Paintedfigs.com now offering Dipping

Paintedfigs.com are now offering a dipping service and are having a contest with a Battle of Skull Pass set for the winner.

From their announcement:

A small contest: can you guess which, and how many, of these six minis have been dipped, and which haven’t? Guess right and there’s something in it for you (see end of article).

As you may have just realized, we’re now offering dipped miniature painting, which come in at half the cost of our standard painting rates. Painting starts as low as 99 cents per figure. You can check out our dipped pricing here on our prices page: http://www.paintedfigs.com/prices.html

One of our clients asked us to look into dipping as a way of offering painted Wargames Factory historicals at low rates. Assemble, basecoat, dip in Army Painter or Minwax, treat with matte varnish, and voila. In our search for the 99 cent Roman, we found first that we could do night goblins, gretchin and gnoblars for 99 cents, and most other infantry for $1.65.

GameCon: Memphis

I am back from GameCon: Memphis. It was my first time at this con. It was nice, heavy on boardgames.

FOW pre-paints

Flames of War is probably the fastest growing miniature game out right now. It really stuck a chord with gamers as an easy "historical" game.

The only problem for alot of people is the scale. Most gamers are used to 25mm or so. FOW is 15mm. Small, detailed guys that are hard to paint. Some guys get around it by just playing armor.

Alot of painting services have started doing the system. I think I paid around $1.25 per figure to get mine done. Now I have seen them as low as $2 a stand.

A few companies have started painting ready to go forces and selling them. Once such service is GAJO.

I fisrt heard of him when he bought another painting service that specialized in WWII stuff.

Looking at his pricing, he is charging $2.50 for Battlefront figures and $1.50 for other companies.

They look nice, but you can get the same quality for less.

Space Hulk

Played it last night, loved it. The minis are fantastic, but I have no use for a squad of Blood Angel terminators.



Im going to have to get a shitload of bits together to cover over the stupid blood drops. Whoever gets the this commision will probably need some green stuff expertise.

Something like this:
http://www.coolminiornot.com/231743

ECW Commission done

I got my final pics from igwarg minis

My most expensive commission to date at $7 a piece, but I like it. I think Im going to get him to do my Romans.

GW Painting Scores

Bell of Lost Souls posted an interesting article yesterday. Do soft scores belong in 40k tournaments? I wanted to comment on that. I will struggle to not editorialize on GW tournaments and stick to the subject.

One of the "soft scores" is painting.

Does it belong in scoring? I have to say since GW promotes a "hobby" and not a game, yes. I find their notion of a "hobby" stupid, however. You are not allowed to use other companies minis, bits or even paint. It should be called, "the GW way of life". Thou shall have no other companies before me.

I told you it would be a struggle.

Do the players think it belongs? That seems to be a different story. More and more people just want to play the game and not fool with the hassle of painting. In the last tournament I played in about 2-3 armies were completely painted, counting mine. Some had no painted figures at all.

With GW slowing backing out of the tournament scene its going to be left up to the indys. Right now they are still towing the old party line but with enough pressure that could change.

More and more people are doing the same thing I do, paying others. You are even seeing this at the Golden Demon level. Why people would pay hundreds for paintjob just to win an award is beyond me.

I think in the future things will change. I really see GW doing pre-paints sooner or later. Many companies are already offering them.

thewarstore pre-paints

thewarstore.net has offered a small selection of pre-paints for awhile now

http://www.thewarstore.com/PAINTEDMiniatures.html

Looking at the GW section they have a nice selection and have all you need for starting out. The price is really good. For $50 you get a painted tac squad. I pay that much plus I have to buy the models.

The uncharted seas stuff is reasonable too. I wish I had just bought mine painted like this.

The Privateer Press stuff is expensive, but so are the models.

I used to have the webpage of the company that supplies these, if I find it I will post it later.

Its a good idea and good quality but my only problem is you cant request anything. You can only buy up to a point then its up to you to match the paintjob.

However there are whispers in winds:

I'n the next couple months we should have some new & exciting hotness in the way of painted stuff... Stay tuned!!!

(And if this stuff works out, expect to see a LOT more variety in our pre-painted products going in to 2010)

- from thewarstore forum

Cromwell

My ECW Parliamentarians are almost done. I got this example photo from
http://igwargminis.com/



They look good. This was an expensive commission, probably my most expensive to date, at $7 a figure.

render unto caesar

Wargames factory had a great sale the other day. $9.99 for a box of Caesars legions.

So, naturally I picked up 3 after another local guy did. Our interest? Fields of Glory.


Box includes:
48 multi-part hard plastic figures
3 Centurions
3 Optios
3 Signifers
3 Cornicens
12 Standing Legionaries
12 Stabbing Legionaries
12 Throwing Legionaries
48 full-color rub-on shield transfers!

