Building models to sell...
Discussion
I have a mate (it's not me honest) who in my opinion is an excellent plastic model builder / painter.
I know he could with making a few quid here and there, I know we all could.. my question is, is there much a market for building and selling kits, and what sort of money could he make / charge.
Happy to shove some pictures of his work on here if anyone wants to see.
I know he could with making a few quid here and there, I know we all could.. my question is, is there much a market for building and selling kits, and what sort of money could he make / charge.
Happy to shove some pictures of his work on here if anyone wants to see.
thatone1967 said:
I have a mate (it's not me honest) who in my opinion is an excellent plastic model builder / painter.
I know he could with making a few quid here and there, I know we all could.. my question is, is there much a market for building and selling kits, and what sort of money could he make / charge.
Happy to shove some pictures of his work on here if anyone wants to see.
colleagues son does this with Warhammer models. Apparently makes a nice bit of spending money off it.I know he could with making a few quid here and there, I know we all could.. my question is, is there much a market for building and selling kits, and what sort of money could he make / charge.
Happy to shove some pictures of his work on here if anyone wants to see.
The trouble is that you have to build things for other people - rather than yourself.
Obne of the joys I have of model building is that I chiefly do it for myself - in my own time. I won't even enter model competitions for that reason - on the basis that I don't want to start producing models to appeal to other people.
It's nice if others like what I do - but the main thing is that I like what I do.
Obne of the joys I have of model building is that I chiefly do it for myself - in my own time. I won't even enter model competitions for that reason - on the basis that I don't want to start producing models to appeal to other people.
It's nice if others like what I do - but the main thing is that I like what I do.
thatone1967 said:
I have a mate (it's not me honest) who in my opinion is an excellent plastic model builder / painter.
I know he could with making a few quid here and there, I know we all could.. my question is, is there much a market for building and selling kits, and what sort of money could he make / charge.
Happy to shove some pictures of his work on here if anyone wants to see.
I was asked a couple of times to build duplicates of my Tamiya F1 cars which were on display at the local Beatties. I always refused, because:I know he could with making a few quid here and there, I know we all could.. my question is, is there much a market for building and selling kits, and what sort of money could he make / charge.
Happy to shove some pictures of his work on here if anyone wants to see.
1) If you add up all your hours and multiply it by your day-job hourly rate, it ends up at a crazy price. My last model was a very simple aircraft, with an all-over grey colour scheme, and even for that I logged 27 hours on it. Plus I'd be using hours of my own free time (which I happen to value FAR more than work hours!).
2) If it turned out less than perfect, I wouldn't present it to someone and expect to be paid. I'd then be left with something I'd spent hours on and didn't want.
The only way I'd sell a model is the highly unlikely scenario of someone seeing it already built, and made me an offer. I'd still refuse if it happened to be a particular favourite.
Having said all that, when I was about 10 years old, I'd amassed over a hundred built models. My Dad owned the local Chemists shop, so I put them in the window priced up to about £1. My Dad said they'd never sell, becasue the pleasure of a kit is as much in the building as the finished article. No kidding: we sold every last one within about 2 weeks. They were pretty shoddy models, many of them damaged, and they'd have no doubt got thrown out anyway, so at least I got some cash back.
Just illustrating that there is almost certainly a demand out there if you're *really* up for it, and judging by the questions asked on this forum from time to time, "bespoke" custom-built models of a specific subject could be a good start. (EDIT: for beer money!)
Edited by dr_gn on Friday 20th November 18:26
If there is a demand it tends to be for exact replicas, ie. armed forces pilots.
The guy who runs Promodeller is constantly producing planes to order (and his are what you would call Pro standard) and makes no secret of the fact he doesnt make much money from it in terms of time spent. I think he makes more money from producing the washes he does.
Best thing he can do is find one person to do a model for and see how he likes working under pressure and then decide how much he would feel comfortable charging for it.
The guy who runs Promodeller is constantly producing planes to order (and his are what you would call Pro standard) and makes no secret of the fact he doesnt make much money from it in terms of time spent. I think he makes more money from producing the washes he does.
Best thing he can do is find one person to do a model for and see how he likes working under pressure and then decide how much he would feel comfortable charging for it.
With regard to plastic kits, I agree totally with dr_gn. When you look at what people are willing to pay and divide that by the time you put in, you'll be on a fraction of the minimum wage. I speak from bitter experience.
