Old School here with some shots of a simple commission I completed for a client and some notes I have on commission painting. All of the models in the photo minus the one crisis suit without the white helmet were painted by me. Lately I have had a Tau bug and it doesn't seem to be going away. It's no mystery really, they were my first army and I really guess I never got over them. Let's take a look and take a little about commissions or at least my personal views on the basics of commission work.
Here is a shot of one of the prior commissions from a different artist (center), flanked by two of the models I painted. I was approached just before the holidays by the client via e-mail, who let me know he already had models painted by commission and he was not happy with them. Once he sent me a link to the "business" of the other painter, I could see why. Basically, the painter did not have a grasp of any form of the basics of painting, other than the idea that the paint goes on the model somehow.
I don't say that to be overly harsh, I am saying it because I find it offensive that somebody would take money from people in exchange for poor work. I don't believe that the client contacted them and said "I would really like a blue/grey scheme with plenty of brushstrokes in it please ... oh and can you use brown floor wax to dip my grey firewarriors into? I really dig brown shading on grey cloth."
The bottom line is that when you pay somebody to paint for you, there should be an understanding of the end result and what techniques will be used.
that isn't always the case and I have seen things like this before.Now while that all sounds negative, there is a lot to like about commissioning work and about performing commission work. As a customer, the client asked me to paint some tau, so I asked exactly what he was looking for. I asked a series of questions so I could gain an understanding of the end result he desired and also the technical look he desired. He wanted a very basic and clean paint job, without a lot of fancy techniques. Essentially, he wanted them to be painted for the table