Painting your face for gigs

I can't remember if we'd talked about this before...

So I tell people (regardless of event type) that I can show up in rag doll, pirate, princess or in civilian clothes with my face painted. For the costumes, I always add a painted something, even if it's just a few teardrops and star bursts. If I'm in civvies, I'll usually do an asymmetrical eye design (lately I've been adding a necklace as well), but nothing full face.

I'd just sent an email to a potential client with a sample of an Avatar face (I know! Little late on the bandwagon but still - thanks Magna!), and she emailed back about booking, which is great. She also said that the birthday boy wants me in full Avatar makeup for it.

I am NOT a fan of going out in full fp. I rub my face and corners of my eyes, and smear it and hate not reapplying chapstick/lip gloss. That and the fact that this would take me 10X longer to get ready for than normal...I'm not crazy about it. But I did say I can come w my face painted - I hadn't realised I needed to specify that!

Would you decline a full face, or go with it? I don't charge extra to come in costume, so it's not like I can tack that on now. (Although I still haven't given her a price.)

I'm always in full face, so I don't know if I'm the best comparison.... If it were something that you were going to offer often, I'd suggest learning to do it in grease paint instead of regular face paints so that it wouldn't smear or rub off, but it would be a bit of an investment and take even longer to put on than face paints.

I would say it's up to you as to how comfortable you are with it. If there will be children under 4, you may also want to make sure that they aren't going to freak out over it.

See my blog I actually blogged on this very topic the other day!!

I always paint myself, often full face... so not a problem for me. Although, I've never done Avatar.

No one has ever specified what they want me painted as ... I've never brought it up either, I just show up that way (it is in my booking informtion but who reads that??? )

If they request a costume/character then I charge them for that.

hmmm...thats a toughee. Honestly, I would tell her that while you are working, its not a face you can have on. That you end up sweating it off, and the makeup gets too hot or something.

Maybe you can come up with an avatar mask? Or do it just around one eye or something?

I really don't think there is anything wrong with telling her its not somethin you can work in.

Perry - I don't see myself going the grease paint route, but always good to know in case I do. She did mention the birthday boy's younger sister possibly getting scared off, before getting painted, so that's something, too.

Shannon - I'd read your blog the other day - forgot about the topic until you mentioned it!

Bec - as much as it isn't 'ladylike' (ha!) I do sweat (erm, glisten) when I'm working - and smeared/runny fp isn't attractive. Pretty sure she wants outdoors, and sun (assumed for the end of July...) plus fp plus sweat = disaster!

I think I'll clarify that I hadn't meant full face (?) and say I can come up with an Avatar-inspired eye design or something...

hmmm - I'm thinking about what I would do in this situation, because I don't like having my full face painted - mainly because I rub my face as a bad habit, especially when I"m rushed - but I also don't like the extra attention you get - I can feel everyone looking at me and it makes me self conscious.
I don't know if you can get away with an avatar eye design - you might have to go half face - make sure you paint the left side if it's your right hand that always goes for the rub, I would probably do it on a diagonal - that way my whole forehead is painted which is a lot of the design for avatar - one of my eyes but not my mouth - it would look good if you continued it to your neck too.
I don't know if I explained this well.
Anyway I want to see what you come up with so take a piccy if you please!!

Oh and just as a side note - freakin frick some parents SUCK! - I feel I can make this statement because I am one.
I have recently discovered there are no bad kids - just bad parents.

I'm always painted as my fantasy tiger, its part of my "character". You have to be use to it. In my case, I'm just really able to don't touch my face. I always have straws in my bag like that I can drink water without messing up the design.
But, I have to say that sometimes it feels horrible, especially when its hot like today. I just come back from a 2 hours Bday party, 30 miles away from home.

So I got ready home, drove till there, did the party and drove back home. So, if you include the set-up and packing-up time I was painted 5 hours... horrible at the end! But ok, I deal with.

The badest part for me is just under the nose, when it gets sweaty there, I just try to forget about it but its really not easy.

So its really up mto you, but if you combine the fact that you're not use to it + the warm weather... its going to be hard

Oh good grief - I've been putting off this email all day. (The good side is that it's the weekend, and my email signature says: "Weekends are my busy time! If I don't get back to you right away, I'm likely going to, coming from, or at an event, but I will answer as soon as I can. Your patience is appreciated!" so I don't feel too bad about delaying it.)

I don't really mind the attention (yesterday I went grocery shopping in my pirate gear - OH the looks! It's like what, pirates don't eat?), as long as it's because the work is GOOD! You know? It's advertising.

