Why Are Custom Commissioned Props So Expensive?!

[MisterToyNYC]

Greetings:

Although this customizer is referring to props made for cosplayers, I think what he says about commissions applies to custom/kitbash 1/6 figures as well. Check it out.

Eric

 

[chubbyman]

100% agree, I don't think anyone would disagree that commissions and Hefty price tags goes hand in hand.

 

[Cheungkinmen]

Agreed indeed.

 

[subzro]

 

[robbiethepainter]

Yep.

___________

 

[Eli26]

You're talking to a guy who spent more on a SWS 1:1 Arnold bust to get a nice upgraded custom paint job than the bust itself. So I get it.

As an artist, I get it.

 

[Mr Walker]

I haven't seen any of this guys work, but the video... meh. You want to make a living off of it, that's fine. A whole 7 minute video as to why you are justifying the prices you charge? If you really want to justify your prices, show me product. At the end of the day, the only person who really has to justify the price is the buyer.

Does anyone have pics of this guys work? I'm not averse to spending money, but all I see here is talk. Guy's work might be great, don't get me wrong, but I'm not seeing anything bar supplies.

 

[sdabbs]

very good post Mistertoy! As a freelance artist I completely sympathise with him, I waste so much time giving out quotes to clueless individuals that expect the price an artist charges will be roughly be same price as it would be bought at a commercial outlet (if available) .

 

[Bullet]

I haven't seen any of this guys work, but the video... meh. You want to make a living off of it, that's fine. A whole 7 minute video as to why you are justifying the prices you charge? If you really want to justify your prices, show me product. At the end of the day, the only person who really has to justify the price is the buyer.

Does anyone have pics of this guys work? I'm not averse to spending money, but all I see here is talk. Guy's work might be great, don't get me wrong, but I'm not seeing anything bar supplies.

There are a good few pics scattered through the video of the work he's done look pretty good to me. Agree with the guy completely and I'm not an artist.

 

[MisterToyNYC]

I haven't seen any of this guys work, but the video... meh. You want to make a living off of it, that's fine. A whole 7 minute video as to why you are justifying the prices you charge? If you really want to justify your prices, show me product. At the end of the day, the only person who really has to justify the price is the buyer.

Does anyone have pics of this guys work? I'm not averse to spending money, but all I see here is talk. Guy's work might be great, don't get me wrong, but I'm not seeing anything bar supplies.

I see your point, but the way I see it what he's explaining, and the main reason I posted the, is everything that goes into making that commisioned, many times, one-of-a-kind item. He's not talking about any one particular piece of work that he's done. I feel that a lot of the things he hits on applies to what other customizers do to make their customs, regardless of whether it's their sole source of income or their hobby.

Eric

 

[DVDVampire]

I haven't seen any of this guys work, but the video... meh. You want to make a living off of it, that's fine. A whole 7 minute video as to why you are justifying the prices you charge? If you really want to justify your prices, show me product. At the end of the day, the only person who really has to justify the price is the buyer.

Does anyone have pics of this guys work? I'm not averse to spending money, but all I see here is talk. Guy's work might be great, don't get me wrong, but I'm not seeing anything bar supplies.

Agreed. He spends the majority of the video *****ing about making a living and paying bills (which I understand). I think time would've been better spent focusing on his work, the process (Design/Build/Proto, etc) in order to justify his prices.

I buy custom stuff all the time (kit form mostly) and then I spend extra dough to get it built, so I get the point of his video

 

[8-bit commando]

that's a great video - thanks for posting

 

[galactiboy]

Very good video, I think it's helpful not only for customers, but also those who are considering taking on commissioned work.

When I consider an asking price for work I think of the end quality I can achieve, a bit about the supply cost (which as a painter per head isn't too bad, but does add up) and most importantly the time. I work pretty quick so $50 for a head feels like fair compensation to me based on how much time I spend working. Compare that with the Darko fiasco where he was offering repaints for like $10 or $20; sounds good on paper, but with costs involved and time that would pay less than minimum wage. Not surprisingly the work ended up being poor and there were people who lost items.

Then when you talk about sculpting or fabricating that can take 10s of more hours it makes sense that you might be spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars... and even then the hourly rate probably might not be more than what you would make at a 9 to 5, but people just see the $$$ and forget it's research, planning, redoing work and toil that leads to the product.

