Dee's Ruinous Powers WIP

[HappyJim]

You might want to lower your prices just a tad, I was advised by another painter that when you first get started you might want to start with your prices low just so you can build up a reputation.

£100 for a single infantry sized model no matter how good is ridiculous, I would half it and have separate prices for infantry and characters across the board, I personally don't even offer a economy ( I disagree with the whole concept). You might want to consider bulk discounts or eve free shipping on orders over a certain value, I would look at prices for every type of model, infantry, monstrous infantry, large monsters, ridden beasts, ridden large monsters, tanks, walkers, etc.

[MrDee]

£100 for a single infantry sized model no matter how good is ridiculous

Thanks for the feedback my friend

Have a look at this

Studio McVey

I'm nowhere near as good yet but end of the day their starting price is £150 for display models.

If I charge £50 for a display model that I have to spend 15 hours painting thats £3.30p/hour, that was the sort of wages I was earning when I was 14 labouring on farms etc. I think if people pay peanuts they will inevitably get monkies. If my display model price is too high then hell I won't get people wanting me to paint like that and I can save that sort of stuff for Golden Demon and personal stuff, win win really.

*Edit*

Might be an idea to totally remove the display model category as an option as it would either be too expensive or not even worth my time and effort

[LoreSeeker]

The display quality figure is quite scary , and for economy I'd raise the minimum to 2£. Good quality for 15 seems reasonable. But still, I have no experience whatsoever with painting fees.

Cheers,
LS

[HappyJim]

I suggest starting your prices a bit lower just so you can drum in the business, after you have completed a few projects and got you name out and have a few people that can say "hey MR DEE rocks, paint more for me" you can adjust your prices as you see fit.

You can always say you are raising prices due to demand, their is also a huge difference between working on a farm (I have had the joy of that ) and sitting down, listening to music painting a model. At the end of the day how many people are that interested in the time spent painting a model? They are interested in value for money which is what I am trying to help you with! Another train of thought is you should try and improve you speed, look at why it takes you so long? are you waiting on paints to dry? is it a constant 15hrs of painting or do you get distracted like me (like this very moment actually ). Are you waiting on paints to try, how much time do you spend on waiting for paints to dry, have you tried using a heat source to speed up the process?

It really is up to you to charge whatever you feel is the right amount for your work, perhaps a idea would be to do a few auctions on ebay to get a idea of what people are willing to pay?

[MrDee]

I suggest starting your prices a bit lower just so you can drum in the business, after you have completed a few projects and got you name out and have a few people that can say "hey MR DEE rocks, paint more for me" you can adjust your prices as you see fit.

You can always say you are raising prices due to demand

suppose thats not a bad idea

Might have to go with this instead

Tabletop/Troop Quality - £3-£5 a model (discounts on multiples)

Command Squads/Heros Quality - £15-20 a model (discounts on multiples)

Lords/Display Quality - £50 a model

reckon that might be more of a fair price scale in the beginning?

Damien

[And Justice For All]

Something I have learnt very quickly is that people who collect well painted miniatures want one or more of the following in addition to the usual stuff you'd expect.

1. Reputation
2. Reliability
3. Consistant quality

When I first started I was only getting around £5.00 an hour (I get £30 for teaching!) but as I have got quicker and developed a positive reputation for good quality and reliability I have been able to increase my rates. All forms of self employed art take time to develop into something worth the time spent on it. A proven way to make millions is to cut your ear off, attack your mate and then shoot yourself in the chest. However, you only make loads after your dead so the plan needs a little work.

[HappyJim]

Well this is price I have set myself ATM

Standard Trooper: £2
Character: £9
Monstrous infantry/Terminator £6
Monstrous infantry size character: £15
Large Monster/tank (giant, Rhino, etc): £30
Standard trooper mounted: £9
ridden small monster (jugger rider): £15
Ridden large monster/Large tank (dragon, landraider): £40

I also offer 10% discount on bulk orders of the same type, I have seen people offer inscreasing discounts, 10% on 30, 15% on 50, 20% on 70+, that kinda thing, I ma still debating if I am charging to little, I have avoid display standard and budget for now ( I can't bring myself to paint budget models), I actually was told by someone he had been quoted lower! I think really you need to decide what part of the market you want to concentrate on, for I'm more looking at people who want nice looking armies.

[MrDee]

Thanks guys.

If I am perfectly honest I would prefer NEVER paint to an economy standard it took me an hour staring at the model to make me do it.....and a little piece of me died inside. I feel that painting to such a standard is a waste of good paint and models but I suppose you have to offer it to people. This will only ever be a suppliment to my main income and a reason to paint models I would not necessarily paint otherwise, so getting massive amounts of business is not really something I am overly worried about hence why I am loathed to drop my prices too much. I feel that if I was to charge any less than £50 for a display model; and I mean the standard of paint job that got my chaos sorcerer to the last round of judging in WFB Single Minature (so last 10 or 12 entries), I would be in effect giving away my time and effort for sod all. So I think that maybe I need a 4th category inbetween the good quality and display quality that would still be a good paint job but not to the same standard that I would paint an entry for Golden Demon.

Discussion closed on this point. Thanks for the feedback guys much appreciated, if I require any more input I will PM you, I don't want to fill my thread up with off topic stuff otherwise Kuffty and Dan will feel left out.

Back on topic I have done a lot more work to my Khorne Lord on Chaos Dragon expect picutres soonish.

Damien

[aeroplane]

If you don't want to do an economy standard you needed to state that! My guess is that 90% of your orders would have been that, based purely on price... People usually want completed armies, so price gets really important when you are talking about multiple squads of guys.

Don't offer a cheap service, hang your shingle as a high-end painter, and have at it!

Also, you might want to have a variety of figures, in different colors, to help showcase your talents. Most people will only buy something when they see it, so if you have (for example) an guy with an Ultramarine army, he might not buy from you if you have no samples of work in blue.

As a way of economizing your time making said examples, you could consider making a couple of the halved or quartered paint jobs - A Howling Griffon standing next to an Eagle warrior illustrates that you can paint Yellow, Red, Blue and White power armor.

[Gedderz]

I would wait and see how its taken up. In the end of the day do you want to make money or do it for love of painting.

If its money then economy is a necessary evil, while you would rather not do it could very well become your main income stream.

If you find that is not true, or you want to do it more for love of painting dump that economy style faster than a one night stand.

With regards to cost you can market your self quite well with GD entry etc so dont be afraid to start of charging higher than most others for display models. Calculate a desired return per an hours work then times it by length of time to paint. May seem obvious but people often miss this and work for less money than there happy with. Also will you be pricing on a model by model comparison as a flat rate per standard could get annoying with “harder” to paint models that take long at the same standard.

Just by two bits.