Sunday, September 28, 2014

What is a fair price?

Since I'd love to be a commissioned painter for folks, I often ask 'what is a fair price?' .
So far I have sold two items, each time for profit...but not by much.
Simple fact for me it, I love to paint. Even better when it's for someone else, the motivation is at an all time high.
And you want to out do yourself, to provide a top of your game standard. 
My ForgeWorld terminators cost me £36 and I sold them for £41. Most commissioned folks wouldn't even think about that price.
I paint a Legion Praetor for £25, the pair came in at £27 but the buyer only wanted the terminator armoured one. This left me with a free model there abouts.
Basically I accept that I'm not going to make a shed load of money, nor do I really want to.
I have seen prices knocking around for about £5/$10 per stand model ( tactical marine), discounts for 5 or more usually. 
I offer my tactical sqauds out for £35, is that a fair price? I do test models for free, if I have one in stock. Two reasons,  I get to use the scheme to widen my portfolio,  and two I usually learn something along the way. The whole system of selling painted models is confusing, tough, and unregulated.  I guess you have to luck out and get a few regular customers.  If you're rreading this and it sounds like a good deal to you,  or you want look me up and haggle a bargain here's my Facebook page.  

https://m.facebook.com/manufactorum

Friday, September 26, 2014

18 years lost in the Warp.

Where do I begin......
Way back in the beginning I received the 40k 2nd edition box set, which I regret I no longer own, this is where my love for the 40k universe started.
I think I was around 13 at the time, maybe 14. Immediately I began to build a might force of Ultramarines(posterboys of the time) after this I added a platoon of Imperial Guard and also a small successor chapter which was custom made with black and green armour, though looking back I guess they looked a lot like Dark Angels.
Anyway time rolled on and soon found I was a 16 year old lad in a job and my hobby time began to take a back seat.
Once dating came around along with the golden bar ticket, 40k became a distant memory. 

It was a long long time til it came around again...
In 2008 I painted one more Ultramarine for the nostalgia feel.
I'll share a pic of that chappy! 
He is very much in the old 2nd company look.
Although it never really took off again.

The other thing that slowly began to wind me back in was the Horus Heresy books.
This era has always captured my imagination. 
The lore and story are so rich!
And once I learnt of ForgeWorld who supply rules and models to carry out the epic scenes of this time period my interests were ablaze once more.

So I brought a set from the FW site... Terminators, Tartaros variant. 
It's also around the time I realised that this armour variant would have likely been used during the Heresy,  if it was I stand corrected. 
I painted these as Blood Angels and were my first full unit in 18years.  I sold these via an eBay aauction and began my 'commission' phase of my hobby experience.  I'll be sharing my findings on this area of the hobby. Some think it is a ggreat way to make some money, I feel it is more a fun thing for me and not so much about cash. Ie I get to paint models for free really. I make a couple of £ and really not enough to sing and dance about. The Blood Angels did get a return order for a Legion Praetor. And I have struck up a commission on the other side of the world.( I'll be doing a feature on that, cause it is a beast of a task).

It feels good to be back. And I am  happy to be back in the hobby. I also learnt of the massive community on facebook.  And joined as many as possible and made many a new friend from the talks and posts.

So enough jabber about the hows and whys. The purpose of this blog is to share my work, my tests and experiences, I plan to share some homebrew spacehulk rules and missions.  Other areas of the hobby that cover painting,  conversions, trying out airbrush techniques,  and I'm gonna take a shot at magnets on squads.  

Please if you want to see me cover anything let me know. Here on my FB page, search for The Manufactorum.  

Cheers James.