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I am unhappy paying gw prices a lot of the time so unless i needed something tabletop standard quickly then maybe (but that is only because i cant always be bothered painting)

Nope. While I appreciate the time and skill of others, assembling and painting is a big part of the hobby for me and it would lose the personal touch if someone else painted something for me. This is why I steer clear of these highly-priced painted models on eBay. Furthermore, I get annoyed when people sometimes use the descriptor 'pro painted' when trying to sell models if they are actually basically painted and nothing special.

Two reasons I vote "no":
1) I've seen tons of so-called 'pro-painted' stuff that was, on close inspection, just 'meh'.
2) The few things that have blown my socks off...well, I'm a cheap bastard who has too many dust collectors as it is, and I wouldn't want to see a paint job I paid through the nose for damaged during game use.

I would think about it for a display model e.g. FW horus or the other primarchs but not for tabletop play
though there are some minis I would hesitate to buy because I couldn't do the justice

I can imagine paying for a nice display piece from a painter whose work I enjoy - similar to a signed edition of a book or an autograph. Having the models I'm putting on the tabletop painted by anyone but myself is utterly out of the question though.

Don't get me wrong - a painting service is a valid business model and useful for many people - but for me the gaming aspect is pretty much secondary to the painting... why would I deprive myself of that?

I like painting my own models, but with 2 jobs and college I wouldnt say no for the right price.

What does pay over standard GW retail price even mean?

Would I pay more for a painted model then a unpainted model?

Well.. That kinda speaks for itself no?..

I pressed 'other' because the poll is confusing..

I try to paint all my models myself, but I am unlike half the people on this thread shouting about how "I love painting and its the most important part!!"
I do not enjoy painting and see it as the unfortunate and unwanted step between acquiring and playing, so yes I have paid for something to be painted, the new forge world riptide to be precise. This is because:

a) I hate painting.
b) I rarely can summon the willpower to paint a squad of infantry in one go, let alone a riptide, so it would span a few weeks of a lot of painting.
c) I'm good, but not that good. Basically with the riptide in I felt I wouldn't do it justice.

I hate painting. I hate wasting money. Gotta be a medium.

I would compromise on paying a reasonable amount for a tabletop quality figure done on a decent time frame.

If I were rich, I would effectively hire one of these kick ass pro painters to simply do nothing but crank out golden demon quality armies for me 24/7.

I like to paint up to a certain degree. I like painting special characters, vehicles and other bog models in general. What I don't like is painting 30 termagants with a complex pattern just so they match my MC's.
Sometime, I wish I could just spend an extra 60 and get those 30 termagants painted up. This won't get me pro paintjobs but I'll settle for the same quality I produce.

I am saying 'maybe'...

I don't have time to paint and my paint skills are 'meh' at best but having said that, I love building / kit bashing converting my minis so that they are representative of me and my view of a battle force or army.

Last summer I starter building up a Space Wolf army. After a few ebay steals, a good Christmas haul and some decent trades, I now have a 2500-3000 point army. I spent the time building all the minis (except tanks and drop pods as they are standard configs) and it is currently all being painted by a studio for me to a decent table top standard for a very reasonable cost. He's painting the whole army so I don't get any units that don't 'fit' to a standard I am not capable of producing at a time frame and cost that I see as reasonable.

It's a maybe as it completely depends on cost. Some of the minis I bought at such low prices mean that I am actually having them pro painted at less than GW retail

I can't paint my way out of a paper bag for anything organic, so...absolutely. Hence why there are so many different painting services

 Sharkvictim wrote:
There's nothing wrong with wanting your models painted.
That being said I would imagine that the only people that pay for their minis to get pro-painted are the win at all cost type gamers. If they have the excess money to blow on "pro-painting", then they also have every steamroller and leaf blower list at their disposal.
"I've made sure I have a stable of unbeatable army lists, now they need to look the part."
I assume "pro-painted" means at or near Golden Demon. Why on earth would anyone pay for that level of paint job unless they were going to run them in some kind of painting contest?
I'm rambling. GW is over priced as it is, so no.


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ChaosxVoid wrote:Id say no I love to paint aswell but i mean if it was a friend of mine trying to sell their painted models id pay more for it if they needed the support

I agree with this, though. There are exceptions to every rule.

I think I mis-read the OP. I guess if we're talking ebay or something they would have to be exceptionally well painted for me to pay more than normal for the GW model, because I do so enjoy my conversions. For some reason I thought we were talking about paying for your stuff to get painted. Just woke up. Sorry.