I know I have a tendency to rub the corners of my eyes, the top of my nose, and sometimes my forehead - totally ruins the illusion if the face painter has smudged fp! (As it is, by the end of gigs my eye designs are already a bit smudged around the edges, and I usually have flecks/smears of paint on me (usually black and white, although once I managed to swipe a brush full of red across my cheek - how, I don't know!)

She also wants to know if I can twist an Avatar-style hat (?)...I may pull the infringement thing here, lol. I don't mind coming up with a new design if it's requested, but I'm also not getting paid extra to come up with a bunch of extra stuff. And I KNOW if I'm going a la assembly line, I do sweat. Then I wipe my nose. Haha.

This is what I sent her - I had a H-E-double hockey sticks of a time trying to widen the top of my nose...wasn't great, but oh well.

Great Avatar! I love the way you did the nose!!!

But, that women is crazy!!! First you have to come painted as Avatar, then now you have to wear hair pieces... and what else? next you'll have to come half-naked and body painted to really look like a navi... Its way too much.

wow that's soooo much better then mine! Your blending is fantastic!
I tried to widen out my mans shnoz but as much as I love him and I think he is gorgeous he does have a pretty protruding shnoz. I have also had some avatar disasters on chubby little faces that had no definition.



this one was better - but it's a bad pic -


As you can see yours kick's mines butt - if i was the client and you sent me that pic I would want you to show up looking like that too !! You look awesome. It's all your fault for looking so good! lol
She sounds like a demanding client - it will feel good to just say - that's not going to happen lady!
Balloon avatar hats? Now I've heard everything!

You guys are far too kind, haha. I spent the entire time second guessing myself. I'm going to respond properly after, but wanted to post part of my reply:

For the little ones, having a design painted on their arm is sometimes preferable - that way they can watch what's going on instead of trying to look at the brush going towards their face!

On that note, adults in full face paint can be a bit scary for the little ones, especially if it's an adult that the kids don't know! That's part of the reason I don't come in full face paint (I should have specified! I generally show up with eye designs and/or jewelry painted on.); the other part is that when I work, I do start to 'glisten' (it sounds much prettier than 'sweat'!) which reactivates the paint - and I know that I do rub my face - smeared face paint on the face painter kind of ruins the illusion! I am happy to show up in an Avatar-inspired eye design or similar, though!

In regards to the hat: was there something specific you were thinking of? I'm not sure if there are any headpieces that would transfer over to balloons - I actually don't do a lot of characters for either medium because of copyright infringement - regardless, there are a lot of balloons to choose from! I believe I mentioned that I do bring design samples. Also, I forgot to mention, the balloon cake is actually a hat, itself! I put straps on it so it can be worn And blue and green it is! I'll match the Avatar blue as closely as I can.


Yeah?

That sounds perfect.

sounds great!! She can't argue with that!!

love your avatar, Kristal...and Tash: I think you did a great job on making the nose look wider...

Ok, email sent...now, waiting. That part is the worst. Haha. It took me hours to write the stupid thing! And I still had to 'make myself' press 'Send.' Sigh.

I did a full face UV sugar skull on myself tonight, though, for another potential client, and I only kept it on for about a half hour before I had to take it off. No way could I have put it on and done a 2.5 hour party and keep it in tact. Add on the 20 minute drive each way and I'd be miserable. My 'solution' if I get an itch is to stick a fingernail on the itchy spot and wiggle - effective? Sure! Left the fp unmarred? ...not so much. It wasn't smeary, but you could see the fingernail marks, haha. So I know I did the right thing for me at this point. (I'd also hate to set that precedent and have to deal with, "well, you painted a full face on yourself at HIS party" etc...)

I think if I'd put the dark blue closer to my eyes, I could have had a bit more space to widen the top of my nose and make it look flatter - that was tricky!

Miss Yoko, I don't know how you do it all the time, haha. How about if you're doing an all day festival or something? How do you manage?! It wasn't until you mentioned the bottom of your nose that I realised that I do swipe at the top of my nose with the side of my hand all the time. I remember wearing clown white in high school (I was Snoopy in You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown!) and how rough I looked after - sometimes you just HAVE to scratch...

And LOL! If they asked me to show up body painted that would be it. No one wants to see that! I've had to deal with a couple crazy neurotic clients - I really hope I don't end up like that, haha. It's great to have ideas and to want to know about timing and yes themes are cool - but I am not going to go out and buy/rent a costume for your party. I have 4 clothing/costume options for you. I don't need to know about the cake, or sent a photo of a scrapbook to match greens, but if you tell your kids I'm a real princess, that's cool!

Tash - I think it's that my camera was out of focus Thanks though! And I'm glad you posted yours - I couldn't really find any good stills of the markings! I like the nose, and how you went down onto the neck, too - it does look better than face only, lol.

