Me thinks I did Jim.
Industrial quantities indeed..

Henk

Ohh, by the way, I hope your mossiebites are getting better...

nuff' said - DO NOT enter one in a serious competition or you could be banned. Collecting is fine

I think I've got to side with Vinnie on the cost of made kits. I would consider $200 (whats that £130?) pretty cheap if it was of any quality. If you were to buy a collectors piece from a shop it would cost a lot more than this (not that I ever would, it's just not for me, although I can see they would appeal). The big problem as an "amateur" trying to sell stuff no matter how good it is, is convincing people who you may know that your time is valuable enough to charge for! Many years ago I was prevailed upon to sell a piece to a friend of my father, when he asked how much I thought a bit & said £30. He paid up, but I got the distinct impression he thought he was being ripped off, so I never did it again. At the time, the figure had cost me about £7.50 as a kit, so you can guess what my hourly rate worked out to, £1 - 2 an hour, so really I was giving it away! A similar figure from my employer at the time was about £60. The "pro" painters were young women who had been trained, but had no interest in what they were painting. Having worked in the industry, I can see why assembled & painted pieces cost what they do, & I can vouch for the fact that the cost of materials is a very small part of the cost, maybe only 10% or less. That's why manufacturers like kits - no expensive finishing work!
It seems that if you want to sell assembled & painted models for a living, you need to have a "name". This is acquired by exhibiting your work in competitions, & winning them! A "toy soldier" shopkeeper I spoke to told me that all his painters were competition winners, he wasn't interested in taking people on to train them, & I doubt if he could accurately judge your ability by looking at your work, he just wanted the bits of paper. Sorry guys it's just another fact of life.
As regards the finished kits for sale at a show 3 for $10, thats about the going rate for a kit that was competently assembled, with what I would call a "naive" paint job (ie a clean job, but with no weathering or washes). There was a small model shop set up near me some years ago (unfortunately he didn't last long, although I did patronise his shop), who also dealt in finished kits, he was asking about £1 - 2 for them.

Hey there!!

Heavy hit it on the spot; most look like crap. There are exceptions tho. I do the eBay "thing" a lot (searching for specific things, but when I'm bored, I look at the postings for Armor and Land) and have seen a lot there.

Here's my gripe about the "PRO BUILT" models : HOW THE CAN YOU CALL IT "PRO BUILT" IF IT HASN'T EVEN HAD THE MG BARREL DRILLED?!?!?!?????

I was "bored" tonight and found several "Pro Built" models on eBay. There were WWII amphibs. . they didn't even look painted, except for the basics; the tires (Jeep) or roadwheels (amphibs) and these were all from the same seller. The Jeep (one pic showed the engine compartment) looked like, in Heavy's words; "CRAP." , the engine was ALL green!!!! PLASTIC GREEN no less!!!! And NO other paint.

There is one guy/gal? out of Hong Kong, I think; now his/her models make me jealous! They really are nice....but he/she is the EXCEPTION to the rule.

Ultimately, if you do buy, ask for additional pics....a good and honest seller will gladly send you additional pics.


Gino, will you scratch my TacFire Shelter???

Mike

Maybe, If you are serious, send me some pics or drawings and I will see what I can do.

One drawback to commissioned projects is they can very quickly suck the joy out of the hobby. You can find yourself spending what little free time you've got on a kit you're not particularly interested in. It becomes more like work than a hobby!

The Ebay market for built kits has fairly crashed in the past couple years. Back in 2001-02, it was very much worthwhile to buy Tigers, Ferdinands, Pz 3's and build OTB for Auction. Now...it like others have stated, you'd be working for $5/hr. My spare time is worth more than that

If you want the built kit then go for it.

Only once have I ever considered buying a prebuilt model. It was a type I neded for a collection I was / am building of a particular tank I don't like. My bid price was for about what the kit costs. I got outbid, and eventually bought the kit fairly cheap. In fact I just built the tank an M3 Lee. Yuck! What a cat ! (dogs are great , cats are poop)

Hey guys,
Seeing that i started this thread,i have been following with interest.The two tanks already painted turned out to be 2 little beauties.Well made and painted,but not weathered.After assembling a tank i made earlier for a dio,i was a little hesitant about mucking it up with the weathering effects (as i have never attempted weathering).So,i used the two made kits to practice on and was pleased with the results.With no fear about weathering i will continue with my own built tank for my dio,and leave the two 'ebay' tanks for something else in the future.
Cheers,Shay

Murdo pretty much summed it up.I wouldn't buy one,just doesn't rock me to have other's work.My stuff goes on Evil Bay for better or worse as my end of the deal with SWMBO.I always build to please me and if someone else finds it worthwhile to pay for ownership of it,then more power to 'em and God bless ya! I still have photo's of the builds for portfolio of sorts.I am greatly afraid of asking for commision work for fear of turning the fun into drudging work or worse,not being taken up on my offer at all.Is my stuff 'Pro' quality?Not my call.I'm basically happy it moves so I can pour it back into the hobby.I can't imagine trying to make ends meet by building and selling.
cheers!

