Make Money Practicing Miniature Painting?
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- You want to get better at painting wargaming miniatures, but you don't want to practice on your miniatures, so you're stuck. Or are you? And can you even make money practicing?
I'm now a partner on Twitch! Painting minis and terrain every Friday morning and Monday night, and sometime taking paint breaks (video games). Follow me: / tabletopminions
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Chat, ask questions, and communicate with Atom
Facts about uncle atom:
He is not a pianist
He is not a mathetician
He is not an Uncle
He is not a board gamer
He is not "that guy"
I am not many things.
@@tabletopminions but you are very helpfull
If anyone has seen HeroClix, you know even a novice can do better with a chocolate bar. I think this is a great idea.
Lol, truth.
A chocolate bar? I thought he said a brussel sprout lol
A barn brush! And then they drop it on a dusty ,hair covered floor!
HeroClix are hampered by cheap modelling and cheap painting
@@Slenkamure A lot of the modern modeling is quite good, but you're dead on about the cheap painting.
I’ve been painting for 5-6 months now and I can agree with this, a buddy of mine got me a starter set for warhammer 40k for Christmas and I wanted to paint them but was scared of messing them up so I watched a lot of tutorials and bought some cheap wiz kids DnD minis. Wiz kid minis can be bought for about $5 at a game store and generally come with two minis, luckily one of my friends is also a DM who has a lot of TT games that have minis and after seeing how my minis looked he asked me to paint on his minis, after painting 30-40 DnD minis and 20 minis for a dark souls game I finally started painting my space marines and like how they have come out, also my friends are lining up for me to paint their minis too which makes me feel really good about my own quality of painting.
Well now I wish I had friends.
I was like u than i raised 5 Son's Now i run the Games & They Have No Choice With Pandemic Goin On Even Though They Act Like They Enjoy It Specially When i let them win lol Table of Ultimate Gaming & 10 Armies of over 4,000pts Does Help Alot And Getting Them Excited About It 😆
Hi Atom and thanks for another excellent video. An extra big bonus for someone like ME that keeps procrastinating, is that learning on someone else's models sends a message to ME, that I need to get their models finished, so a sense of urgency means I (ME) get my finger out and do something, great idea Atom and I'm serious... many thanks
Hm. I recently started the hobby after 25 year hiatus (I did model building as a kid). I thought choosing Zombicide at the start was a good idea... Wrong. Just over 2 years on an I am just finishing (not finished yet). Next week I will be done, and I followed Sorastro's guide. This was way too much to chew on for a beginner. Batch painting is a nightmare for a beginner struggling with motivation. The only reason I got this far is because of COVID. There is a strong chance I may have even quit the project if COVID never hit.
The problem with large batch painting is that you don't have any milestones to celebrate. It's just hours and hours and weeks and weeks of base coating.
You literally got me looking for deals on Zombicide at 3 am.
Same. 🤣
I found and bought a Zombicide set that included the core set, Toxic City Mall and Prison Outbreak on ebay a month ago. Great game, and really looking forward to practicing/experimenting on those minis...
This is a brilliant idea. When I first started painting for others, I traded my work for supplies - "hook me up with some paints and brushes so I can paint these for you". When the job was done, I still had the brushes and most of the paint - for my own use or to do work for others for some other compensation (minis, chow, or filthy lucre).
Can confirm this is a good idea. I started doing this back in 2014 when I first started playing 40k. It only took about a year or two before I was able to buy and play an army and get most of the money I spent back. These days I could probably make decent side money off of it, but I just don't have the time to paint other peoples models and my own. Now I never pay to play any tabletop games, I just roll one complete well painted army into another new army.
If I kickstarted a Piano I'd let Atom play it....
Sometimes you just got to jump into the deep end. I was terrified when I started painting my Blood Bowl 7s 2ed Skavens, figures that I consider the best blood bowl figures ever. In the end they turned out really cool and I am really happy with them. It took a long time, I was extra-careful, I will never win a best painted prize with them but I proud to have done it. Anything is better than Grey plastic and it is only paint. You can strip or reprime it. Unless you are buying a 100 $ kit, the models being expensives is not a valid excuse, if you are using this excuse, just do not buy expensive models, buy Reaper Bones....Paint bravely!
get them to pay for the paints maybe, to help expand your paint collection while you're at it
This I think would be a happy middle ground.
That’s a very good idea. Thanks for watching!
