To be a character or not?

Hello all, I am sorry if any of this is repetative, however after a small business reorganization, we are now strickly providing services for face and body art. I have a new airbrush partner and a business manager. After a meeting of the minds we had a lot to think about today. Our largest question before moving forward is do we pick a sophisticated name and go as our selves with an apron or t-shirt and let the art speak for itself....or do we develope our brand into characters? Not quite a clown persay, but as a fun facepainting fairy. Anyone make the leap? Do you charge more? Was the extra money worth the extra for costuming and marketing? Thanks for any input.

Only you can decide.

Providing characters can be a service in itself.

Painting as a character can be problematic - do you paint AS the character or just someone dressed that way? Do you develop a persona and ACT like the character...

I will dress up but don't generally market it - it is in fine print on my website. I charge $25 or $50 (depending if I really want to or not... depends on who is asking! ) extra to do so and I do NOT act differently.

Cost is an issue to have different characters - I happen to possess a tickle truck due to a life long costume addiction, a mother with fierce sewing skills and theatre involvement so putting together outfits is easy for me.

Thank you for the insight, I too, have a room in my house dedicated to costumes from a lifelong obsession and I have done costume design and sewing for a long time, so the cost is not really extra for me. I just didn't know if I should use it as part of the market. I will not be acting as a character, just dressed up.

Tickle Truck? not sure what that is?

I also have a costume closet (ok maybe two and a little in my own cloest)
When I was in high school I knew the theater costume closet inside and out and the teacher asked me to clean it out---I was in heaven---LOTS came home with me (really only the stuff we had a ton of)

I offer dress up and depending on how long. who the party is for, depends on if I go in character or not---I have a degree in theatre and this is the ONLY time (ok and story time) that I get to ACT! If the party is way long or for a famiy who I think would be uncormfortable with it, I might do things differently!

Canadian thing... Mr. Dressup had a tickle trunk.Mr. Dressup

ah--thanks!

I have done two parties now as a pink and purple tiger face in pink salwar kameeze and pigtails and it goes over fantastic and takes me no time! I'm pretty kid friendly and am just cutie me in facepaint. I simply match what I am wearing. It's not a character, but it's obious who the painter is! Just stumbled upon it at comic con to attract attention...it seems to be sticking!

LOVE Mr. Dressup, the tickle trunk, and of course Finnegan!

I agree with Shannon that it is a personal decision. Personally, I don't think my kids would care either way if the person who was painting their faces at a party was in costume or not. I don't think kids would really miss it if you weren't for example:

I don't think at the end of a b-day party kids are going to stand around and say: "You know, this awesome ______ that was painted on my face would be sooooo much better if the person who painted it was dressed like a fairy!"

I guess for me, it would come down to whether or not I want to put the extra effort into dressing up, and caring for costumes.

Mehndi Masala wrote:I have done two parties now as a pink and purple tiger face in pink salwar kameeze and pigtails and it goes over fantastic and takes me no time! I'm pretty kid friendly and am just cutie me in facepaint. I simply match what I am wearing. It's not a character, but it's obious who the painter is! Just stumbled upon it at comic con to attract attention...it seems to be sticking!

Tigers/leapords/cheetahs = always a good dress up!
Chantal from Fanciful Faces in Chicago rocks as Yoko the Outer Space kitty. She dresses in regular jeans and whatnot and paints a tiger on her face and wears her hair in 'cyberlox'. I'm not sure that she acts different, she just works at a street fair wearing neon pink tiger. She's a known persona for it!

Thank you for the input, it helped in making the decision to hold off at this point as it's not an extra expense I would like to take on at this point

I dress as a clown. But only if parents insist. I don't like the wig ohhh. But without the wig my costume looks bleak.