Not to bet "that guy" and bring recasting into it... but I think this is one of the worse aspects of it, people like Q benefit from the hours and hours of another person's work. Resin is cheap, making a good mold is a skill (one I wish I had ) and has some cost, but if you can get 10 to 20 casts out of one it's a lot of profit with very little investment, time or costs. Once a mold is made the casts come out pretty fast, especially if you don't care about the quality.

So anyway, good video and hopefully both sides of the customizing equation can take something from it

 

[robbiethepainter]

Very good video, I think it's helpful not only for customers, but also those who are considering taking on commissioned work.

When I consider an asking price for work I think of the end quality I can achieve, a bit about the supply cost (which as a painter per head isn't too bad, but does add up) and most importantly the time. I work pretty quick so $50 for a head feels like fair compensation to me based on how much time I spend working. Compare that with the Darko fiasco where he was offering repaints for like $10 or $20; sounds good on paper, but with costs involved and time that would pay less than minimum wage. Not surprisingly the work ended up being poor and there were people who lost items.

Then when you talk about sculpting or fabricating that can take 10s of more hours it makes sense that you might be spending hundreds or even thousands of dollars... and even then the hourly rate probably might not be more than what you would make at a 9 to 5, but people just see the $$$ and forget it's research, planning, redoing work and toil that leads to the product.

Not to bet "that guy" and bring recasting into it... but I think this is one of the worse aspects of it, people like Q benefit from the hours and hours of another person's work. Resin is cheap, making a good mold is a skill (one I wish I had ) and has some cost, but if you can get 10 to 20 casts out of one it's a lot of profit with very little investment, time or costs. Once a mold is made the casts come out pretty fast, especially if you don't care about the quality.

So anyway, good video and hopefully both sides of the customizing equation can take something from it

That is one of the reasons I like accessories and tailoring. Its really hard to backwards engineer them so its less likely people will make knock offs.

 

[Raymond F.]

I'm at work so I'm not watching the video but I will later and speaking from the artists perspective:

I always feel a little guilty posting my work because I then get the sudden influx of requests for commission work, and I'm in the position of having to say no to people, many times people I like and would love to do work for and am honored they even asked. And it's not even that anyone's expecting to pay less than the going rate that the problem is it's just that the going rate is not enough. I work over 70 hours a week which leaves me little time for much else and the time I devote to this hobby I prefer it's enjoyed as opposed to turn it into yet another obligation.

I painted a head last week for my brother that took me about 10 hours. Granted I'm getting to the point where with a few more full paint ups it's at a level I deem respectable to stand among the Hot Toys, Silent Surfer's Josh Smalls etc. Not saying I'm as good as those guys by a mile but at least the sculpts can hang with them, it saves me money, it saves me from the months of waiting or not knowing if I can finish a custom due to not having a good paint job to go with it.

The thing is I'm sure a lot of the masters here are such pros that they can get it down to under 10 hours per head to pull something off like that, but I'm willing to bet it's still over half of that time most likely.

So say if the going rate was like a hundred dollars a head (and why would you want to pay that to me when you can pay a master like Nathan who does this for a living and does it way better than I could) that means I get 10 dollars an hour for doing the job. To put things in perspective, the rare time I get enough time to do a side project outside of my full time job as an art director for a fashion company, I charge 150-200 dollars an hour for art direction (design, strategy, branding, web etc)

A lot of that work is big-business driven work but I can honestly say that though I've worked my way up to justify a rate like that and I have experience backing me, but raw-talent wise, it's not nearly as hard to do all that work as it is to paint a doll head. So why would I want to do a run of like 20 heads? I might as well get a side job working at Mcdonalds.

The point of me babbling about all this is just for me to express my extreme admiration and support for the miricleworkers around here that put these things together. The RobbiethePainters, the iminimes, rainmans, serangs, katos, Trevor Groves, Silent Sufers, Josh Smalls, Kuatos, Sean Dabbs etc. etc. To me, the custom work I have in my collection is unfathomable in terms of the talent these guys posess first and foremost but second and important to remember is that the time that goes into this level of intricacy and detail is why the end result is so good. Make no mistake this is art pure and simple, it may be for a "toy" but this is years of education, invested time, money and most importantly god given talent speaking here.

And this is what you're paying for when you pay the prices you pay, IMO every penny, if not more should be justified, the question is weather the demand is there and if that justifies these artists taking on these projects for money.