This speaks to me. I'm not a war gamer. I'm a board gamer who has a ton of mini's to paint. I got tired of the gray so started teaching myself to paint about a year ago. I use Shadows of Brimstone to practice and eventually I'll get to the level of being comfortable painting my Kingdom Death Monster (at least that's what I tell myself).
That was a great video & an inspired idea for a topic. Kudos Uncle Atom!
How do you know uncle Atom is from Wi? "I'll paint your models for... ummm.. Beer"
When I started there was a company called Scrubby miniatures. Those figures were great to learn on. There was so little detail on them that you could paint them anyway you wanted. They were also very cheap.
I actually only play boardgames and paint the minis in them. Your channel has been instrumental in my start to painting! I'm not really at the level where I could paint for friends consistently, but perhaps here or there for sure.
Dear Uncle Atom (I never had a real uncle, so I decided that you are it now :D )
I'm always astounded that you still have good, pertinent advice after so many years. Thank you and good work.
Nice video thank you. I started buying 40K starter sets, painting them, selling them and repeating until I got to a standard I'm happy with for exactly this reason. Even basic painted models made me a small profit on eBay which I could use to buy more models and paints.
I started painting my 3d printed models for my friends and i pathfinder game, im new to painting miniatures and painting period, but i was pleasantly surprised with how well my first few paint jobs came out and knowing that it was just my first time and learning techniques and trying to better myself gets me really excited to keep trying and practicing
haha how long have you been keeping that "bored gamer" line in your back pocket?
I don't hobby but I really enjoy watching Uncle Atom's videos. I've been doing amature graphic design since I was in college. I never charged my friends. But after years of getting practice, I finally asked a friend to buy me a decent wireless mouse as payment for graphic design services for their restaurant. :)
A friend of mine gave me all his classic ral partha and grenadier minis since he doesn't use minis anymore. He gave me a set of classic dnd minis like Elminster, Driitz, and characters from Dragonlance from the 80s. I found the old X-Men board game that came with gorgeous figures
Currently painting my way through Battle System's "Core Space" - a fantastic board game that comes with some great scifi minis.
Fantastic compared to what?
@@brandonbrouillette308 it gets an 8.9 on board game geek, so compared to a lot of other board games.
Interesting topic. Personally, I don't like to paint for money. Insane, I know, but I do this hobby because I love it. Not because I have some vague notion of turning a profit somewhere down the line. I do it first for me. Then if somebody likes what I have done and is inspired to do something similar, that is worth more to me than some money I'll likely blow on some momentary whim.
I can see the benefits of financing some of your hobby this way, but it can lead to some negative outcomes. Like your hobby feeling like a job you dread going to, which is something to avoid at all costs.
Still though, if you feel you can do this without draining your love for the hobby, and make money doing it, more power to you! It's just something I do only very rarely and selectively.
Thanks for the video Atom, and for the always thought-provoking topics!
Darkest Dungeons on Kickstarter - 300 awesome minis for $600
Mechs vs Minions - 100 similar minis for $100.
That's how I'm getting my feet wet. Thanks Atom
I learned tons by taking on an army commission for a friend. I had to learn to be much faster to get it done in a reasonable amount of time, as well as learning to work with new materials that I wouldn't have had any reason to try out.
You always make me think when I listen to your cast. Today it is, if you promise to paint your mates figures, make sure you have a time table and the job is not too big. He/she is going to want to play with them at some point. Also, having done a decent job on the Zombies you may find they want you to paint the characters. So beware, some one else's mini's means commitment.
Hehe, this is the exact opposite advice that Miniac and Vince Venturella give. Now, who to believe? The answer is of course, it depends.
I am a boardgamer, almost all my miniatures I paint are from games like the ones you mentioned. Funny enough 3 years ago I started miniature painting because of YOUR channel.
I literally bought my first Boardgame with miniatures, because of your channel :) It was the Magic the Gathering boardgame, which is crazy cheap, like 50 minautres for 20€. The Quality of the minis is accordingly bad to ok-ish. But if you have no idea if this hobby is for you, it's the ideal game, sometimes you can find it for 10€ or less, crazy cheap for what you get, because its a good game as well
I’m more of a board gamer than a wargamer and have recently discovered the great world of selling painted board games on eBay. Someone paid £250 for my Zombicide Green Horde so now I’m backing kickstarters purely to paint and sell them
Me: I need models to paint
Also me: has soul wars and hasnt painted the stormcasts because I just wanted the nighthaunts
Great video as always, I just finished painting up my core Zombicide box. Makes the game so much more immersive (for me)
I know several really good painters that get models for painting. Their friends buy something like the indominus box and give the painters one of the armies for the paint jobs. Can't think of a better deal and I hope someday I get good enough to do deals like that!
