eBay painting

A little while ago I thought I would take a leaf out of a friends book and buy some ready painted units off eBay. I bought two units, one of horse and an infantry regiment. I did this to fill the ranks of an army I was building.

The horse unit had obviously been painted with care and was part of someone’s collection. The infantry one had obviously not, it had been quickly painted for sale on eBay. The photos were mid shots, so no real detail could be seen. The real give away was ‘do you want to buy another’ that came up when I was trying to take another look at them. Oh no I thought that’s not a good sign.

Quite respectable cavalry unit, 

A bit of a slap dash paint job and what I would call a basic wargames standard with the paint daubed on . Buying the lead horsemen was better because the figures themselves are worth something, however, these plastic guys have been put together quickly without much thought. So as it stands you have to put up with someone’s choice of posing as well as their rushed paint work.

The red hats are a very odd choice and shows little to no research was do before setting up this little venture.

Also brass hilted swords show there was no research.

I had gone down this route thinking it might save me some time, but in fairness I couldn’t field these as they are. So I’m going to tweak them and bring them up to fighting standard. In a good way it’s forced me to paint up a couple of new units I wouldn’t have… so that’s a plus.

 Also, metal figures are always a good buy for the right price. It might have been the paint that allowed me to get them for as cheap as I did who knows. Luckily they came off there bases easily and I’ve tweaked half of them already.

I think if you want good quality painted figures you have to pay a lot of money. There are lots of professional painters selling on eBay but they are not cheap, so a nice looking unit will set you back £80 plus. I paid £35 for my infantry unit which I thought was good, however I’ll have to repaint it to a better standard. It may have saved me a bit of time painting the tunic and hoses but not a lot.

I think going forward I will stick to unpainted models where I can paint from scratch as I haven’t really got the kind of cash for beautiful finished units ready to game with.

It was an experiment but one I’ve learned from. Don’t pay extra for someone’s quick painting, put the money into a new box of figures where you will get more for your buck.