Tom Schadle Miniatures Painting Service Review

by **Roibaird** » November 9th, 2014, 9:58 pm

Tom Schadle Miniatures is the fourth painting service I have used in the last 5 years. It has been, by far, the best experience I have had with a miniature painting service. At the time that Tom announced his Complete Infinity Army package through his podcast: Mayacast ( http://www.mayacast.com), I was already six months involved with Blue Table Painting to have a 300 point Combined Army painted. I made contact with Tom on September 26th to paint a Yu Jing Heavy Infantry 300 point list and 4 weeks later, I had 9 beautiful Yu Jing minis on my shelf, and still no Combined Army.
Everything about my experience with TSM was excellent, from communication to follow-up. The models are absolutely gorgeous! If you follow Mayacast you have probably seen them on Facebook. There are some images on TSM's blog http://www.tomschadleminiatures.blogspot.com/, but just a few.
Tom helped me make a list based on what I wanted, helped me solidify the paint scheme, assisted in finding bases, sent pictures of all boxes and blisters when they arrived, let me know when the minis were built, sent images of the finished minis for review, packaged the minis for shipment about the best I've had and followed up to make sure I was happy.
Tom uses airbrush and hand brush techniques. Everything is immaculate. The blends, depths, contrasts and highlighting give the minis such a realistic 3D look that it looks like they might take off on their own.

I highly recommend Tom Schadle Miniatures to anyone interested in showcase miniatures at a price equivalent to other services less impressive ones.

by **Scorch** » November 9th, 2014, 10:39 pm

Thank you for your review!

I've seen the models you're talking about. Tom really creates some stunning works of art!

by **Bagombo** » November 10th, 2014, 5:22 am

Thanks for the review, I love the pics of Tom's work on their blog and facebook, glad to hear it worked out for you.

Did BTP finish the project? Can you post comparison pics? Was BTP's pricing and quality similar?

by **Mistake Not** » November 10th, 2014, 12:31 pm

I hope your BTP order works out, BTP was recently in the 'news', or rather they got a very very nasty (but fair) review. They didn't handle that situation well at all..

So I'm extra glad to hear that Tom's doing good work, his painting has always been awesome (that Yuan-Yuan on his blog, that hair) and it's nice to hear that the service matches his skillz.

Not that I'll ever use painting services, but that doesn't matter. Positivity woooo~ :toot:

by **FatherKnowsBest** » November 16th, 2014, 10:40 pm

BTP is still in business?

Weird.

by **Scorch** » November 16th, 2014, 11:02 pm

FatherKnowsBest wrote:BTP is still in business?

Weird.

Have you seen the politicians in the past few years?

stranger things have happened!

by **Roibaird** » November 16th, 2014, 11:43 pm

Bagombo wrote:Thanks for the review, I love the pics of Tom's work on their blog and facebook, glad to hear it worked out for you.

Did BTP finish the project? Can you post comparison pics? Was BTP's pricing and quality similar?

BTP did finish the project. I received my models on November 7th.

Posting comparison pics would not be fair, regardless of my experience with BTP.
With Tom, his offer is doing his best work. With BTP, they have 7 levels of quality of which I was paying for a level 5 using their painting process, which they describe on their website.
I can say that, based on their quote sheet, a level 7 would have been 3 times as much as I paid for the minis from Tom, and based on the BTP painting process, Tom's quality is much better.

You are welcome to look at the BTP models here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluetablepainting/sets/72157649025073731/
But like I said, these were to be a level 5 out of 7.

I would definitely use Tom Schadle Miniatures again!

by **Claudius Sol** » November 17th, 2014, 3:32 pm

I'm actually curious about a side-by-side comparison. Is it possible to post pictures of the models next to each other?

As it stands, I was never a big fan of BTP, but those models don't look anything like what I expect you paid for. 7 is Golden Demon and 2 is supposed to be "tabletop quality". You'd think a 5 would be much better than that. In light of recent news, I can say I would not recommend BTP.

by **MartinG** » November 17th, 2014, 4:29 pm

I don't want to judge BTP as I haven't used them and have no experience in working with them but the quality of level 5 on those pictures is what I do with inks and drybrush while watching TV. And I'm not a great painter by any means... :/

/off topic

As for Tom's job - looks cool. I like how it came out. Feels a lot more appropriate level. Good job!

by **Bagombo** » November 17th, 2014, 7:18 pm

Roibaird wrote:BTP did finish the project. I received my models on November 7th.