I have watched several videos warning that often painters can get burnt out on doing this kind of work all the time and 90% of the time you should just work on whatever you are passionate about at the time.
Wish I had board game playing friends so I could paint their minis!😬
I did it when I started, it works, do it. Also boardgames are cool, play them. Personally I painted mice and mystics and for a friend I painted New Angeles (you can find it really cheap now and as awesome miniature)
As a person who started as a board gamer, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't let someone practice on the minis for my games, they aren't cheap. Instead, I stared with a few pre-primed DnD figures (just a few bucks each) so I could practice painting different materials, colors, shapes, skins. I've still got a few to try color combos. I've given a few away to friends, and then they later asked me to paint the rest of their minis which I did and made a bit of money, at least to cover the paints which I then kept.
I've been painting up my minis from the D&D Adventure Boardgames, which we also used in our roleplaying sessions (once upon a time when people actually played around a table.) RPG players are a good source of minis too, since many want a model of their character but don't necessarily have the painting tools or confidence to paint them up themselves. They'll probably expect a higher finished quality though.
I painted up the gloomhaven minis for my cousin and i have to say i did not enjoy it and the detail was softish so it took a lot more work to get a decent result.
Same!! I painted some of my gloomhaven miniatures and they are my first to start with the hobby and I look forward to painting other minis
The key is using glazes/inks to really bring out the deeper parts.
I painted the four Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion models on stream, and three of them were great. Thanks for watching!
@@Rakaziel I think I'm doing a really good job. I'm enjoying the hobby but I am very excited to paint bigger miniatures
Is a person who found your channel because I'm a board gamer who wanted to try painting my miniatures I agree wholeheartedly with this video. I painted some things and I want to paint more but it is all around table top games not miniature games for me personally. Wonderful video as usual.
I painted a bunch of crappy models from wherever when I was broke... and it actually takes MORE effort to make them look good once you pass a certain basic skill level.
These days my motto is that life is too short to be wasted painting bad models.
But if you're going to do what's suggested here, get your friends to pay for the paints, glue etc. consumables. They pay for the materials, you do the work and get to keep the leftovers. Sounds about fair?
It worked for me. I had a friend buy me an entire set of Vallejo Game Color and a fistful of brushes.
This is exactly what I do. I found that warhammer was expensive and I could buy an entire game for the cost of 2 GW boxes. My latest video I actually had a go at wet blending for the first time and I did it on a large mini so I had more surface area to practice on (hill giantess from blood rage).
Great video, you give lots of good advice and I'm trying better to not be 'that guy' I was glad to be able to recognize it and I'm work at being a better sport and not just focus on the win at all costs.
Keep up the fantastic content.
thats the funny part. I actually got into miniature Painting through the boardgame "Mythic Battles of Pantheon". I´m mostly a D&D Player and did a lot of Miniatures for that. But my main source of miniatures are boardgames :D
I considered doing this for Renegade's 'Power Ranger: Heroes of the Grid'. They are slightly larger scale board game miniatures and the bulk are minion/grunt types. For every one unique character, you could do 5 to 10 Putty Patrollers.
Or you have a 3d printer and print models to practice… recently I paint bust like hulk, spiderman, Batman etc only to practice with oil paints and blending… the kids are happy to have the minis in their room after I painted them, they even willing to try painting
not gonna lie dude I would watch your videos to sleep. best voice ever
I need to get better at asking for a tip when I paint for friends :) Good video
Exactly why I ordered a bunch of clearance Dust Tactics models last week. Nice sculpts, fun to paint, and they come primed!
Hey uncle Atom! Great video as always! I was wondering if you have ever heard of, or considered talking about Oathmark? It's by Joseph A. McCullough, who made Rangers of Shadowdeep and Frostgrave. I know you usually don't prefer the Rank & Flank big battle games, but I feel the narrative elements would be much appreciated by you, and i also feel like that game just needs some exposure. Thanks for reading, keep making great videos!
Love the video it has some maret in it. For practice as a dad I allow my kids to pick fantasy minis and paint them for them. This has caused my oldest (9yo) to also become interested in painting. Now I get practice and bonding time. Double win.
Lol, this is what my game plan was. Good to have it confirmed.
I have the KS version of Siege of the Citadel and painting the minis in that box taught me a lot. I have the second wave of minis from it coming "hopefully" in December, but likely sometime next year. Doing the armor on some of the heroes showed me what works and what really doesn't work so I could finally be comfortable painting my Stormcast Eternals.
