Recent Purchases

15mm Paint Shack Commission (3)

I received my figures back from Kent at the 15mm Paint Shack almost two weeks ago, but I've been busy finishing up a bunch of other hobby projects so it took me a little while to get them all based up. Here they are in all their glory. The commission consisted of two Seleucid pike blocks and an Atillid Pergamene cavalry unit. Not pictured was a sample 28mm AWI officer Kent painted up which is simply stunning. You can see photos of it on Kent's blog.

The figures looked great on Kent's blog, and in person they look even better. Kent packaged them very well and with only a few minor exceptions everything arrived safe and sound. I requested that the figures be sent un-based so I could base them up myself so they matched my other figures. Each of these units were painted exactly to my specifications right down to the shield patterns and color selection for uniforms and armor. I can't say enough good things about the quality of service and communication provided by Kent. Below you can see some detailed photos of each of the units.

I promised Ken I'd compare his painting service to the other widely available services. Here's my take on that using a 1-10 rating scale:

Company	Quality	Price	Selection	Service
15mm Paint Shack	9	6	10*	10
Gajo Miniatures	8	9	8	9
Dragon Painting Service (DPS)	9	8	7	5
Miss Painting Group (MPG)	8	8	5	4
DJD Miniatures	6	9	4	5

* - Because 15mm Paint Shack is the only painting service that does commission work it has unlimited selection based on your needs. The others sell pre-painted miniatures with more limited selection.

So if GAJO, DPS or MPG offer a unit that's exactly what you want, you can save some money going with them and you'll be quite happy with the figures. If you want anything custom, Kent's painting service is a superior choice. He costs a little more but you get EXACTLY what you want, right down to the color selection and Kent provides you with excellent communication. You get what you pay for.

Miss Painting Group Purchase #2

This is the second order I've received from Miss Painting Group (MPG). I'm continuing to have mixed results with MPG. In some ways they're hitting home runs and in some ways they're striking out badly. These two groups of figures are their Seleucid Companion Cavalry (4 stands) and Seleucid Command group (3 stands).  On the good side the figures arrived within 3 weeks of ordering them and this time they were packaged in a way that was much better than my first order. I only had one rider knocked off a horse and no paint damage due to shipping. The quality of the paint jobs was quite good with shading and good accuracy of detail. Finally the quality of the basing has improved significantly since my first order. These bases arrived in a table-ready condition and required no additional work on my part. I have to give MPG points for fixing that previous shortcoming.

On the bad side, the lances for all the figures were not glued into the figures, which would be a good thing except for two HUGE problems: first the lances provided were awful lead squiggles (which I replaced with my own piano wire), and even worse than that, all of the hands were drilled for the weapons AFTER the figures were painted. There were drill filings on all the hands that needed to be cleaned and thee of the figures had damage to the cloaks where the drill bit ground off part of the paint and figure. I had to clean all the hands, re-paint all of the hands and touch up the damaged cloaks. All of this would have been unnecessary if they had only drilled the hands out before painting.  Clearly MPG is still learning their trade.