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mingus89 wrote:i wouldnt be as 'connected' with my models if they wernt painted by me, i think all the hard work and effort always pays of as you can say at the end (in a smug voice) "yea, i painted them"

Too true. I have a Daemon Prince I bought solely for a tournament. Painted him up pink skin/purple armor. Was going to run him as a lash prince. Changed my list, ran him as a Tzeentch prince. He's a total beast as a Tzeentch prince, and I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I was thinking about repainting his Thousand Sons blue, but the resounding reply was no, because it wouldn't be the same. Long story short I love Pinky, my Slaanesh looking Tzeentch prince. If I had bought a pro-painted Slaanesh prince I could never believably run him with a different build, whereas when I look at Pinky all I see is Tzeentch prince (wings, warptime, and BoC or WoC, depending, in case anyone wanted to know )

I could see someone getting pro-painted models if they have limitations that disallow them from doing it themselves. Like their hands shake, extremely poor vision, injury, ect and they want decent looking models. I fell this is a good reason some people use a painting service as well. Army size may be another factor. And maybe some might get the models because they like the scheme and want to reproduce it. It is a LOT easier to reproduce something when you have it in your hands. I try not to judge someone. I would only pay MORE for a pro painted army if it was truly pro painted like level 3 Frontline Gaming standard or better. Otherwise I better be getting them cheaper than NIB since I will probably be stripping the paint off of them anyway to repaint to match my army even if their paintjob is better. My painting skills leave much to be desired with my shaky hands and poor hands and relative inexperience, but having them all the same makes them suck less visually.


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 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
I try to paint all my models myself, but I am unlike half the people on this thread shouting about how "I love painting and its the most important part!!"
I do not enjoy painting and see it as the unfortunate and unwanted step between acquiring and playing, so yes I have paid for something to be painted, the new forge world riptide to be precise. This is because:

a) I hate painting.
b) I rarely can summon the willpower to paint a squad of infantry in one go, let alone a riptide, so it would span a few weeks of a lot of painting.
c) I'm good, but not that good. Basically with the riptide in I felt I wouldn't do it justice.

That is kinda how I feel. I love painting I just don't love painting miniatures. I have too many problems holding things steady and seeing. Painting a portrait I can fake it and have a little more room for error. I enjoy the challenge to a degree and wish to improve, but assembly and painting aren't my favorite things simply because my skills are still lacking and I feel like my results are underwhelming and don't do the extremely expensive models justice. At least not the justice the Iron Hands deserve.

I run a large club and own around 50k points of models. Many of these are 10k ish club armies for beginners or those who'd rather just pay the dues and use community models.

So far we've avoided too many grey plastic armies; but prepainted models would be nice for these type of forces. Luckily ebay provides more or less this option already if you're patient.

Obviously, most people paint their own stuff (or don't paint at all), and a smaller group of people purchase painted models/hire a comission painter.

As for the people who have posted here suggesting that it is somehow wrong to have someone else paint your models for you, get over it. Painting an army is a huge time commitment, and lots of adults who play the game don't have the ability or desire to spend that much time painting. We can all agree that the game is better with painted models, so those people who don't have the time are doing the rest of us a favor by paying to have their armies painted.

Additionally, as some people have mentioned, some people are physically unable to paint miniatures. I used to do comission work in the past, and one of my main clients had been in a motorcycle accident and could no longer hold a paintbrush.

The only potential issue is when it comes to tournament painting scores. I personally believe that if you haven't painted the miniatures yourself, you should not claim the best painted prize.

To me, the building and painting symbolizes ownership. So no, I would not pay more. A painted miniature is a used miniature.


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 Nate668 wrote:
Obviously, most people paint their own stuff (or don't paint at all), and a smaller group of people purchase painted models/hire a comission painter.

As for the people who have posted here suggesting that it is somehow wrong to have someone else paint your models for you, get over it. Painting an army is a huge time commitment, and lots of adults who play the game don't have the ability or desire to spend that much time painting. We can all agree that the game is better with painted models, so those people who don't have the time are doing the rest of us a favor by paying to have their armies painted.

Additionally, as some people have mentioned, some people are physically unable to paint miniatures. I used to do comission work in the past, and one of my main clients had been in a motorcycle accident and could no longer hold a paintbrush.

The only potential issue is when it comes to tournament painting scores. I personally believe that if you haven't painted the miniatures yourself, you should not claim the best painted prize.

I agree with you 100%, I myself am a disabled Afghanistan vet. I can no longer work so I have plenty of time to paint and enjoy it. Now for the painting competitions, it boils down to integrity. I feel if you did not paint it and enter into such a contest with said miniature or miniatures it is a form of plagiarism.

 kitch102 wrote:
Never, I want my models to be representative of my skills and abilities.

I wouldn't want someone else to have sex my wife because I think they can do it better.

Now there's an analogy! Hahaha

Well, what if your miniatures talk to another person's better painted miniatures, and want to try being painted by another hand?

Now... back to your analogy...

I love building and customizing my minis, but I really dislike painting. That said, if someone had a nicely painted Blood Angels Drop Pod, that I didn't have to assemble or paint, and it was table-top quality... I'd probably pay more than retail for it.