Take a look at the figs in board games like Nemesis or Tainted Grail, quality is pretty darn good.
I know this is a old video, but I thought I’d toss the idea out and backup what he said. I bought a bag of $20 BMC plastic Army men, and I am practicing basic techniques on them. My plan is to give them to my little nephew when they are done.
So practice and giving a gift!
Etsy and especially eBay are also good places to sell any minis you paint but don’t want to keep. It’s quite easy to make a decent profit but keep it affordable enough for others to buy even if you’re not a pro-level painter yet (though I can only speak for RPG minis, which are generally cheaper than warhammer)
finally someone mentions using those plastic army men to practice. I use them as test models a box of several hundred was like 8$. I got a set that is 4 nations WWII soldiers so you get enough variety to practice to your hearts content
I just finished painting 250+ minis for Ares Games "War Of The Ring".
Cool. How's your neck and shoulders?
@@simbobcrafts4843 LOL all fine,it took about 3 months to do them all.I only get about 3 to 4 hours a week to paint.
@@bigmull Same here. Trainee teacher and have no where near enough time. Plus a lot of any free time during the week im just too tired
If you're just starting out in this hobby, take your time. Don't get discouraged when you make mistakes. Watch tutorial videos for tips and tricks. Keep at it and I guarantee you will become a better painter. I've been doing it for a couple years and I'm still learning.
Before buying D&D minis and even getting a 3d printer for minis, I started with painted my dungeon crawler miniature board games. This is great advice. Plus no one cares if your board game models suck, most people won't know you even painted them
did some commission stuff myself. I mainly paint board games.
Very interesting vid. Have to admit it never occurred to me to paint board game pieces. I wonder how many other painters overlook this?
And if you do not have a board game friend with board game miniatures to practice on you can always buy Journeys in Middle-earth, get some miniatures and a great game. ;)
Buy some Wrath of Kings boxes from Miniature market. They’re on an extreme discount right now
Thanks for the heads up. I just treated my self to a bunch of discount minis to practice on.
The D&D board games are awesome for beginners to start on, and also the games are fun with easy to understand directions . Right before covid hit my nephew who is 8 and my niece who is 5 came for a visit and played several games of Ravenloft with me and loved it. I barely had to tweak the rules at all for them ( I mainly just let them pick a mini from my collection and let them proxy it for one of the adventurers). Anyhow you get over 40 models for $60 USD or cheaper and they take paint well. The only problem I have with painting stuff like army men or something is they may not be designed from a plastic that takes paint well which may discourage first timers.
I also use craft paint almost exclusively and for the life of me can't understand all the shit it gets, especially for beginners who are just starting out. I realize some tend to leave a chalky look but that can be cured by applying a very light coat of a metallic color that's close to the problem paint. I also know some colors really don't take to models well ( mostly metallic paints or some lighter flesh tones I've found) but that true with some of the pro paints as well.
Back to the subject I lucked out big time when starting painting because my younger brother had gotten both HeroQuest and BattleMasters when we were mere runts for Christmas or his birthday or something. He's a very talented artist ( even became a prof at a very prestigious art college), but he didn't want to paint them so he let me which gave me a load of practice , I think I had spent almost more time painting than playing the game lol. He lost a lot of the pieces over the years but gave me what was left.
You know, the other thing I thought of was my early days. I was using enamels and my first learning curve was not painting the figure itself. It was paint separation and the longer the paint stood on the shelf the harder you had to shake it. At 14 it took me a while to work that one out.
My fist time painting was a wild ride, that poor storm trooper looked like a snowman on my first primer run and I had to start over but I didn’t stop and I think he came out ok all things considered and now I’m vary happy with my painting skill
I love your videos and I think you have such a great voice. You should read audio books.
What do you think about selling painted miniatures...?
Maybe not painting as a service, like commissioned painting.... but for example, making up some units for popular games, painting them, and them trying to showcase them in videos and sell them? Maybe sell painted complete Kill Teams, or... ?
You basically have to sell a complete team/army whatever. Even if your work is great, people will be reluctant to buy something that doesn't look like the rest of their force - either because the appearance is different, or sometimes even just the comparative quality. But people are more likely to buy a well-painted Blood Bowl team, or Kill Team, or Necromunda Gang or whatever. I've done so before, and I've sold teams as well. But unless you're doing high quality show pieces, that's the only way to get more for them than you would if they were unpainted.
