NERD RAGE!!! (A review of an ebay painting company)

So, as I reported earlier this week, I got the 5 squads of space wolf models from DPS off ebay. DPS is a prolific painting group as far as ebay goes. They have up literally hundreds of sales complete with pictures at any given time. If you read the fine print however you will find that you will not get the models pictured in the sales. They will paint you our own set of miniatures that "match" the pictures they provide online. Ok... Lets talk about my experiences.


Because of this paint per order system I was able to order 5 squads at once that all match painting wise (rather than getting 2 squads from one place and three from another). Space wolves come in a variety of greys depending on the painter so I thought that would really bring the army together colour wise. Savy readers will ask why I bought the terminators and scouts separately (they would be a different grey). As they were elite troops I figured I could get away with it. Funny thing: They are the same grey... Funnier... They are not a GW Grey that I can find... Huh? I went back and discovered that PPS is the same company (sister company anyway) so they probably use the same colour scheme. Sweet! Now theoretically that means they should be painted to the same detail right? We'll get to that later.


Shipping time... Models arrived two weeks past their maximum shipping date and I had to contact them to find out why. While I was not happy about this I do understand that these things do happen with modern shipping and customs. They told me that there had been some issue with customs and that they had to resend the box. Fine. I would expect someone to tell me the end customer that things might be late. Hmmmm. Not happy point one.

Arrival: OK, so they arrived. Whew. I always get a little nervous when dealing with new sellers on ebay. I opened the box. The models were packed exactly the same as the termies and scouts had been. Every model came in custom cut foam to each model. It is impressive to behold. I am very happy about this.



Bases: Like the termies and the scouts the bases were magnetized. Cool. One more plus and similarity right? Nice.

Painting: Here is where the similarities end. While the PPS.bay models were carefully if not very originally assembled their DPS cousins are not so well built. Sure I got 5 squads of the exact same models (I expected that though). My problem is some of the models have serious mold lines that need trimming and repainting. OK, this is not ideal BUT when they custom mixed their grey for their wolves it turns into a massive pain. The grey is too light for Shadow grey and too dark for Space Wolves grey. I am going to have to play my least favorite game. Colour matching. Grumble.


Speaking of the greys needing to be touched up, the painting is painfully messy. A few of the heads (especially the helmeted ones) are horrific and need to be torn off and fully replace because the paint is too thick to fix. The brown haired heads with mustaches are victims of this.

The armour is messily highlighted and shaded. I need to reshade every model in one place or another and every model has missing highlights. That is funny is that because I have ten sets of 5 identical models I can see that they could highlight things correctly on all models but they didn’t. If you could combine the highlights across the 5 matching models it would be a good job (if sometimes too thick). So a hand is highlighted on three models and not on the other two for example. Very annoying.

Also the transfers are messy, not straight and are popping up on the edges. Sigh. Again, I hate transfers. I have only ever seen one army use transfers well. I will try and get pictures to show you how I think it should be done.

Overall:
The paint jobs do not match the ebay pictures. They are not consistently done. They are messy. After dealing with PPSbay I am very disappointed especially since they are essentially the same company. I’ll be honest I am not a fan. I would skip DPS and go straight to MPG (Miss Painting Group) or PPSbay (ironically but at least you see what you get before you buy the models and it comes amazing fast).


Sure they generally look good at table top level but they could have been great with a little extra work.. Click the images above to see the close ups and you will see what I mean.



Until next time...

P.S. Set the clock... I put another Forgeworld order in last night... lets see how long that takes?

Beginning to think that I won't have the orks done in time.. What say you?