Posting comparison pics would not be fair, regardless of my experience with BTP.
With Tom, his offer is doing his best work. With BTP, they have 7 levels of quality of which I was paying for a level 5 using their painting process, which they describe on their website.
I can say that, based on their quote sheet, a level 7 would have been 3 times as much as I paid for the minis from Tom, and based on the BTP painting process, Tom's quality is much better.

You are welcome to look at the BTP models here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bluetablepainting/sets/72157649025073731/
But like I said, these were to be a level 5 out of 7.

I would definitely use Tom Schadle Miniatures again!

Fair enough, thanks again for posting the review and the pics. Glad to hear the positive review of Tom's work.

by **Roibaird** » November 18th, 2014, 2:26 pm

Unfortunately Infinity Brethren, I do not have the equipment to take even reasonable pictures of side by side comparisons. So the best we can do is the links included previously.

by **Dozer** » November 18th, 2014, 5:18 pm

Claudius Sol wrote: In light of recent news, I can say I would not recommend BTP.

What recent news?

by **Errhile** » November 18th, 2014, 7:56 pm

Check Gaming Mayhem on Youtube. In short, a guy comissioned an army painjob at them, they didn't made it up to the expectations, and then made a catastrophic attempt in complaint response / damage control...

by **Claudius Sol** » November 18th, 2014, 10:51 pm

Generally, they've had mediocre customer service and quality.

[rant]

Recently, Gately tried "making amends" with a disgruntled customer by offering false promises and pretty much threatening to charge the customer with law suits and other legal charges. Both sides have fair arguments. Gately just brings in a few lies and threats on top of poor delivery. Really ruined my image of BTP. Went from being an overpriced, poor, slow painting service to an overpriced, poor, slow, and combative painting service that is poorly managed.

[/rant]

Overall, I'd stick with Tom Schadle for an actually great paint job, relatively cheap (for the quality) costs, and being an overall amazing guy.

by **MacAttack001** » November 22nd, 2014, 3:52 am

@Claudius Sol
Those are some really broad strokes you are painting with in your last post.

Your Freudian Slip is showing when you stated...
"Really ruined my image of BTP. Went from being an overpriced, poor, slow painting service to an overpriced, poor, slow, and combative painting service that is poorly managed."

Sounds to me like you held BTP in contempt from the beginning.

by **Mob of Blondes** » November 22nd, 2014, 5:19 am

Claudius Sol wrote:Generally, they've had mediocre customer service and quality.

[rant]

Recently, Gately tried "making amends" with a disgruntled customer by offering false promises and pretty much threatening to charge the customer with law suits and other legal charges. Both sides have fair arguments. Gately just brings in a few lies and threats on top of poor delivery. Really ruined my image of BTP. Went from being an overpriced, poor, slow painting service to an overpriced, poor, slow, and combative painting service that is poorly managed.

[/rant]

Overall, I'd stick with Tom Schadle for an actually great paint job, relatively cheap (for the quality) costs, and being an overall amazing guy.

So useless before anyway. Poor image or ruined image, doesn't matter, it's always in the "avoid" tag.

by **Errhile** » November 22nd, 2014, 8:08 am

Guys, I think we've explained the BTP issue. Isn't it time to leave it off and not derail the topic any further?

by **MacAttack001** » November 22nd, 2014, 9:14 am

Errhile wrote:Guys, I think we've explained the BTP issue. Isn't it time to leave it off and not derail the topic any further?

By explaining...you mean reiterating only the information presented by the "disgruntled customer"...yes...absolutely.

Here is my point.

I don't know if the "disgruntled customer" is presenting all of the facts or just those beneficial to his case. He purportedly read and paraphrased Sean Gately's responses but I wasn't CCed in those emails and NEITHER were any of you. In short...we don't have enough facts to sit around and claim that Sean Gately lied.

My problem with the "disgruntled customer" is pretty straight forward. A review is not a tool for resolving a dispute, i.e. coercion to obtain a beneficial outcome. It is meant for informing the public as to the experience and the merits or lack thereof, of the product/service.

That sums it up for me...end of discussion.

by **Claudius Sol** » November 24th, 2014, 4:04 pm

Just want to say sorry! I didn't mean to offend anyone.