Ive thought about going into selling models on the net to make some cash...but i realised that you really cant make much money. For me, the joy i get from building models is by building them nice and building them WELL. So if i were to sell my work on Ebay i would build things to my standards, and then sell. But I realised something while looking at what people buy on ebay, they buy crappy work for cheap and some crappy/mediocre work for alot of money. This leads me to believe that people who buy things on Ebay dont have the attention to detail and natural skepticality (dunno if thats a word) as we modellers do. So i think a good piece of work built by me would ultimatly get lost in the cheaply priced "PRO BUILT" stuff other people sell. For the average shmo who buys on ebay, all they want is the model, they dont really want quality neccisarily. Real collectors are the ones who are willing to plunk the cash down to buy a quality piece. So ive decided to be selfish and BUILD ALL MY KITS FOR MY VIEWING PLEASURE

My view on buying built kits is it's fine if you want to do it, but personally I don't. It seems like it would be unsatisfying to me to buy an already built and painted model and then put it in my work. There's just something I don't like about the idea.
Regarding the sale of models on e-bay, you can get quite a laugh out of some of the 'Pro-built' stuff you see. It's like crap is being mass produced in some guy's basement, and he thinks that makes him a pro. Their idea of painting faces seems to be slapping on a coat of flesh and then adding those big white eyeballs. On the other side, I have seen some beautiful work from the talented folks at the M Workshop for sale on e-bay.

To be honest, to me, the thought of buying something like a model pre-built is JUST about the same thing as buying a matted and assembled jig saw puzzle.

You gotta ask yourself, "Which parts of the hobby do you enjoy, and how much?" Is it looking at the completed work? Is it the feeling of satisfaction you get when others look at it and complement you on a job well done? Is it the hours of enjoyment you get in actually completing the work, (and solving the inevitable problems that come up not to mention any research you do prior to the build?)

For me, these are listed in increasing order of importance, with the last one absolutely the most important by far. Combined with the second part, they account for about 95 % of my enjoyment of modeling.

Considering that the only part you can get with a pre-built model is the first one, it just doesn't make any sense to me at all.

I am nowhere NEARLY as good as most of the people on this site, but I build models because I CAN and I enjoy that part the most.

I certainly don't begrude others their own preferences, but to me it's like diet soft drinks, de-caf coffee, or non alcoholic beer.

Tom

Sometimes this is the only way to get some rare kits that manufacturers just can't be *rsed producing anymore (unless for a months wages plus obligatory arm and leg), 'cos "not everybody in Japan might buy one"!

I've been haunting ebay for a couple of years trying to buy a Saladin. I recently bought a Tamiya Saladin "built" model on ebay for about £10. I was happy, as these thing are scarce as hen's teeth and normally go for about £50.

The resin and metal ones retail for about £70.

When the thing arrived I stared at it in disbelief. What a crap kit! It is really toy like!

SWMBO said "Just as well you DIDN'T spend 50 quid on THAT!"

Whoever built it, built it as found, OOB. I've spent HOURS filling, sanding, cleaning etc trying to change it to a decent model of a very famous armoured vehicle.

It is slowly starting to improve.

Is it mine... Oh yes! There is a lot of work in that crappy little model!... And lots more to do yet before I'll be happy with it.

Personally, I think it takes the fun out of it.. I mean if you have the ambition to try something different, like building a model, then do it yourself. Even if it goes south on you, its still yours.. Not something someone else did... My 2 pennies

Dave

Hey, BARV! Is he one of your scratchbuilding "dark acolytes"?

Oh to be able to build a Saladin from a couple of bits of plastic and assorted household junk instead of waiting for somebody else (like Accurate Armour) to build the bits from resin and metal that I later assemble and end up in SWMBO bad books 'cos of how much it cost.

I'm just doing it in reverse!

Yeah! I know BARV! You've built about twenty from beer bottle tops! :-) :-) :-)