The Army I Didn’t Think I’d Start, then SOLD | Warhammer Collecting 

I think you nailed one of the issues. Lots of people prefer the default colors. I think it's like selling a house, gotta paint it the most beigey beige to appeal to everyone.

I think another part of the problem it sold for so little was that everyone seems to be selling their own squats due to the huge nerf they got.

I think your main problem is you painted it up for you and not with selling it. Most people won't have those colours so impossible to replicate such an extreme army. A great experiment would be to paint the exact same box up but with a more standard box art colour scheme. Then you will find out if is all that that army is worth or if your choice of colours affected the final price. Fun vid tho 😉

This was a cool concept. I think the most interesting part was the connection you feel with an army after painting it even if you don't necessarily love the army or wouldn't have built it yourself the fact that you pour hours of work and time and effort into it makes it something you appreciate more.

Glad to see this video as I thought the first part ended a bit abruptly, and this little debrief is exactly what was missing. I think you know what to change though: -Store with some feedback -One of the codex color schemes, even if it’s not the box art one -Something more self by contained like a killteam, or maybe a dreadnought size thing -Don’t guess demand at tho, just paint what will be fun Looking forward to the next attempt!😁

I think if you went for 'box art' color scheme more people would be interested. The 'unique' theme is more common for people who paint it themself but people who commision or buy play ready are going more for typical schemes.

The fact that you guys did this whole experiment and it flopped is so much better than if you had made a big profit. Huge props to you guys for taking a risk and doing such a fun video. Def one of the best and most fun hobby videos I had seen in a while!

Your boxed-army is great, you really nailed it. From France, with overpriced transport fees, ebay became lame, especially when you can buy new minis at 80% of GW price almost everywhere else

I like the kill team idea. You would even setup a new store, sell kill team models for a bit to get your ebay rating up a bit and then do the full team video.

I really like this sort of format of selling armies, keep it up!

It's a nice army, although I will admit that I would struggle to add to it myself. Matching the basing bits, special paints, shading, style, etc... would be something I would want to do but there's just no time. Plus it is a totally new army (sorta). Even if it were Necrons I think you might have found more buyers. Beyond the new store issue, I think it's more the point that there just aren't a lot of people looking for Leagues on ebay. Also, I don't think it has to be a top tier army just a functional one, with an extra bit or two, that people could get some play out of with friends, and offered a couple of fun options.

It's much better idea to try to paint and sell game ready kill teams. People won't need anything to add to them. Anyone can buy it and play with it on a next day. Jay, i suggest you to paint Legioners kill team. It is one of the most popular and powerful kill teams. You need only around 8-9 models to cover almost all options. I'd definitely buy such kill team. Maybe you can make some 3D printing conversions with them. Maybe make some Emperors Children or Alpha legion. There are a lot of bits for such a thing. And Nick can definitely handle this. Thanks for the video!

These look great, but man that OSL is wayyy too intense/contrasting. If I were looking for squats, that would've been my deal breaker.

i actually saw it on ebay and my big problem was the paint.. I'm just not able to copy that with my current level and "just" 500 Points wasn't my thing. Happy someone got a good deal

Each week (or every 2 weeks or so), do a 5-man kill team. Paint them and put them up on ebay for the price you bought them. The price will go up from there, the buyer ratings will go up and you'll always gain money, which you can then spend on the next kill team

Glad to hear that you want to do more projects like this. Looking forward to more EonsOfEbay!

Try painting the same army in one of the GW colour schemes with minor customisation (weapons colour, face plates, spot colours etc) and then list them as individual units so you can do a direct comparison of the money you make.

I think it’s the color scheme, inconsistency of the heraldry and that you painted whole areas in one color alone, not picking out details. If someone buys an army painted they either want to play right away without explaining the scheme or they want a display piece.

Love your videos! Keep up the good work :)

It is nicely painted, though tbf, a Votann box on eBay is $170 with codex and data cards - so $350 is double the price on it - which honestly is what I think a lot of people are willing to pay for a non-commission less than 1000 point army.

