Paintedfigs.com - High Quality Miniature Painting at the Lowest Rates on Earth
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| Price Price: Getting your favorite character painted.... If you're just looking to get a few characters or a little piece for the display case done, then you want to go to a one-man show. These are typically great painters who enjoy spending hours upon on hours making figures look great. They will charge you a lot, but they will likely put in a lot more hours than a larger, army-painter service would. They are also more likely to be small order friendly -- larger services will try and get a minimum order value out of you to make your order "worth their time." If you go with a one-man mastro service, expect to pay $9 and upwards per figure, and most will charge between $20 and $25 per figure. It is not uncommon to see Golden Daemon winners charge upwards of $50 a figure. If you are looking for that kind of quality, this is where you go. Price: ....Versus getting an entire army painted An army of $100 space marines gets impractical fast. If you need an army painted, go to army painters. You need a service that focuses in doing entire armies. These will typically put more than one painter on your order, and will probably be done with the job in just a few weeks. Their prices per mini will usually be lower than the one man maestro outfits, though probably more than your FLGS "painter dude." Price: ....Looking Overseas You'll find that foreign miniature painting services, especially the Asian ones, excel on price point. Their quality tends to be rather strong too -- their weakness is that they are not necessarily familiar with the 28mm universe. They mostly emerged to paint for the 15mm historicals market, and while they're the best people to go to for Assyrian Archers, you want to be sure they know the difference between a bolter and a buckler. If you're trying an Asian service, go over their galleries to be sure they have experience with the GW, Rackham, and Privateer. Service Service: Professional Painters or Artistes? Miniature painting is a service industry -- and that means you should expect to be treated well. If you don't have the time to paint your own miniatures anymore, then you certainly don't have the time to assemble them, let alone remove flash. You should expect a miniature painting service to offer to assemble your figures. They may charge you a fee for it, and if they really don't want to do it they'll charge you a high fee -- but they should offer it. If they don't, well, you have to wonder why they are in a market that exists because people don't have the time to work on their miniatures. Me? I'd go find professionals. The only time when its acceptable for a service to not offer an assembly service, is when that assembly can jeopardize the product. Foreign painting services for example may be quite nervous about drilling out bolters, because if they make a mistake, the nearest place to get replacement bitz from may be from Paradigm Infinitum in Singapore... Some of the larger painting services offer free assembly. This means they've costed it into their work, and you should ask if you can get a discount on the work you've already assembled. They really ought to give you one. Service: Communication is Key! As professionals providing a highly consultative service, you should expect your painting service to be easy to contact. Barring weekends and holidays (which may not match with your calendar if you are trying a foreign service), You should expect them to respond to any email within 24 hours. If they are professional they will do sooner than that, because its in their interests to make sure they are painting how you want them to. Some services go beyond, and make themselves available to their customers in real time. If they're in your country or close to it you should expect to be able to call them during their working hours. Others will use instant messenger programs to offer "consult times" to customers, ideally several days a week. I recommend instant messenging, because its low impact, low cost way to exchange a great deal of information, you can save chat transcripts, and you will get to know who your painters really are. A note on foreign services: just because they may be halfway around the world from you, doesn't mean they can't communicate with you in a timely manner. Indeed, if you go to bed when they wake up, then you can set up a great cycle where you suggest something, and when you wake up in the morning you have pictures in your inbox of what that looks like. This "warp speed" illusion is very satisfying for both clients and painters. Service: Do they treat you as a resource or an obstacle? They should also welcome your input. Discussing paint schemes goes beyond exchanging a few pictures and painting guides. You need to be able to email them random ideas and shoot off questions on the fly -- this is your army after all and you need to be able to feel as personal about it as if you painted it yourself. If they are brief, terse, or in anyway discouraging of your further emails and pictures, then they don't really understand the "service" part of painting service. A good client, is one who sends their painting service a lot of information (it's their job to make sure they collect and sort it out). If you don't reply their emails for days or not at all though, then expect to find prices being hiked dramatically on you on future orders as they try and deter your business. However, if they aren't bothered that you don't have time to communicate with them, then they also aren't really that bothered about how you want your figures painted either. Avoid these sorts. Handy Tip: The First Date! Getting a Sample Painted Once you've found a service that offers you good pricing and is proud to display its work, its time to test them. Ten miniatures makes for a good sample, keep them from the same unit so you can test them for consistency. Make sure you include a character to see how well they can do these. Unless you play a smaller army like a Warmachine force of a Babylon Five fleet, don't expect how quickly they can turn this around to reflect how quickly they can paint a large order. They may take longer on your sample because they are working simultaneously on larger orders, or they may work faster on your sample to get it back to you before you go and find other things to buy... |