I don't know what hats she's talking about - they had that flying headpiece thing, but were there hats? I don't remember. Like I said, I don't really mind creating something - but if she wants me to design an entire Avatar theme that's different. I like adding designs that I'll be able to use for a while, YKWIM?

I was going to call her instead of emailing back, but A) I didn't know what to say B ) I could technically be at work today C) I didn't want to fumble what I was saying, so it's better if I can write it all out and 'edit.'

Now back to waiting, haha. Chances are I'll have a reply in the morning...

Thanks for your help!

If I had that request I would just say that it might be a bit scary for the youngest ones, but else I would not have a problem with that for a normal event on about three hours, but not a whole day event, since I probably would smear it.

If it is one of my standard full faces, it don't need to take longer to apply than around the eyes designs. In this case I would just make a blue tiger with some white dots. Normally I apply it on the job, before I start (unless for a birthday party), it always draws attention and often the first costumers.

What I don't like about wearing facepaint on a job is that my first design is always my worst! And then I have to walk around with that the whole day *lol*

I usually paint myself before I go to the job...and most of the times this is what many children choose..or something alike...but almost never a full face though...

My usual reply to something weird on my face is... I'm sorry, but I have a party after yours & there's no time to change before getting there. Or, there's a party just before yours & there's just no time to change between them. I had, 1 time booked as a clown, then no clown, then clown. I felt like I was in an old I Love Lucy switching act... never again!

I paint on & around my eyes, but not on my forehead. I tend to squint & raise my eyebrows & end up w/ sweaty, ugly paint furrows across my forehead & through the design.

I tried avatar once on my strange face shape, and all I can say is there were no Navi that looked like me

Kristal, I do go to festivals with a full face, I'm crazy I know. But, its part of my succes with one events company I work. They love my work but they also love my "Outer Space Kitty" character, 'cause kids and parents love me that way too. I'm like a cartoon character alive. But yes, at festivals at the end of the day, I'm dead...

Linda - ooh that's a good one! I've done a couple of pirate > princess or princess > rag doll etc, and I do eye designs to try to match both. Too late to add that reason but I'll keep that one in mind

Yoko - on one hand: geez! On the other hand - 'branding' yourself like that is pretty smart. I don't know how you keep from rubbing your face all day.

If nothing else, I realise that I can pretty much only be in full fp for photos, not events, because I'll ruin it.

FYI, no response as of yet. That makes me kind of nervous, haha. I am glad I wrote what I did though. Always learning, eh?

well, if it loses you one gig, shake it off and keep going for the next one. No big deal.

Yeah, pretty much. Never going to get them all.

Love the avatar face Kristal!!
And look on the bright side: at least she didn't ask you to come full-faced as like Thomas the Train or something bahahaha!

Kristal,

Love the Avatar! I've done a few full face gigs as Fiona now. I used Starblends and I was impressed how comfortable it was and didn't melt or smear. It took a long time to put on though as it was face, neck and down to the neckline of my dress. I had to have my 8 year old help me in the back. I did a little white facepaint design around the eyes for a festive look. I got a lot of attention, but my daughter wouldn't go see Shrek 4 with me afterwards because 'it was a little embarrassing' for her to go with me dressed as Fiona. Sigh, and so it starts...

I charge more for full face because it takes longer to get ready. Shannon taught me that if someone wants a custom (or new) design charge more too. I do a quick Avatar for kids and they love it. I used liquid bling for the dots.



Bec, here in BC we don't get scorching heat too often, so we're pretty lucky with paint retention. Our main problem is the RAIN!

Good God. If someone requested ME being a full face Thomas I don't know what I'd do...blow a gasket and tell them not a chance! Haha. I know now to specify that my "with my face painted" means eye designs or something, not a full-face anything!

Magna, how much more do you charge for being in full face? (Fun quick Avatars, BTW!)

That's another reason full faces are iffy - with the amount of rain we get here, I'd hate to spend a half hour painting my face, only to have it ruined by rain when I'm unpacking my car!

At any rate, I got an email back from her this afternoon.

I hadn't given her a rate yet because I wanted all the info first (location and # of kids), and quoted her in my last email - $260 for 2.5 hours + travel. She wrote back and said that for some reason, she thought I charged $35-40/hour and that the birthday boy would have to settle for her attempting to fp. Then she sent me a pic of her attempt to fp Spidey on him, and asked for tips on Avatar faces.

Haven't written her back yet, but I plan on telling her that most fp and balloon pros around here charge between $75-170/hour because we've had training/use proper materials etc. That and while you can find decent painters who twist simple things, or twisters who paint poorly, I think I'm the only person around here who does both well. (Dana and Magna, can you think of anyone? Not teams of people, just solo artists.)

Professional Face Painters: Educating the Public, One Parent At a Time!