#1. Don't be too hard on yourselves. The Army look sick and the bases are dope! You guys definitely took a leap with it and I definitely think it's a cool experiment and I think in a lot of ways it still worked because of what you guys output here. 2. If you were to do something like this in the future, it might even be kind of interesting to have an auction for whoever wins the bid, to decide on the color scheme and such. That way it kind of solves some of the issues you had with choosing the colors and maybe that's not what the person wanted etc etc. I'm the same way where I buy either a new on sprue or just primed because then I can paint it the way I want to, But especially if someone knows it's you and knows your skill, they might be willing to bid a bit more knowing that you're going to do a good job with their color scheme that they would like. Also would make for a pretty interesting video.

A taco is not a sandwich, it's a wrap.

You hit two points that are my most important things when buying on Ebay, which is positive feedback on the account and having the army be mostly box art or established colors is best.

I think the problem is you treated a Ebay lot like a commission, nobody should expect to make a profit from Ebay as a rule of thumb.

I think your right about the squat kill team. If you remember the first look ad were they rock up to a spacehulk, and now we're into the cycle of killteam boxes dedicated to spacehulk. It has to happen.

Enjoyed hearing Jay’s laugh/cry sound he kept making. What’s that word where you keep trying to convince yourself something didn’t suck when you know it did?

I love your vids and I love learning tricks from you, however, the "You'll have this stuff which is amazing and you'll have your stuff which is just kinda ehhh." Comment that you made at about the 5 minute 14 second mark, seems to be a bit crass. There's a lot of folks in the hobby that are just trying to get better and a lot of folk could take that comment to mean that you feel like you are flat out better then them and nothing they could do could be as good as your work. I know that isn't the point you were trying to make but it is a way that it could be interpreted.

I think you should do 1000 or 2000 point armies, film it, then link the auction in the description. I think the idea that you're buying an army, and the painting tutorial for exactly that scheme is really enticing and you guys might make some serious money while you're at it.

You should have started the bidding at MSRP since you had a new seller account. Maybe you wouldn’t have lost out so hard then.

Games Workshop models are really expensive as it is. I think 350 is about the amount I am willing to pay for a good painted army like this.

I bought 3 fluorescent paints just do make the fire on Boba Fett’s jet pack, I thought, “I could use this for every fire I need to paint.” I still have yet to paint any more fire, but I’m glad I still have them.

If you want to try it out, just paint Warcry, Underworld, Kill Team etc small game teams and sell them. Also HQs for kinda less strict paint shemes things might be an idea, like Genestealer Primarchs or figurines for AoS. Kragnos, Loonbosses, whateverflavoroftheweek.

Actually just bought the box set today. Cant wait to start that army next year. So many ideas for color schemes. I can see them being in a versus box late next year. Maybe with nids since they are getting a range refresh

I just tried fluo paint for the first time ever and noticed the same things. Over white basecoat it was almost useless, but on top of white base, light layer of warpstone glow and then another layer of Vallejo fluo green and bam, the result was beautiful, bright green for nids' claws.

Lots of people buy minis on ebay to strip and repaint. Hope you're comfortable with these getting stripped...

Damn you guys knocked it out of the park with the first video, especially with Nick finally making an appearance. Nick is EoB’s XFiles Cigarette Smoking Man. He rarely makes and appearance but when he does you know the episode will be epic.

Fluo paints are really good for a boost of luminosity on your highlights. A soft glaze of yellow or green will make skin pop and orange makes fire really burn.

I ryly love sum-up videos, in my opinion you guys did a spledid job with the idea and fun of the previous video. But this one is even better coz not a lot of peaplo would admit to their 'mistakes' and just forget about it. Its a nice thing to see, conclusions and lessons learned that will in theory improve in the next videos of this series if they will be made! Alos I think the pain scheme is pog and the foulresent addition makes it pop so much!

Painter finds out that painted armies sell poorly if they're not 2000/2500 points.

Honestly 350 seems fine to me for a couple painted squads.

Would love to see more army box painting videos

Would like to see you use florescent paint to boost the color of old minis. I think that would be an interesting video. You see a lot of speed painting videos, where they say you can come back to update them later, but they never do show any examples.

Folks bypassing the painting (aka buying completed armies) are focused on playing and tend to lack the imagination to fully appreciate unique colors. ADVICE: Paint it like the box. It helps for the buyers to get the same looking army from multiple sources. Also, explore other avenues for selling, as ebay takes a lot of the money for their cut.

