Help with painting prices

[FollowerofDG]

I’ve been approached with an opportunity to paint an army for someone. I have painted my death guard, my dads iron warriors and currently working on my brothers imperial fists. I also have random models and studs I have done for my dad and brother as well. This will be my first army that someone, outside my dad and bro, is requesting me to do. However, I have no clue how to price this. Any help with this would be greatly appreciated or any resources I could read would be wonderful as well.

[Grotsmasha]

Having looked into this myself, it's all about your time. What is your time worth? How many hours will it take to complete the commission? A lot of painting companies will charge "by the miniature", but this is based on their time/work speed.

Then you need to consider whether or not you have the correct paints etc for the commission paint work and if you'll need to buy fresh supplies. Make sure to complete as Test Model for the client to accurately show what the finished result will be. Decide on a timeline for completion (X hours per week), and since the guy is local to you, you have a few options for payment, since there's no postage involved. You could have him pay half up front, half on completion. Or half up front, and top ups as the units are completed/collected. Or he could pay per unit as it's started or collected.

[Dusktiger]

i've done a few of these for people before, and my standard go-to was to:

• charge the cost of every paint bottle i had to buy for the army.  even if you happen to have a fresh bottle on hand already, charge for it cause its to recoup the supplies you used.
• keep a running list of every paint you used as you go, and how many bottles/ spray cans you used as you go.  you can either keep them updated on this list as you go so they have a rough guess as to what the paint supplies will cost, or just agree to send them the final list when done.  I found updates over time, especially if itll take a few weeks, kept them engaged in the process, and they'd sometimes pay for the paints in batches as we went along and i showed the progress shots.
• decide how you want to charge for your work hours.  some people will charge a price per hour based on the model's size and the painting quality. others just do a flat cost of X amount per Y number of miniatures.  i've also come across some painters that base it off the price of the model.  if it's a $70 box of marines, he charges $70 for painting them.

[Rik Lightstar]

As mentioned by Grotsmasha, the key thing is that whatever formula you use to determine your pricing you are charging for your time and materials.

 

Essentially you're taking on a part time "contract" job for X hours a week until completion. Work out honestly how long the project will take and if you're needing to build the models first and base them etc this ALL adds a substantial amount of time to the project overall.

 

Most people would be working well to get a squad built painted and based in a day, that should give you a good idea of what to charge for a squad. If "Heroes" are meant to stand out then you'd need to spend at least the same amount of time on them if not twice as much. You can add some efficiencies by working on the entire army in one go and it will certainly speed up the building, undercoating and basing stages.

 

Rik

[FollowerofDG]

Thanks for the help guys. Doing a test model will be a great idea. He wants me to paint Raven Guard so the scheme is too terribly hard or complicated. I have a decent amount of paint but I will get a better quality of white and any shoulder pad trim colors. Appreciate the help again.

[Noserenda]

When i do it i tend to charge the RRP of the model, means models that need extra attention get more time. 

That said, painting a discount box is taking longer than individual kits would, and i think it would really fall down on chaff units.

[Vykes]

Trust me, Noserenda, that is 100% absolutely the case.  Camo guardsmen with separate pants, tunic, and armor schemes... ugh.  

 

I do work for others, typically a price measured in % of a box or a $/model with the higher being the basis (to avoid chaff units murdering me).  But foremost, working commission painting has to be as much/more rewarding artistically as it is financially, because a frustrating and absolutely infuriating truth is: the typical consumer wants a deal and what a painter offers is still a product.  

 

The time you invest in a project, is something many consumers will not and do not value, neither is the extra time and additions that you put in that drains your own resources.  The starving artist is still very much a thing.

 

If ya know the bloke in person, rockin', that helps cut out a LOT of extra expenses...Do you KNOW how expensive packing peanuts are?!  Why are they that much?!  HOW are they that much?!

Edited January 26, 2020 by Vykes