Questions on commissions

[Frostglaive]

Before I start, if this is in the wrong subforum, I apologize in advance to the Mods. I figured this was about painting so I just threw it in here.

 

So, a couple weeks ago, a friend of mine asked me if I could paint a Chaos Marine for her. Initially she offered to pay but I said I'd do it for free. Had a spare chaos marine, and it was a different paint scheme than what I'm used to, so the challenge was essentially enough for me. Couple days later, I posted a pic of it in a Discord server, just to show off a bit. And somebody asked me if I did commissions. I said no, but it got me thinking.

 

Now I'm no Golden Daemon winner, but I'm also not horrible at painting. Been doing this for a few years, I've slowly improved over time. But I don't think I'm at that level where I could be a commission painter.... but I want to be.

 

The thing is though, I don't exactly know where to start. Obviously I'd need to improve my skills here, which means tutorials and practice. But what tutorials? Do I just stick with Warhammer TV, or are there better ones to look into? Are there other skills I'd need to have for this in addition to just painting? And what's the process even look like? I've never commissioned models before. I've never even considered it, let alone know where to look.

 

Granted, I could probably figure all of this out just by doing some Google searches. Which I will. But I also wanted to ask you guys as well while I'm at it. Cover all my bases.

[Rik Lightstar]

There are lots of tutorials, Buy Painted and Next Level Painting are good starts, without having seen any of your stuff it's hard to know what level you're currently at.

 

I've dabbled on occasion, and there are a few "gotchas" to watch out for:

• Models take longer to complete than you realise.
• Be clear about the level to which you're able to paint and the time it would take to do so.
• Give your client regular feedback.
• If this is going to be in your "free time" then be clear about this from the outset.
• Charge appropriately for your time, if you'd earn more by doing some overtime, do that
• Watch out for project creep, if they want bases done for example, get this agreed at the outset
• Allocate some time for your own hobby, and don't feel guilty about this, they're paying for your time and as long as you meet the agreed date, this should be fine.
• Don't do paid work for friends, this causes more issues than it's worth.

Hope that's helped a little.

 

Rik

[Magos Takatus]

As someone that has considered dabbling in selling models before committing to full-blown commission work this advice is really handy. 

[Gederas]

Another thing: If you're painting for commission, make sure to discuss how much before-hand.

 

I've done two models for a friend, working on the third now. Magnus, a Knight Castellan and Abaddon. He bought all the paints for Magnus and said I could keep them after I finished (that was a mistake on his part, but I'm not complaining, because the paints were more than the Magnus model was....). We agreed on 90 USD for both Magnus and the Knight Castellan, due to the size/detail of the models. Abaddon we worked out a trade, I got half of his second Shadowspear he bought.

 

 

Also, someone asking if you do commissions means that, in their eyes, you're a better painter than them. It doesn't matter if you're not Golden Daemon level, it just means that you're better than them, in their opinion. The friend who I'm painting Abaddon for? He's not that bad at painting at all, but according to him, he can't get the fine details of painting like I can with my models (see: My Mortarion, Rotigus, Sammael and Ezekiel conversion).

[Exilyth]

For professional comission painting, an airbrush could be a huge investment but also time saver. Also, you could then offer priming and priming & basecoating services for people who want to skip just thoose steps.

 

As with all contract/freelance/artistic work, the important thing is to make sure you and the customer(s) are on the same page in terms of payment (now? when it's done? per hour? per model? army deal?), paint scheme (really pink with brown polka dots? exactly THIS shade of black?), execution quality (e.g. primer, primer & basecoat, 'pro painted', 3 color minimum, table top standard, pro painted, golden daemon) and/or any extras (like basing, assembly or conversions).

 

If you send models to a customer, take pictures before packaging and after packaging so you can prove the models were undamaged. Also, package tracking & insured parcel are a must unfortunably (unless you hand the models over personally).

 

TL;DR: treat comission painting as if you're running a company and always cover your lower back by documenting customer requests and work progress.

[Frostglaive]

First off, thank you guys for the advice and suggestions. I'm copying this all down so I can save it for later. This is all extremely helpful, thank you again.

 

So this one is probably way too early to ask, but I'm just wanting to plan out as much as I can at the moment: payment. Ideally, what would be the best way to go about this?

 

My initial thinking about the whole thing would be half payment in advance, and the rest upon completion before I'd send their models back to them. Would probably want to charge a little more depending on if I'd be buying more paints. I don't like the idea of paying by the hour, mostly because I'm not typically not a fast painter unless it's a fairly simple paint scheme. So I'd probably say pay by the models with some kind of a deal for larger armies? Initial thoughts. Maybe someone else has a better method?