An idea would be to paint up 2 of the same combat patrols as a popular chapter. Sell one as a full set and break down the other and see which makes more money.

Awesome content, hope you try it again sometime down the road. You could put a reserve on it next time if you wanted to make sure it doesn't go for too little

"Henry Ca-Vill, Henry Ca-Vill... (Music Starts)"

Oo, you gotta do Into the Dark terrain with black lighting... and I bet the Squats have preserved Blood Bowl.

If this were a private commission at this quality level, it would be worth $600 - $900 depending on the artist, so your buyer absolutely got this for a steal. I also said this on the original video, but ya, if you used the box art paint scheme and vanilla dirt bases, you probably would have sold it for more money.

You want to get more out of it? Make an Eons of Battle stamp to put on it, then sell it on an Eons of Battle ebay store, AFTER you published the video. You know, there are fans waiting for such a double opportunity to buy such things. If you dont believe me, try out with a box of whatever.

In my humble opinion, you still painted them more for your liking, and as others have said you should've done them in some type of default color. I like some aspects of how you painted them but not enough to buy them as painted. Still keep up the great work I really enjoy your channel and have been since I started delving into 40K a little over a year ago at the young age of 53 just turned 54 on November, 1st

You could do a charity commission. Highest bidder sends you a model (nothing crazy like a titan or anything) they want duplicated. You then have to get that model as close as you can without knowing the recipe.

Make the ebay auction so the buyer can choose one basic set of an specific faction custom painted by you beforehand. Whoever gets the final buy can either give you freedom to make it the way you prefer or a more specific guideline of what they would want. I think many people would bid for the chance of a custom made paint job made by professionals like you guys.

Kill teams would definitely be more profitable per model and you could do something unique and have it still appeal to people if it was a complete killteam. With the partial army it’s a bit of a difficulty since it’s hard to fit into an existing army due to its unique theme and hard to start a new one due to the quality of painting and the specificity of the theme

The army looks so good, if you want some really vibrant paints, posca paint pens contain really vibrant acrylic paint, just unscrew the ends by turning them clockwise (the opposite way to normal screwy things) and voila you have some really vibrant acrylic paints. They don't blend easilly and can be prone to drying with a crackly finish if they're applied too thickly, but with a bit of practice they can be used to get really vibrant smooth blends, they also dry really matt...like really matt.

I think the way to do this is is with something like Kill Team or War Cry where you get a box and paint it up with the terrain. Since there isn’t as much of a need to add models later I think it will garner more interest from people. Especially if you magnetize important options when possible.

Painting something without having someone order it specifically is always a risk, if its not a "standard" color scheme.

Guys, you're straight awesome, really love your channel. Yet there's too much of a hassle about this set, it's the way it's, and this is totally fine & natural for the first giddy try on the auction. I'm sure that it shall bring outstanding amounts of joy to its new owner.

Perhaps kill teams would work. Except with a scratch built diorama of the base of operations. Example being a Wyrmblade team operating out of a sewer or abandoned industrial building. More of a boutique offering in a custom diorama case.

perhaps trying as others have mentioned doing Kill Teams with popular paint schemes or unique takes on them, with your customizable magnetize switch out for full range weapons may be worthwhile trying to do, less models and full weapon layout flexibility for your potential customer, would make their minis stand out, (esp with the fluorescent paint, on the biggest ones would them each one pop more) would make them stand out.

>6:09 In an auction it's not enough to have one person for the price to go up, you need two who really really want it.

Are you okay, dude? You seem to be about to burst into tears,,,

Hey you got this just keep loving what you do

If you buy and paint a Daemons of Slaanesh starter box I would totally be in line to buy it - might be a cool video series idea?

I had a great time watching these last two videos, I heard a lot of what should be your catch phrase: "It's fine, it's fine we had fun". Two comments to echo what others have said. I agree having a brand new storefront on eBay probably hurt you A LOT. If you were selling from an established account I think you would have received higher bids. Also, I'm sure you know this already but if you had attached your name to the listing / army you for sure would have received much higher bids. Painting and selling Kill teams would be easier for you as obviously there are less models and no need for worrying about consistent color scheme / future list building. Downside is the total market is probably smaller than 40k.

That is a cool idea for a custom army: Necrons living in high gravity.

