s abuse of our time and bandwidth and fraud if he implies he painted it.

Where are you drawing the line? It\'s great to support us painters who sell, but when you say it\'s not a problem to use CMON the way this guy is, you\'ll soon be back to people putting up lots of pictures of stuff they didn\'t paint, and pro painters no longer supporting CMON.

I\'ve taken a closer look at the St Petersburg collection, and it appears to be castings made and painted by unnamed artists, who are not creditted beyond the generic \"St Petersburg collection\".

This situation is a little unusual, since commercial painting of miniatures usually isn\'t of this quality (unlike the statuettes that we regularly get that require stripping and repainting). Should all commercially painted figures be excluded altogether? Obviously not, otherwise we\'d have no pro painters here at all.

Andremanat does not appear to be taking credit for the paint job, since he always takes down the figures after the auctions, so there isn\'t any implication that he\'s the one who painted it. What\'s quite clear is that he owns the figure and the rights to the pictures he posts.

This leaves me scratching my head a little. If someone decides to resell a Jennifer Haley piece they own, should they be allowed to do it through here?

Eventually, a good resale market benefits all commercial painters by increasing collectibility. So the answer to that has to be yes, but handled in a way that makes it clear who the original artist is.

Now, I like the way andremanat has handled this, by listing the auction and then removing the listing immediately after. This appears to be a reasonable compromise, and as long as he does this I have no quarrel with it until I can figure out a good technological solution.

As for contacting St Petersburg for their approval, in light of encouraging a resale market for painting, there\'s no point. I\'d have to contact all the painting houses (eg nvstudios) to make sure all artists have given their approval.

I\'ll just exclude Andremanat from the rankings and other listings and move on. I\'ll probably ask him to make it clear that the figure was painted by someone else.

As for future Haley resale situations, most likely these will be allowed through a seperate auction system.