Miniature painting in Australia: what it costs, painting levels and turnaround

At Scale Command in Perth, a Tabletop Painted model costs its unpainted price plus painting time at $32 an hour with a 15% buffer: about $31 of painting for a 28mm figure on foot, $74 for a 28mm horse and rider and $19 for a 10mm strip. Painted orders ship within 10–15 business days, and anything beyond our standard gets a fixed quote within 1 business day. Below are the real prices from the shop, what the painting levels mean, how long it takes and how we compare with the other ways to get an army painted in Australia.

How we price

Model + painting hours × $32 × 1.15, rounded up

28mm on foot

50 minutes, about $31 of painting

Painted dispatch

10–15 business days (unpainted 3–5)

Custom jobs

Fixed quote within 1 business day

What does miniature painting cost?

Every model in our shop has a Tabletop Painted option on its product page, and the price always comes from the same rule. We set a painting time for each kind of figure at each scale, multiply the hours by $32, add 15% as a buffer for the fiddly ones, round up to the next dollar and add it to the unpainted price. So the price you see is the model plus honest painting time, with no separate quote to wait for.

Here's the painting part of the price, per figure, before rounding. In 10mm we paint the strips the units are sold on, so the time is per strip, not per tiny figure.

The rounding happens once per product, on the whole set's painting, so a set of eight 28mm figures costs $246 to paint, not eight lots of $31.

Worked examples: real sets and their prices

These are sets from the shop with their current unpainted and Tabletop Painted prices, in Australian dollars. Click through to any of them and you'll see the same two prices on the product page.

Working one through: the 12 crossbowmen take 12 × 50 minutes, which is 10 hours. Ten hours at $32 is $320, plus the 15% buffer is $368. Add the $57 set and the painted price is $425. The 10mm horde works out cheapest per figure: 96 orcs on 16 strips, painted for $295, is about $3.07 of painting per orc.

Army bundles take 10% off, on the models and on the painting. The Imperial Elves army's units add up to 27 h 40 min of painting, which would be $1,019; the bundle paints them for $917. Browse every faction in Army Bundles.

Terrain, monsters and war machines

Big pieces don't follow the per-figure times. A tent, a troll or a siege engine can take anything from half an hour to a full day, so each one in the shop has its own painting time, set by our painters for that piece and already built into its Tabletop Painted price. A few examples:

• Round Early Medieval Tent (28mm): 2 hours, $15 unpainted, $89 painted
• Medieval Inn (28mm): 6 hours, $201 unpainted, $422 painted
• Morghei Mountain Trolls (10mm, eight trolls): 4 hours, $16 unpainted, $164 painted

Anything that isn't in the shop, or a monster, war machine or scenery piece bigger than what we list, is priced by quote, never by guesswork. Send us a brief and the quote comes back fixed.

Painting levels explained

Painters in Australia and overseas use different names for their levels, which makes prices hard to compare. Roughly, there are three:

• Basic tabletop, or wargames standard. Clean base colours, often with a wash over the top. Looks like an army from across the table, and it's the cheapest level to buy.
• Tabletop plus, or battle ready. Base colours, shading and highlights on the parts that catch the eye, with finished bases. Holds up when someone picks a model up.
• Display. Smooth blends, freehand, sharp faces and eyes, and several hours or more per model. For centrepieces, competitions and collectors.

Prices climb steeply between the levels. One published commission pricing guide puts 28mm infantry at about US$8–15 a model for tabletop standard, US$18–30 for tabletop plus and US$50–100 for display quality (Costumary, 2026). Those are US dollars, before conversion or postage.

What Tabletop Painted means at Scale Command

Tabletop Painted is our one standard price on every product: painted in our Perth studio to a solid tabletop standard, in period or faction colours, or to your brief, and ready to play. We airbrush the base coats and blends, then paint every detail by hand with sable-hair brushes, the only brushes we use. You write a short paint brief when you add the model to your cart, and you can attach up to five photos of your army, heraldry or inspiration.

If you want more than that, like your own heraldry on every shield, a named character or a display centrepiece, that's a custom paint job, priced by quote.

How long does it take?

• Unpainted orders usually ship within 3–5 business days. Every model is printed to order in Perth.
• Tabletop Painted orders usually ship within 10–15 business days. If an order has painted and unpainted models, we send it all together when the painted ones are ready, unless you ask us to split it.
• Custom paint jobs get a fixed quote within 1 business day. The painting time depends on the job, so it's confirmed in the quote. The quote form has an optional "needed by" date if you're painting for an event.

Every order ships with tracking in your account.

Your options in Australia, compared

If you're still choosing a scale, the painting time is a big part of the decision: see 10mm, 15mm or 28mm.

How to order painted miniatures

1. From the shop: pick the scale on the product page, choose Tabletop Painted, and write a short brief when you add it to your cart. No quote needed.
2. Something beyond tabletop: send a brief through the custom paint job form. Confirm your details at checkout; it's free, and you only pay once you approve our fixed quote, which comes within 1 business day.
3. Models you already own: choose "Models I already own" on the same form. Once you've approved the quote, send them in and we paint, base and ship them back from Perth.
4. A model nobody makes: we can design and print one to your brief. See custom design and print.

Painted and custom work is made to your brief, so it can't be returned for change of mind, but we'll put right anything faulty or not as briefed. The details are in our returns policy.