The paint scheme is weird too. It looks great! BUT it has a weird mixture of colors. If you painted it more orange and red like the heroes it would have sold for more probably...

We put so much time in painting anything, we need them around to give us the sense of where that time went ;)

It's like someone disrespected your firstborn........ but when you sell stuff anywhere you cant get attached!!

I know you have your distaste for buying prebuilt or prepainted models but I would love to see you buy an army for cheap or a bunch of different ebay listings and bring them to a cohesive army size. Ebay rescue style and try to make money selling them.

I wouldn't be able to emulate your painting style, but at least there's a video of you painting them with the paints used.

For "open" listings like this, it's probably important to provide a product with a theme/color scheme/basing that can easily be added to without it being noticeable or just using "popular" paint/ basing schemes. Instead of making a "large" sell, maybe single unit lots would also be easier to sell - so instead of ex. "Squat beginner army", sell singular units painted to a decent standard using a "standard" paint scheme and link between the listings so a buyer could bid on all units individually. Ork units would probably be a perfect for this seeing that orks are generally not that big sticklers for uniformity and some units being painted a little differently would not stand out much.

I was relieved to see you guys do not so good on ebay. No offense. It proved what I'd been thinking for the last couple of years. eBay isn't where the money is. You prevented me from trying to flip models on eBay by spending hours and hours painting them. Just to have them be "stolen" for example; $350 for an entire start collecting fully painted. They look amazing. I'm happy you guys got the box for free. You really have prevented a lot of dumb ideas with this one. I'm sorry you didn't get what you wanted for it. That sucks big time. But thank you again. I was gonna head down that route after the holidays.

I think the Kill Team idea is great. Doing a full Kill Team with all possible weapon and character options could yield a greater profit to work ratio. That would eliminate the need to add new models as the Kill Team would be "complete" so to say, and it would also cover all the most desired minis that a tournament player is interested in. It would require multiple kits, but not as large an investment as a 2000 pts tournament-winning list.

Doing default colors would have been better. It will be hard to replicate this style without knowing the exact paints, and people may paint their armies differently when they do it - I would pick out all the details on the bags and the darker characters and do line and wash work on vents instead of airbrush, and that would look really incongruous with these models. The bases look great but draw your eye away from the actual models which isn't a style I like to use. And like you said, load out matters, being a full army matters, following the meta and maybe going with an established model series is important. I'm not sure how well Votann is doing, all the initial boxes sold out quickly in my area but the newer models have just been sitting there. Though if I buy a painted model, it's going to probably be stripped, so when I see them charge a premium for a paint job I immediately move on. I'm not sure that people who buy a painted army to use as is would also want to paint their own models. If they do want to paint their own, you can usually get new boxes for 30% of their msrp in the Americas. Considering those prices, this is $225 dollars just for the paint job, closer to 250 if you put some extra effort in your shopping

I saw your ebay post. They look incredible, but the pictures in your ad did not do it justice. Also, releasing a painting tutorial on RU-vid prior to or simultaneously to the ebay post would have gained it more steam. Not sure if that was a part of the experiment, though. Awesome paint job, love the gems

Custodes Christmas box and combat patrol is 2000 points pretty much, could be worth a try as is a strong tournament set of models

I sold a 3000k+ points AdMech army 2 or 3 months ago.... For 650€ (around I'd guess 700$ at that time). Quality of paint was somewhere between tabletop++ and amateur (with highlights, shades, osl, etc etc) and advanced basing (lava and old greece themed). The non-painted half were almost all new in boxes or still on sprue. I could not ask for more, as I definitely know that ppl like to get things cheap when they buy on 3rd party sites. I tried to boost the price up because about 50% of the army was still new, but lost about 300€ in this deal....

The same experiment but on a new Etsy store might be kind of interesting too. Taking the approach of a new artist who has a minimum threshold of sunk cost in the minis might bring some interesting results and insight for new online merchants. Especially in the “I’ll pay you for exposure” people in the price negotiations! Lol

I like the guy at 3:27 holding an invisible gun 😂

I wouldn't say no to a monthly army/kill team paint and sell video. Would need to try and keep the ebay account a secret though. I like the concept of a "random" trying to make money through selling and how much the price will go up as your account gets feedback. It would be way more interesting than say Squidmar's trade up from a nightgoblin to a warlord titan because he used his name and clout so you know his trades aren't realistic.

