Starting a painting buisness?

[Jgosizk]

Hello! I am an armature painter at best. I was encouraged by my wife and my local comic book store to try and "sell" my services to paint other players models. My question for the community of artists paid to paint their customers models is How you got started? When did you feel it was appropriate to try this business? Finally, is my work even justifiable to charge anyone in the first place? I love painting for my own and I would not think to make money in this at all. Just the shear appreciation from someone is something I would enjoy. Below is an example of my work so far, not much has been painted as of yet. Thank you all for your feedback!

 

[Zab]

A similar conversation is happening over here with lots of great advice.
http://www.coolminiornot.com/forums/showthread.php?61076-Miniature-Painting-as-a-business

I'll say this: In the local scene is different from the online scene. That said, you seem to have a realistic view of your skills and expectations. It's not as cool as you may think and can ruin your love of the hobby. I rarely take on commissions unless they really interest me or are for charity. The thing about painting for profit is that you might have a hard time distinguishing relaxing time from working time. Happened to me in another industry. Dip your toes in by painting a friends army or a friendly local gamer's unit and see how that goes. Money adds a whole new level of pressure and peoples expectations jump exponentially with the amount of moneys they are paying so make damn sure you can deliver AND do everything in writing to protect yourself and have a paper trail from those times when a client is being "difficult".

 

[Jgosizk]

Really good point. My passion is more along the lines of what I can do. I never thought of it in the view point of legal terms. Animosity for my lack of skill would be detrimental to my own ambition and interest of learning more. I'll stick to friends for now. Thank you Zab!

 

[Zab]

No problem. I've seen a few pals rage quit after a bad run in with paying clients. I hate seeing people who love the hobby drummed out of it by bad commission experiences. Honestly, for most people it only takes one Hobby first, moneys later. If you can make it into a self sustaining hobby though? That is a great balance

 

[Tommie Soule]

I would ask a question.

Why???
Why choose to be a commission painter, what is it you imagine your objective is?

 

[EpicMiniArt]

I do a lot of commission work and the reason I do commission work is because it tops up my income and makes my hobby self sufficient, so I paint part-time. This does give me some degree of flexibility in that I can pick up what commissions I want and when I need them as I'm not solely relying on it to pay the bills. I often find that I'm painting other peoples stuff and my own projects just get left on the side line because paying customer demand you spend time on their models first and foremost, which is right.

I paint every single day for 4-5 hours a day (my choice) and there is times where you just want to pitch up in front of the telly and chill out but I find you can't really do that and you have to force yourself to paint. This can lead you to burn out. With that in mind you need to keep your own projects on the side to keep you sane make sure you allow time to chill out.

It sounds cool being a commission painter but the grass isn't really that green. You need to be able to put out a decent job in a reasonable time and often you will be painting to deadlines.

I thoroughly enjoy painting things for other people, I get great satisfaction from my customers reaction when they see their minis all painted. but there are customers who constantly change things, are never happy with it, think because there paying for table top quality they'll get a display quality commission but they are few and far between I find.

I'd advise taking up a couple of small projects up for your local gaming store and getting your toes wet. Its not for everyone and if I was financially stable I wouldn't do any commissions even though I enjoy painting other peoples stuff a lot, I still prefer to paint my own stuff all day long.

Good luck

 

[BloodASmedium]

I agree Def with eps and really agree with tommie it can take the fun out of painting as a con yet can add a supplemental income to your finances another reason I paint as a commision pinter is because it gives me a ton of practise by keeping me painting all the time I'm disabled so I paint every day mostly 6-7 hours and one or two days out of the week I usually can get up to 9 hours of paintung.now this can get boring but the only way to get better is practice by painting as much as you can,the more models of diff types from diff companies have diff textures and surfaces ,the more they pass through your hands the better progress you make. I love competing and love winning even more but to get better I have to paint and keep my skills always evolving it's for this very reason that I do commisions. So that's my answer to tommies questiin.now think what will be the reason youde like to do it if it's valid enough for you then have fun and go for it bud.good luck.

Anot her point bud I just looked in your gallery when people want to hire you and they have a dwarf army or general to paint it helps to build up your gallery with nicely paint diverse groups of models you've done this way they have a better chance of saying hey he painted this awesome wonderful dwarf in his gallery I'm Def hiring this guy .another point is for us on here to get a more accurate idea of how you paint we need to see a few totally finished kodels.try to upload some when you get to it.