@@HeadHunterSix , yes... I was definitely thinking of selling complete painted Kill Team rosters... or compete groups from other "skirmish" type games like Warcry, Infinity, or... I would only really be buying/painting things I wouldn't mind having in my own collection shluld they not sell.
Such great ideas, thanks for another awesome upload!
Painting my big bros boardgames is really fun. I painted our gloomhaven minis, boardgames have unique models and is a great way to experiment with themes and colours.
Next time in a video maybee you should say after some experience and you get decent at it, you might be able to charge enough to be able to cover the cost of the paint used on the models. Sometimes that is enough considering the price of paints these days. Keep up the good videos.
I'm working on thugs and ninjas from my TMNT double gateway game ;)
Board games are the best way to practice.
I almost became a Wargamer.
But the story is this:
In AoS, if I buy only the rulebooks with that money, I could buy Blood Rage. I doo the math and I said, F you GW and I have invented to board games.
Best choice of my life.
But now I have a lot of stuff to paint xD
Never divided anything by beer before. I might give that a try... :D
when I started painting I was given the advice to go to the dollar store and get some super cheap and small dinosaurs and army men and such and it was super helpful and cheap
When I got back to miniature painting after some years of pause, me and my friends had some board games with miniatures. Everyone was happy to let me and my wife paint them. It was very good practice for the wargame models (mostly warhammer) that came later.
Been thinking about this topic very much latelyI I've done the paint for a friend and I've painted three set's of Zombicide miniatures, and a few other boardgames. Maybe it's time to take the plunge into Fivver?
Another idea: paint your kids’ models. I’m in a sort of Homer-buys-Marge-a-bowling-ball kind of situation where, I’ve gotten my kids their own armies, and they chose their paint schemes (from my suggestions) and I’ve done the priming and basecoating (you know, to ensure all the details are there) and they get to paint the “easy bits” (usually just black and all the metallics) and I come back in and clean it all up. In the end, if I weren’t so slow and meticulous myself, they have an army for 40K/KillTeam.
Now you need to buy your wife that army you know she'd want you to have for her!
Good old green army men FTW lol 😂👌
It's 3 AM so I have to watch this tomorrow but I'm very interested
@ 4:24 that just reminded me of the way my gaming buddy made his Orcs back in the WHFB 4th edition ( if the memory serves) he had a mini...and a bucket of green paint... and I'm pretty sure The Army Painter guys stole the "technique" of dipping models from him:-)
Etsy is a good place to source cheaper models to paint for practice and/or for miniature agnostic games.
I started in the hobby from d&d and buying board games like massive darkness and zombicide black plague for the minis. Now GW takes all my money :D
This is exactly the way I started, but it was with Heroquest minis. Good times.
Great stuff friend 👏 👍
My friend always tells me to start a fiver and charge for painting. I paint his minis for him. I just dont see the point in charging for something thats easy to learn.
Side note: He has paid me, gave me all his paints and brushes plus some food.
That‘s what i did with my brothers HeroQuest. Back in the 90‘s...
I plan to become an advanced painter.
But not for money purposes.
Note: If you are going to be painting boardgame miniatures, be sure to maintain a difference between factions. Boardgame players prefer clear definitions between their pieces and the opposition's. It can be tempting to paint them all in "realistic" schemes, but think of your wargaming armies/units and making them clearly visible (wysiwyg etc.) on the table. Keep something red/black/blue/white/etc. on the red/black/blue/white/etc. player's pieces, and make that visible at a distance.
I used coloured rubber bases to tell the different Factions in War Of The Ring by Ares GAmes.
I dont play the games at all. Just enjoy painting. So I often consider making an Ebay shop and just selling the finished minis.
thank you uncle
Ebay in the uk seems to be terrible for finding any cheap miniatures
I'll paint your models for... beer! XD
The board game industry has exploded in the past few years. I was away from the miniature painting hobby for about 12 years and what brought me back into it was one of my friends asking me to paint his Arcadia Quest miniatures for him.
Hey Uncle Atom - who’s the band that does the music for your shirt and hat ads?
I've been painting minis live in my Twitch channel, never thought of selling them.
Interesting idea
"Brussle... Brussle? Bristle!"
Hey Uncle Atom , did you see my latest Nurgle stuff?
What paints would you recommend?
Asking my friends to paint their miniatures, what I then fear is that I don't want to "disappoint" them. I don't want to stand before them, "here, thes minis turned out looking like shit, but at least I learned something, right?"
Brussel sprouts O_o?