I'm thankful there has been enough demand these last 6 years or so because I'm an adult and I've accepted that it seems I never kicked the habit or bizarre desire to want to possess little replicas of my favorite fictional characters. Because of these artists I have a lot of the characters in my collection that I never thought possible and executed to a level that I never thought was possible.

 

[galactiboy]

That is one of the reasons I like accessories and tailoring. Its really hard to backwards engineer them so its less likely people will make knock offs.

Yep, you can maybe pick apart an outfit to get the pattern... but still have to source materials, cut sew etc, so not really attractive to the "quick buck" types, same with the complicated accessories. Can't imagine anyone having much luck reproducing the briefcase you made

 

[robbiethepainter]

I'm at work so I'm not watching the video but I will later and speaking from the artists perspective:

I always feel a little guilty posting my work because I then get the sudden influx of requests for commission work, and I'm in the position of having to say no to people, many times people I like and would love to do work for and am honored they even asked. And it's not even that anyone's expecting to pay less than the going rate that the problem is it's just that the going rate is not enough. I work over 70 hours a week which leaves me little time for much else and the time I devote to this hobby I prefer it's enjoyed as opposed to turn it into yet another obligation.

I painted a head last week for my brother that took me about 10 hours. Granted I'm getting to the point where with a few more full paint ups it's at a level I deem respectable to stand among the Hot Toys, Silent Surfer's Josh Smalls etc. Not saying I'm as good as those guys by a mile but at least the sculpts can hang with them, it saves me money, it saves me from the months of waiting or not knowing if I can finish a custom due to not having a good paint job to go with it.

The thing is I'm sure a lot of the masters here are such pros that they can get it down to under 10 hours per head to pull something off like that, but I'm willing to bet it's still over half of that time most likely.

So say if the going rate was like a hundred dollars a head (and why would you want to pay that to me when you can pay a master like Nathan who does this for a living and does it way better than I could) that means I get 10 dollars an hour for doing the job. To put things in perspective, the rare time I get enough time to do a side project outside of my full time job as an art director for a fashion company, I charge 150-200 dollars an hour for art direction (design, strategy, branding, web etc)

A lot of that work is big-business driven work but I can honestly say that though I've worked my way up to justify a rate like that and I have experience backing me, but raw-talent wise, it's not nearly as hard to do all that work as it is to paint a doll head. So why would I want to do a run of like 20 heads? I might as well get a side job working at Mcdonalds.

The point of me babbling about all this is just for me to express my extreme admiration and support for the miricleworkers around here that put these things together. The RobbiethePainters, the iminimes, rainmans, serangs, katos, Trevor Groves, Silent Sufers, Josh Smalls, Kuatos, Sean Dabbs etc. etc. To me, the custom work I have in my collection is unfathomable in terms of the talent these guys posess first and foremost but second and important to remember is that the time that goes into this level of intricacy and detail is why the end result is so good. Make no mistake this is art pure and simple, it may be for a "toy" but this is years of education, invested time, money and most importantly god given talent speaking here.

And this is what you're paying for when you pay the prices you pay, IMO every penny, if not more should be justified, the question is weather the demand is there and if that justifies these artists taking on these projects for money.

I'm thankful there has been enough demand these last 6 years or so because I'm an adult and I've accepted that it seems I never kicked the habit or bizarre desire to want to possess little replicas of my favorite fictional characters. Because of these artists I have a lot of the characters in my collection that I never thought possible and executed to a level that I never thought was possible.

Exactly.

One of the things that I bring to the table that some may not is the ability to break everything down into a process. Just like the top painters on here, the technique is the trick. Once you get that figured out, doing runs is a little easier. Which is why I almost never do one offs. People ask from time to time, but there are few that would want to pay me for the time it would take to figure out. The production runs allow me to distribute the cost over several, but at the same time most of my stuff is still labor intensive so prices stay in the higher ranges. I too have a full time career that will always take presidence over my customs.

Ray sums it up pretty much spot on for me.

Yep, you can maybe pick apart an outfit to get the pattern... but still have to source materials, cut sew etc, so not really attractive to the "quick buck" types, same with the complicated accessories. Can't imagine anyone having much luck reproducing the briefcase you made

Funny, but the briefcases would be one of the easier pieces to reproduce because of the majority of it being cast. Still a pain in the *** though. There are some parts on there that you would have to know exactly the process before you could reproduce them. But if I can make it, then there is always some one out there that can do it too.