I like having painted my own stuff. I don't like doing it, but I like the results. I'd be willing to bend my pride a bit, to have decently painted models to put on the table for a little bit more than GW's prices.

I've got two little kids, and I'd rather have the time with them. I love playing the game, but that's the time I can set aside in a week for my hobby. Besides, I have no interest in finding a bottle of wash spillled all over the carpet because I forgot it on the table one night.

Anyhow, if someone has a couple of Red Drop Pods, or Red Bikers, that are decently painted and they want to get rid of, send me a PM with pics.

i would but i would only do that for something FW but i like to paint even though my painting skills arn't that great but eh at the end of the day its my army.

I do commission painting, but only tanks, monsters and special characters. As I am not a full time commission painter but rather use miniature painting as a distraction between my gallery and illustration work, I find that I can charge less for more, that is to say I can paint a tank in three or four days including freehanding, small amounts of greenstuff sculpture details, and weathering, all while keeping the cost within a players budget. The business model allows my clients to end up with a centerpiece that would have taken them far longer due to their own time constraints, painting/sculpting abilities whatever, and while I'm working on the tank/monster, they can be hammering out rank and file guys. That way by the next weekend they can have two new units they can bash their friends armies with and not suffer in the wallet department. I think too many commission painters think their work is the same quality as a guy like Brandon at GMM or whoever (insert Golden Demon winner's name here), and so it turns local customers and gamers off because those painters want to charge like they have won those awards.

Further, companies like Blue Table, who do absolutely sub par work for what they charge, and all you have to do to believe that is have eyes to see with, the average gamer is shy about shelling out money and a model and maybe getting nothing really special back. So I think it's a question of what you are expecting and getting from your painter. For me, personally, I don't play $40k anymore because it's boring and the mechanics suck, but I do like converting the miniatures so I am working on a bunch of conversions for a small Lost and the Damned warband. Once the converting is finished I will have each member of the warband painted up by my favorite painters. This way, I not only will have models I worked on, but ones that I can look at daily to be inspired by to make my own work better since they will all be painted by guys and girls whose work I really enjoy, all the while not breaking the bank or worrying about having 2000 points of the same basic guy painted blue in five days so I can throw a ton of dice around.

The whole question of whether or not to pay people to paint for you is a very interesting debate, so I just thought I'd throw my two cents in, but at the end of the day a lot of commission painters should quit charging so much. It's like the local street artists in New Orleans that do $20 spray can art with stencils suddenly acting like they can charge the same prices as Rick Berry or Phil Hale. Charge what your work is worth and make the customer happy.

I think I'm in the "No, because I like painting my own stuff" category, but also in the "What's the cost of the paint job got to do with the cost of the model?" category.

I mean, if I break out my old $2/figure lead Chaos Renegades, or a $4/figure Dark Eldar, or a $12/figure resin figure, each about the same size, it's about the same amount of labor to paint each of them.

Yes, i WOULD pay over retail since painting a model clearly takes work, this work should be paid. How MUCH exactly obviously depends on the quality. i mean even a basic level paint job takes some time to do, time that i saved right there - so it is clearly worth something.

BUT: While i'm a pretty bad painter i still enjoy it - so personally i don't see the point in buying painted models.

No, becuase for me the act of painting the miniatures, and the pride of fielding an army that I painted, is a large part of my enjoyment of the hobby. I understand some people don't like to paint, and I've certainly seen plenty of "pro painted" miniatures there are worth a premium over and above the cost of the original miniature, but not for me.

If I do buy painted minis, I consier it a flaw rather than a benefit, as I will end up stripping them and repainting them myself. So, I won't buy painted minis unless I can get them for less than unpainted.

"Yes, but only if it's painted really well!"

I bought a pro painted Bloodthirster because this is a beautiful model on it's own and my level as a painter is not high enough for this masterpiece of my collection.

For the most part, no.
I enjoy assembling and painting models.

However, if there's a 'big model', I'd be tempted to - if I buy a superheavy or titan for >£100, I'd hate to imagine ruining it with a shanky paint job - so I'd consider getting someone with a really good painting skill to do it.

I would probably pay 20 or even 30% above retail for a clean paint job on infantry models. Hold the air brush please.
Termagants, I may want to play with these again someday, but I will never want to paint another one. Not one more gant.

The models are expensive enough as it is, and I'd rather paint my own army even if the standard isn't good enough to make anyone go "oooh, nice paint!".

Just no. I love that side of gaming.

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Thank you fellow gamers for the support!

Not a chance, I barely like paying the GW prices for anything so when I do then I want to make sure that it's me who gets the enjoyment out of making and painting the tiny little mortgages. I wouldn't be interested in Warhammer at all otherwise.