Guess the Dipped Goblins - And win a fully painted Battle for Skull Pass

A small contest: can you guess which, and how many, of these six minis have been dipped, and which haven't? Guess right and there's something in it for you (see end of article).

As you may have just realized, we're now offering dipped miniature painting, which come in at half the cost of our standard painting rates. Painting starts as low as 99 cents per figure. You can check out our dipped pricing here on our prices page: http://www.paintedfigs.com/prices.html

One of our clients asked us to look into dipping as a way of offering painted Wargames Factory historicals at low rates. Assemble, basecoat, dip in Army Painter or Minwax, treat with matte varnish, and voila. In our search for the 99 cent Roman, we found first that we could do night goblins, gretchin and gnoblars for 99 cents, and most other infantry for $1.65.  

Compare and Contrast: Dipped gobbos vs. Standard gobbos

You can see the results of our dipping tests here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/paintedfigs/NightGoblinsComparedDippedVsStandardQuality#

This is a gallery of night goblins comparing dipped (no grass on their bases) with standard paint job night goblins (grass on their bases). Here are some standard quality chaps:

Now here are some dipped night goblins:

Now here is a close up. This shows two dipped goblins on the left, and two standard quality goblins on the right:

Once we add grass to them, I will not be able to tell them apart without checking quite closely, which works fine for me. Now please note, these are just night goblins. Results are going to vary based on the figures and the paint jobs, but we can safely say that while they won't have the polish or standard or showcase quality work, they'll still come together quite nicely as far as dipping results go. 

Tac Marines for just over Retail: A Games Workshop Example

When you combine this with buying miniatures through us at wholesale rates, this can make for quite the saving. A box of ten tactical marines that retails for $35, we can buy, custom assemble, and dip paint, ALL for $39.25 . That's an extra $4.25, plus shipping. 

Metal Minis: Fully Painted and Cheaper than Retail

It gets more insane when you look at miniatures by companies that do mostly metal. Warcaster Dawnlord Vyros from the new Retribution line for Warmachine, costs $14.99 at retail. At standard painting rates we can offer him, model and paint job combined, for $15.20. With dipping, we can offer him painted for $11.35 -- cheaper than retail.  

There's a lot we'd like to do with dipping (prepainted historicals, shopping cart convenience for stock painting scheme warmachine orders), but we're starting just with extending it as a normal, commission-based painting service for Warhammer 40k and Warhammer Fantasy first. 

Have you guessed exactly which (and how many) minis in the first picture are dipped and which are undipped? If you've figured it out, email me at navin@paintedfigs.com, and put "Skull Pass Dipped Challenge" in the email title. One correct winner, selected at random, will receive the goblin part of the Battle for Skull Pass, fully painted and in his mail box. 

The reaction from our clients who were informed about it last week has been quite positive, and we're proud to be able to offer this highly affordable solution to the community. 

Navin