I think you should do another one of these videos trying to do it "correct" and go over the differences.

usually you could just list some squads, then tell them to send email as to what color scheme they want, so they wont see what they get they will see samples, then you work on their models and send them in, then add the pictures to your ebay to let people see.

I think you’re right. I think they’ll probably put the LoV in one of the next few Gallowdark KT boxes.

Personally the best box army to try this with would have been custodies since a 500 point box for them is actually worth way more than 500 pointa

Tbh it would be immediately a no for me if there was different faction shoulder pad designs on the same body. For example a Sons of Horus paint job with an Ultramarine shoulder pad and a thousand son shoulder would really turn me off the listing.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary, offers three definitions of “sandwich”: Two or more slices of bread or a split roll having a filling in between. One slice of bread covered with food Something resembling a sandwich, especially: composite structural material consisting of layers often of high-strength facings bonded to a low strength central core. Now, going by the first definition, a taco is not a sandwich because you make tacos with tortillas, not with bread. Tacos don’t meet the second definition of sandwich either, because again: no slices of bread are involved in the preparation of a taco. The third definition is the one that comes closest to including tacos, but you could always make the case that the contents of a taco are not “bonded” to the tortilla; they are merely wrapped in it.

You should try something like a Gunpla gundam kit, Really cool kits that kinda bring into question why is warhammer so expensive?

I’m basing my opinions off nothing more than just gut feeling. I think starting your biding higher and more generic paint schemes. You said having more positive feedback on your eBay account, would help. Your painting and basing skills are amazing. It’s quality work, I think it’s worth paying a high dollar for. It will just take time to get there. Fantastic work as always!!! Thanks gents!!

I’m really enjoying painting the squats. Who knew I liked Dwarves

Ebay miniature rescues about to drop the biggest roast of 22

I´ve been lowkey following you in ages :D and first now, I get to subscribe :D cause I actually thought I did! but ! im EU bound, and your market is targetting US only. But as an OldHammer Orc/Bretonnia guy you need to paint som rare Orcs ;)

Interested if you painted the pioneers in sub assembly? I've done one and even just building them was a nightmare ha.

I think one must be a painting Ace like Marco Frisoni or a painter that belongs to the Pantheon of Painters to make miniature painting a viable option to make some dinero. Otherwise the profit made for the amount of time spent is tiny. I know you're making it for the thrill and excitement, and it's exciting to reach a higher bid and to have your good work acknowledged. I do it myself so that I can practice painting and get better, and kind of get a kickback for the time spent :P But I'm sceptic about the profitability.... Which is rewarding for sure. So I'm really curious to see what hourly rate you can achieve next time haha !

Im looking to do something similar with the new IG army box, minus the codex and cards, but I'm going to try and get it as close the box art as I can. I've found, with a bit of research, that on ebay having zero feedback, like myself, you really have to have a decent variety of things for sale, and only having one listing will reduce you presence in the algorithm. This week I'm looking at my pile of shame and my completed personal collection and looking at what I can give up and sell to help start my business plan to sell painted minis on ebay.

Only a soft shell taco is a sandwich, the hard ones are a chip and dip kit

I would do a kill team in like a classic scheme like the Badab war Salamanders A good test would be the 10 phobos marines if you find them cheap and paint them like the badab war howling griffins camo scheme. Since the scheme is camo and phobos marines are suppose to be the stealthy guys they can be added to most armies.

You could have just told people on eBay you were EOB with link to all your videos. That's probably the only way I'd ever buy painted stuff, if I liked the painter and wanted to own some of their work

I didn't see the eBay listing, what time and day did you put it up? I find that Sunday night gets better results, also the time of the month matters (you want the listing to end just after payday, definitely not before!). Also, you know, tell your audience - we're the guys most likely to bid on something you've painted Jay!

I thought that the video concept was great, the execution was AMAZING, but the end was so depressing. It's all the ingredients for another excellent film. I think that doing a smaller number of models (A single unit or a KillTeam like you said), starting the bid at market value or maybe a 10-15% discount, would be solid.

Choosing a competitive codex house color scheme would have helped. If these were painted as Ymir conglomerate or greater thurian league they probably would have sold for a higher price. Also it doesn’t help that they got nerfed into oblivion.