I have done some custom painting for myself, and a few select individuals I know. They have all been pleased with my work. Well I have a BIG project I am doing right now, which consists of 8 locos and 3 cabooses for a local swap meet in 3 weeks. I have done NO advertising what so ever. In the last 2 days I have gotten 3 people contact me that saw my work on one of the yahoo groups and they want me to do some locos for them. I am practically SOLD OUT of the items I am in the process of painting for the swap meet. I have right now 3 maybe 4 of the 8 locos spoken for and all 3 of the cabooses are SOLD! IS THIS NORMAL? Or am I just lucky? You guys that do custom painting, do you advertise? Or is it mainly "word of mouth"? If you do advertise, what type of advertisement do you use?
I have turned down quite a few job offers. Unfortunately the market has dropped off lately and everyone seems to want more than they want to spend. Since The Freight Yard closed its doors and Jeff King has a backlog, there is more than enough business to go around. I just sold a custom U30C to a N Scaler in Great Britain. The demand if definitely out there...
demand is there, right. but people expect custom painted locos for the price of an off-the-shelf unit. had some inquiries for custom painted via f40ph. should not cost more than $80 (including loco !!) .... woo woo woo ???? this doesn't even cover my expenses !
I never have advertised, usually someone sees my stuff at a show or in my Railimages album. I too have had the modelers who want a custom detailed and painted locomotive for an off the self price. I've never had that happen with guys on here. Most of the stuff I do now is for fellow Trainboard members. Just remember to never sell yourself short, your time is money.
I don't know about others, but as an example...an HO brass 4-8-4, single color with graphite smokebox, decals, crew, cab glass, lights (maybe DCC), and maybe a little weathering will cost around $250..anything more will up the cost. I don't advertise and sometimes have more than I want to do so clients must either wait or learn to use an airbrush themselves. More interesting is custom building and more money also. I don't take up front money because I have their beloved locomotive in my posession. These days, I would much rather work on my layout than mess with others' toys. Woodie
Sandro- I TOTALY hear what you are saying. I have ran into this also on feebay as well. I had a custom weathered boxcar I was selling on there a while back. It ended up NOT selling and I had some meathead contact me after the item closed wanted me to sell it to him for $7, including shipping! I was like ARE YOU KIDDING ME? For a new IM boxcar that has been weathered? I was like DUDE that barely covers shipping. I told him $20 and I would send it. I never heard from him. LOL I also had a loco that I had painted for myself, that I had on display at a swap meet one time to get some feelers for if anyone was interested. I put a tag on it for $140. I had a bunch of inquiries but not one wanted to spend more than $70. I was like theres the door! Dont let it hit you where the good lord split you. Ryan
That's interesting. I created a custom painted HO scale train for our agencies' centennial celebration, it ran at the State Fair and was well received to say the least. I got a few requests from associates to build additional ones, but once I gave them a price I never even got a reply. Keep in mind the price I gave them was dirt cheap to say the least - not much more than you would pay for run of the mill items right off the hobby store shelves. I think I put my labor at $10/hour and the materials at cost, and my time estimate was very conservative. I don't believe any established custom painter would even consider a job for estimates like that, but since I'm not established, I figured it was fair. So - I saw plenty of demand, but I think they expected flea market prices.
Ryan, word of mouth is your best friend or your worst enemy in the custom painting world. That being said I mean your best friend because if 1 person sees your work on a layout at a show or on a personal layout you can get several requests from that, now your worst enemy comes into play also because if you are not prepared to get busy or do not have the time to get busy, you can lose several opportunites and potential customers. I have experienced both. I am lucky that my regular customers are very forgiving as my regular job, work on both fire dept. and ambulance service come before painting so my time frames are longer than most. If you advertise too you may end up doing stuff you really have no interest in doing either. Also make sure your prices match your quality, granted the economy sucks but if someone sees quality work and you gain a reputation you can charge accordingly. Last point I will really stress is make sure not to bury yourself in work as this will cause you to become burnt out and only cause you to lose interest, customers, and the business you worked to get. Something to look at is possibly doing a small website not only to show your work for business but people like to see Their stuff on the "net".