 

Also, I paint to tabletop standard. I'll try to go above and beyond if and when I can, but I doubt I'll be a pro anytime soon. I'm still learning obviously. But say I'm charging by the model, what is an average cost to charge for? I get that it'd differ from artist to artist (I'd show pics of some of my models, but I'm currently at work and don't have access to any. Plus I need a better camera as well). Hence asking for an average cost.

[Chaplain Raeven]

50% of the cost of the model is a good start for Table Top. You can increase that price for future projects when you're getting better or  when you feel it's not enough money for your efforts.

[Rik Lightstar]

Don't kid yourself, you're charging by the hour, those hours are your life that you're giving up, so charge appropriately.

 

In the UK the minimum wage is £8.21 for someone over 25, which equates to £65.68 for an 8 hour shift. If most people are honest then they'd struggle to build spray and finish a Tactical Squad in a day to a good standard. Then you need to consider materials (paints, glue, brushes, electricity for lights). So in the UK unless you're a very fast painter then you're selling yourself short to do a Tactical Squad for anything less than £70-£75.

 

This is the issue with Commission painting, there's little appreciation of the realistic value of the painter's time.

 

The "going rate" for a day of work from a "skilled tradesman" (plasterer, bricklayer, decorator, electrician, plumber, etc) is in the £150-£250 a day bracket with some regional variations. Keep these comparisons in mind when working out what to charge.

 

Rik

[Vykes]

Aye, lot of points are definitely on point here (especially Rik's, trust me, people really undervalue a painter's time and don't realize actual time and cost.)   It's the starving artist notion: what people want and demand versus are willing to pay for are very different, especially in an entertainment industry like this.  

 

I do commission stuff in between my usual projects and usually rotate my collection of models just so I can experiment and get better.  It's not a sustainable or reasonable income (as in, I would be and do work well below minimum wage when time, materials, and extras are considered). The time to clean, assemble, and convert or magnetize models is big and hard to collect on because that ground work isn't what a lot of people call 'work'.  Log all your time, all your materials, make a spreadsheet (it's useful come tax season) and you get to see where your excess costs and time is spent which can help streamline the process. 

 

But as to what methodology you want to use to approach commission painting depends on scale: are you thinking of just working up a few characters, a squad, or army wide?  The steps to approach them  will vary as techniques or even materials can be very time dependent.  I approach a character work completely different to units, vehicles to organics, etc.  There's so many factors that the best advice I can give is "Experiment with different approaches and mediums," and "don't over extend yourself."  If commission work becomes more work than enjoyment, then it tends to filter over through your own hobby time and gets to be a chore or drag rather than something worth doing. 

 

It's not at all unreasonable to say working most commission painting gigs might net you less per hour pay than a McDonalds employee.  So if you're not enjoying the process and learning from it, why do it over another job? 

[Kinstryfe]

I've toyed with commission painting, and am right now painting a few things gratis for my gaming group just to build up some portfolio, but the thing holding me back really is that the profit for it is absurdly small unless it's slapdash tabletop work. A buddy of mine is getting an entire huge army painted internationally by a Golden Demon winner. It's nice, not flawless, but it's all very solid work and the freehand the guy is doing is absolutely top notch gorgeous. Including tanks, dreads, and other vehicles, my buddy is paying an average of about $10 per model. Granted, that adds up, but $10 to paint a dreadnaught to high quality with freehand aspects is...not a great profit margin I imagine. And that wasn't lowballing the guy, that was his asking price. So the market definitely undervalues painting services.

[Stoic Raptor]

• Charge appropriately for your time, if you'd earn more by doing some overtime, do that
• Don't do paid work for friends, this causes more issues than it's worth.

 

Rik's advice is great, but these two are the most significant tips.  I look at commission painting as an opportunity cost - if I could earn more for an hour of overtime than a customer is willing to pay for an hour's worth of painting work, I'd be a fool not to put in the overtime (especially since it pays pretty well, I enjoy my job and I don't want painting to begin to feel like one).

 

If that means most people aren't willing to pay what I'd ask to do a job, that's fine - I've got plenty of my own stuff that needs to be painted anyhow.  I'm not going to undervalue my time for someone who can't do my level of work anyways.  Let them find some other fool who doesn't value the hours of their life.

 

I wrote a longer article on the topic on my blog a while back, check it out:

http://the-sage-brush.blogspot.com/2015/01/painting-for-fun-and-profit.html

[Son of Sacrifice]

Create a spec sheet for the client to complete, asking them to be very specific about what they want done, colors / standard etc etc. Make it clear that once you get started there's no room to alter any of the above.