Resin and white metal kits are a little better, in fact I've sold some I've built for between £60 and £100 (kits whose original prices were between £10 and £20). BUT - all these were fairly old and rare in the first place, so I'd probably got just as much by selling the kits and not bothering to build them.
Resin and white metal kits are a little better, in fact I've sold some I've built for between £60 and £100 (kits whose original prices were between £10 and £20). BUT - all these were fairly old and rare in the first place, so I'd probably got just as much by selling the kits and not bothering to build them.
If you look at www.promodeller.com the guy who runs the website makes his living from modelling. All his work is comissioned. From what I can remember he charges a minimum of £180 per model and thats for something that would be straight out of the box with not much extra detailing. Not bad for a model that with paint etc would have only cost about £25 - £30.
Anthony Micallef said:
If you look at www.promodeller.com the guy who runs the website makes his living from modelling. All his work is comissioned. From what I can remember he charges a minimum of £180 per model and thats for something that would be straight out of the box with not much extra detailing. Not bad for a model that with paint etc would have only cost about £25 - £30.
On that basis, assuming £30 for model and materials, I'd have been working for about £5.00/hr on my last model.No way!
So if making models was your only job how many do you think you could make a week? This chap does 3 per week and at a minimum of £180 per model which works out at £28080. Take away my approximation for cost of the model etc and that comes to approx £23400. Obviously you need to take away tax + nic as well which would leave him around £18k minimum. Not a huge amount but as a minimum you could do alot worse.
This doesnt take in to account models that he sells for considerably more than £180. He is proof that you can make a living of model making.
This doesnt take in to account models that he sells for considerably more than £180. He is proof that you can make a living of model making.
Anthony Micallef said:
So if making models was your only job how many do you think you could make a week? This chap does 3 per week and at a minimum of £180 per model which works out at £28080. Take away my approximation for cost of the model etc and that comes to approx £23400. Obviously you need to take away tax + nic as well which would leave him around £18k minimum. Not a huge amount but as a minimum you could do alot worse.
This doesnt take in to account models that he sells for considerably more than £180. He is proof that you can make a living of model making.
I couldn't and wouldn't want to build 3 models per week! For me, even one a week (which is probably what I could do) would turn the hobby into a massive chore after a single 8 hour day of model building. And I don't want it to turn into a chore.This doesnt take in to account models that he sells for considerably more than £180. He is proof that you can make a living of model making.
Don't forget the cost of materials, equipment, electricity, advertising, accountant, etc.
And just because you can BUILD three a week doesn't mean you can SELL three a week. How many people do you know who are willing to pay £180 and more for a single model? Not when there are people out there who are willing to build them for a lot less for beer money.
I've been there and done it. Believe me, it doesn't add up.
And just because you can BUILD three a week doesn't mean you can SELL three a week. How many people do you know who are willing to pay £180 and more for a single model? Not when there are people out there who are willing to build them for a lot less for beer money.
I've been there and done it. Believe me, it doesn't add up.
He doesnt build them hoping to sell them. He builds them to order and by all accounts is doing very well so it obviously does add up. Perhaps he is just a better model builder than you or runs his business better. Just because you didnt make a business out of it doesnt mean that no one else can.
Edited by Anthony Micallef on Monday 23 November 10:14
Eric Mc said:
I think his business involves more than just model building.
Well he sells his washes, and looks like DVD's as well. Bottom line is you'd have to be totally dedicated to make a decent living out of it. If you just want 'beer money' as the OP suggested, then go for it and see how it goes, but it seems a tedious way to make not much money.
I don't think anyone was claiming it would have been tedious for him. It obviously isn't or he wouldn't do it.
For most of us though, model building is a hobby and the vast bulk of us would prefer to keep it that way.
For me it's an escape from the world of figures, tax, accounts etc. I can lose myself in the building, painting, research and history of what I am building - for a few hours a week at least.
If I was building to order I would be
a) under time pressure
b) building models of subjects that may not be interesting to me personally
c) find myself being asked to build too many models of limited subject matter
d) lose the ability to abandon a project if I found it wasn't going as well as I'd hoped
For most of us though, model building is a hobby and the vast bulk of us would prefer to keep it that way.
For me it's an escape from the world of figures, tax, accounts etc. I can lose myself in the building, painting, research and history of what I am building - for a few hours a week at least.
If I was building to order I would be
a) under time pressure
b) building models of subjects that may not be interesting to me personally
c) find myself being asked to build too many models of limited subject matter
d) lose the ability to abandon a project if I found it wasn't going as well as I'd hoped
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