I want to get my Kickstarter Reaper Bones minis painted, but not sure what to do.

[Oryan77]

I don't want to paint these myself. I have a couple hundred that need painting and many of them are big. I haven't painted minis before, but I am artistic and I do like to paint. I'm sure I'd really enjoy painting minis. I just don't have the time to do it and I don't want to spend the time to do it. I DM, so the little time I have, I need to spend working on my campaign so that we have a game to play.

My question is, these minis need to be re-based and many of them need parts glued together. I was wondering if minis painters prefer to have them based & all glued together before they start painting? If I ever find someone to paint these, I'd like to have them ready to go for them. But I won't glue them together if that will make painting harder for them.

I was also wondering what something like this would cost? I don't need super detailed paint jobs. Just something that looks nice so they are not white and don't look like a child did it.

None of my players paint minis. I would prefer someone that can paint them in a style that I like (I do art for a living, so I'm picky). I went to a FLGS nearby and met a few employees there that were really nice guys. I asked them about anyone they knew that might be interested in painting these for me. The manager was even a minis painter himself. The only responses I kept getting was how I should join their once a week painting group and they'd teach me how to do it. No matter how many times I explained that that isn't an option for me, they kept insisting that it's easy and not that time consuming. Nice guys, but I'm not sure why they wouldn't point me in the direction of someone that might like to get paid to paint my minis.

 

[Alarian]

Realistically you're looking at anywhere from one to two thousand dollars to get that many mini's painted. You might want to check out this company. I've never used them, but I've heard good things about them.

http://www.paintedfigs.com/

I looked into having some mini's painted a while back and prices ranged anywhere from $4 per mini to $25 per mini depending on the company/person doing the painting.

 

[Wycen]

I would suggest you host a painting party. Basically you provide the paint, brushes, and figures, (and snacks) and your friends do all the painting. But, this will not guarantee quality or any sort of uniformity. Also you'll have to host this a couple times to put a dent in hundreds of minis.

Though you could try it once and see how things turn out. That will give you practical first hand experience on what you want and are looking for.

I have no idea if painters prefer minis to be in parts or whole, but I suspect painting pieces first makes assembly more difficult later, except maybe for mass produced commons for war games, etc.

 

[sabrinathecat]

What's your time frame? Do you need them soon, or just want them done a bit at a time.
Looks like I'm not far from you.
I have a feeling I'm going to be unemployed again soon. This means that I'll be having free time in bits and spurts, and while I like painting minis, I have limited storage space once they're done. The idea of being able to paint a mini, then give it back to someone else has some appeal.

 

[greyhaze]

To answer 1 question, from my limited experience, most painters remove the bases from the minis in order to paint them. So, not assembling them is best.

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

I just received my Bones as well. In my case, I am in between campaigns and looking forward to getting back into painting. I might be willing to do some commission work, but I have limited time (and my own painting to do). Also, cost might be prohibitive. It's an hour minimum to do a basic job, not including re-basing etc.. I'd have to charge at least $8-10 for each medium to justify the time. That being said, I have one starting college soon - so extra money is always a plus.

As to my style, here is my current thread in the the Misc. Geek forum:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?338382-Miniatures-Dog-s-Bones


Good luck!

 

[sabrinathecat]

Not to mention getting the minis from Fremont to Indianapolis could be rather costly.
If you want, I could demo painting for you and show you what I do. You could decide from there.

 

[Gilladian]

I don't paint minis anymore (lost the sharp eyesight needed) but when I was still painting real metal minis, the price I charged was around "the cost of the mini" per figure. Whether plastic minis follow the same pricing structure, I don't know. I suspect that more is probably likely, as the plastic should be less costly in general.

Do NOT assemble them. It is much easier to paint (especially assembly-line paint jobs) if they are not based or glued up. Most painters will mount an unbased figure on something - a cork, a plastic paint jar lid, or something else, with putty or hot glue or some other easy-to-remove material - to give themselves an easy working handle. Also, shields, weapons, etc.... should be left on sprues or at least left loose. That way it is easy to hold them, flip them around, etc... to paint. Then once removed from the sprue, a tiny bit of touch-up finishes the job before sealing them.

 

[pogre]

I paint minis on commission and prefer them unasembled, but everyone is different. I charge way more than you want to spend* to get Bones painted, but you might look into some of the Sri Lanka shops. There are a whole bunch of them over on TMP (The Miniatures Page). The reputable ones will provide references and will do a good job for you. As a guestimate getting them painted by this method will take $3-$10 per figure - depending on size and you're looking at a 10-12 week turnaround.

Another, quicker, but slightly more expensive option is to go with Blue Table Painting or one of several other domestic painting services and use their Level 3 Table Top Standard. Blue Table is reputed to have good turn around, although you should check out their galleries to see if their style matches your sensibilities. I get the impression their style is ingrained in their painting method.

*My current rate is $15-$20 per medium 28-32 mm figure. I am currently booked with commissions through the end of the year and cannot accept any projects before January 2014.

 

[tomBitonti]

Hi,

Prepping the figures -- cleaning them, removing mold lines, assembly, which can include as little as a little glue, or as much as drilling holes and inserting pins, and after that a bit of green stuff to fill in gaps, and usually includes putting down a layer of primer -- is a task in and of itself. Depending on the desired quality, the preparation can be a large task.

When assembling miniatures, often there must be assembly before priming: You don't want to do any drilling after you paint, nor do you want to put down a lot of green stuff.

What would be done is "pre-assembly": Getting the pieces ready for final assembly. How much you finish the assembly depends on the pieces, and on the final goal quality. For the highest quality, major pieces will be left un-assembled to ease painting. For ease of priming, having the pieces disassembled, and as much left on the sprue as possible can greatly save time, but that won't always work, depending on how much assembly is required. You don't want to prime until the pieces are trimmed and cleaned, and you don't want to prime until you know what color scheme (as least some idea or plan), as the prime color will be a part of that scheme.

You'll want to have the figure ready to be put on a base, but not attach it until the main painting is done. The base will usually get in the way of painting.

For the main painting, there are are lot of guides available, online, in magazines, and in books. As with other artistic endeavors, there is a technical part, which includes basic painting issues such as brush control and basic color theory, but also includes details which are specific to miniatures, such as knowing how to drybrush or do washes, or how to paint faces, armor, reflective surfaces, or gems, and specific techniques, such as attaching a figure to something, to make it easier to hold and more stable for painting; and there is an artistic part, which is more about finding an exciting composition (that works!) and having a good use of color, and light, and dark. (That is the hardest part for me.) If you are painting an army (which can grow to hundreds of individual figures), the composition will include not just single figures, but the entire army.

Lest that seem too daunting, the guides include simple steps for painting many figures, by which you can get through many figures in a relatively short time: Trim, clean, assemble, prime, then block out a few basic colors, then wash and drybrush for detail, and then add just a few necessary highlights, and you can have a painted figure fairly quickly. Of course, that works a lot better if you have good painting ability, so to work through the steps quickly and confidently.

You will probably get lots of good advice if you repost your question on one of the miniatures forums, say, games workshop, reaper miniatures, or privateer press. (There are lot more forums / web sites than that; those are just a couple to list them quickly.)

There are also a lot of videos showing speed painting, with results of varying quality. I found a couple, but you're better off doing a search and skimming a couple to find ones that provide the right balance of speed and quality.

Thx!

TomB