So thats 144 Romans I have en route.

I want to try for about 7 BGs of legionaries.

4 bases each BG

4 troops on each base.

= 112 figures

Depending on the job I may go with the guy doing my ECW stuff to do them, it would run about $7 a figure. With that many though, I think I would rather look for $5.

Battle Colours selling Sphere Wars and Alkemy painted sets

Battle Colours will soon be taking orders for painted Sphere Wars and Alkemy miniatures.

From their announcement:

Battle Colours have recently teamed up with the wonderful Tor Gaming company with a view to allowing gamers a chance to obtain miniatures for two fantastic fantasy skirmish games – painted.

The first will be the very new Sphere Wars miniatures. This game is in it’s infancy and we shall be able to give you the opportunity to purchase the miniatures painted by us here in the studio.

The second being the renowned Alkemy gaming miniatures from Kraken, again available through Tor Gaming or through us, and we will be offering these superb miniatures painted!

Painting orders can be taken from Saturday, 12th September 2009. Contact Battle Colours via their website www.battlecolours.com or by email battlecolours@blueyonder.co.uk

Sucks that its UK< but both games are more popular over there. I'm telling you quality pre-paints are the wave of the future! One day painting/converting will just be seen as "quaint".

The Great Battletech Project

My largest pile of unpainted lead is made up of Battletech mechs.
http://www.classicbattletech.com/

I aim to get all of these painted. This will be a project that will probably take 6 months at least as they number about 100.

Primarily they are inner sphere mechs, that I wanted painted like this:
http://www.camospecs.com/Unit.asp?ID=29
Primarily green, boltgun and yellow.

I feel like the scheme is easy and that the mechs are not that detailed. I will auto-reject any bids in the $10 each range.

I will get them done in lances. 2-3 at a time.

I am debating on doing half of them as Draconis Combine.

Yesterday my slide transfers from Fighting Pirannha Graphics arrived.

I will probably look for a service first of next week.

Better Update

That last one was from my phone, where I had spotty service. I was in North Carolina over the weekend. I was whitewater rafting for the most part but did manage to get in some fly fishing. I thought my tens of readers might be worried about my lack of updates. =)

I highly recomend noc.com for all your appalachian needs.

See all the fun things you have time to do when you dont paint? =)

I am here: noc.com

Pre-painted historicals

This is an interesting trend that has started recently.

Traditionaly historical gamers are a bit hidebound. They would never dream of fielding an unpainted miniature, much less one painted by someone else. I guess there is a new generation of historical gamers.

Old Glory started it all.


I do not own any, yet, but they appear to be of good quality, painted well. They only problem is with the Old Glory sculpts themselves. They arent the best you can buy in historicals, not that they are bad, just not the best you could get.

Old Glory choose specificly the most tedious army items for pre-paints, the line infantry. This way you could fill out your army quickly and detail your special units.

They are a good value too. Looking at these Union Soldiers you get 20 of them for $70, thats $3.50 a piece, thats really good considering that includes the cost of the miniature. They can be even cheaper with Old Glory's Army. You get 40% off that way.

They are great for skirmish gaming or Warhammer Ancients

Incoming!

So BFG has kicked off in my area. (I got a call) I have had a small imperial fleet for a while, but I think I put together 2-4 them wrong and they have most of the antenna broken off in storage, plus I painted them.





So.. a quick trip to bartertown netted me:

$50 shipped for the Chaos.

12 Imperial Cruisers, painted to a good standard
•27 Imperial Starhawk Bombers, primed and based

plus this tau fleet:

1 Explorer Class
•1 Merchant Class starship
•2 Hero Class Starship
•6 Defender Class Escorts
•4 Messenger Class Starship
•4 OOP Nicassar Dhows Escorts

I also have a marine fleet, with a battlebarge and 2 strike cruisers that I will need painted.

20mm Moderns

I got a message from the guy doing my 20mm moderns. He sent pictures:

They have not been sealed, waiting my approval. I like the figures, the paintjob and the price.

They were done by a new painting service, Dictator Games
http://www.dictatorgames.webs.com/

He was unable to meet the origianl deadline so gave me a nice discount.

AT-43

As you can imagine, for someone who pays others to paint, pre-painted minis are a godsend. It all started with CMGs, but AT-43 is the current king.

Ive been into this game since launch. The company has had its problems, but lets talk paint job.

"Good for pre-paints" doesnt do this line justice. They are painted really well. The lines are clean and the armor is detailed with camo and battle damage. The vehicles and armored suits are absolutely perfect. The only thing is, the faces of the infantry are not detailed. They are highlighted but have no eyeballs or anything.

Lets be honest, most people cannot paint at this level. Most armies you see on the table are unpainted, half painted or look like shit. Every club has 2-3 painting masters, past that it doesnt hit the AT-43 level often.