Frustrated Already (whining a little)

In order to build my website image bank and get some "kid" pictures instead of painting my poor daughter again, I offered to face paint for some neighbor families for free. I didn't handle it very well and feel that my time was wasted a bit because within a few minutes the special requests started coming. I ended up painting for over 2 hours at each house, doing over 20 designs and got some pics...but no where near what I could have had. (One girl looked at a cute picture of a dolphin rising from the ocean and said "can you do this with a dragon and colors instead of water?" HUH?)

Is this how parties are going to be? Almost every time I've tried to do something "off script" it ends up being of lesser quality than the designs I've spend hours practicing. Or the other problem is I'll do a cool design and then 3 other kids want the same thing. How do you handle it at parties, or worse PPF fairs?

How did you all build your portfolio when the kids don't want to do your nice designs but make special requests that look kind of ugly. These paints are expensive and I want a real portfolio.

Please tell me paid parties are better.

Denise

Oh dear. I'm sorry you're frustrated!

If I have specific designs I want to do for my displays and I'm tired of painting myself, I'll call the neighbours over and this is my "deal" - I get to paint them with all of the designs *I* want, first (usually 2-3 designs per kid), then after that, I will paint them with their choice.

For parties - it depends on the kids, and their parents. (I loathe the parents who are trying to coax their kid with "Do you want a Transformer? Or a golden retriever?" then ask me after their kid has his heart set on a cartoon that I've never heard of, whether I can paint that. ) Most of the time they will be perfectly happy with your design book!

Easy out - "Today we're sticking to the choices in the book." For PPF, paint it if you feel comfortable, or else stick with your options. If you don't want to repeat something a dozen times, don't do it in the first place! I've also heard of people having all special requests be $20 or something. Paint what you're comfortable with right now.

You make the rules. If they want to request something and you need portfolio shots, they can get their request done after you've got your photos. If they don't, they don't get painted - that's the deal. You don't need 5 Spideys running around when you really wanted to try out a skull.

Try, try again?

Easy out - "Today we're sticking to the choices in the book." For PPF, paint it if you feel comfortable, or else stick with your options. If you don't want to repeat something a dozen times, don't do it in the first place! I've also heard of people having all special requests be $20 or something. Paint what you're comfortable with right now.

You make the rules. If they want to request something and you need portfolio shots, they can get their request done after you've got your photos. If they don't, they don't get painted - that's the deal. You don't need 5 Spideys running around when you really wanted to try out a skull.

Good suggestions. I especially like the idea of doing what I want first (ie: the pretty mask I've been wanting to try) and then you can choose an arm design. The first family wasn't too bad because I told them I wanted to try quick designs to practice for a fair...but as soon as they saw that I could do it, the requests started coming.

Thanks for the "if you don't want to repeat something" advice....LOL! You're right. I don't think it was so much that I didn't like the design, it was just very time consuming and limited the portfolio photos, especially when the boys didn't want to be painted in the first place so I was looking forward to doing boy designs.

Someone else mentioned charging more for special requests...has that worked for anyone?

Denise

when I'm painting for pictures, you have to pick from the list and you can't have anything that someone else already has.... THAT'S WHY THEY'RE GETTING IT FOR FREE. If they want something else, they can hire you or come to the festival and pay for it. When it's business stuff you're doing, get down to business and don't just be the regular party you.

If you are painting them for FREE in order to take photos, they get painted with what YOU want to paint.

Early on when I didn't have many photos (I as using coloured templates for my design book) I made a deal with a summer daycamp - I would paint all the kids for FREE for them as long as 1) I got photo releases 2) I provided the choices and would only paint one of each design - I provided 20 designs on paper and the instructors drew names so the kids could choose their designs (the last girl was disappointed.... until she was actually painted! )

I got 22 nice designs (including the instructors!), got decent photos to use and everyone was happy.

I have since scrapped every single one of those photos! But it was a win/win for all of us.

I also will set-up "appointments" with willing models to come to me, and I'll paint 2-3 designs per session to get photos. There are lots of kids (and their parents) who are quite happy to have something to do and get a free face painting to wear home. But they never have any say in what they get painted as. I have a selection of designs I plan to paint that day and let them pick the one they want to leave wearing... that is the extent of their involvement in choosing.

As to handling "special requests" at parties... I don't have a problem with that. Although, I honestly don't get many special requests - I have over 150 photos in my book for them to choose from. But if they ask and I know what it is, I'll paint it. If I have no idea what it is, and they can't provide an example, I apologize and say I can't paint it if I don't know what it looks like, they then pick Spiderman... really!!

I'd definitely have told them "sorry, the reason I'm painting you for free is because I need to do THIS design". Let them know up-front that you will be choosing what they get on their face, and then surprise them with it afterward. If you do a special request for one kid, the others immediately start thinking of all the ways they can make changes in the design they've chosen, and it goes downhill fast. Kids really do have herd mentality.

Parties will usually not be like this. If you have a menu board, they will choose designs from the board. Occasionally one will come up with a unique design idea, but if you don't feel like it will work well you can just tell them you can't do it. Works every time, lol.

Consider doing your designs on practice sheets.

I don't have a photo of one of my pretty color ones, but hopefully this one will give you an idea.

I have practice sheets that are FULL color photos of a pretty girl's face, not a line drawing. I paint them, put real jewels on them, glitter, etc. NONE of that shows up well if I take a photo of a child's finished face. But, by painting them on a photo, they are lovely. Plus, I can take all the time I want, fix mistakes, and hold the photo upside down to paint it ... children just won't cooperate with that!!

I also have a ton of photos on real people, but frankly, I like the practice sheet designs better. They sparkle!



- Lilly Walters, 909-398-1228
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Thanks for giving me the courage to stand up for my business. I'm usually not this whimpy. I guess it's because it's new to me so I don't want "disappoint" anyone but if the product looks inferior then I'm not helping anyone or myself either.

I think I've got to get over the "I'm not worth X dollars" mentality too. It's easy to give away painting because no one can get mad at something they get for free. There are just a lot of cheap people here, but I guess everyone is "cheap" now. But each time I've done it I've had someone say "you're really good" so there is hope!

Denise

PS: Lilly, I was just wondering about that very thing this morning. I'll try it.

We do this at our jams - we choose ALL of our designs and the kids do not get a choice. They are always surprised at that. But quite willing, just the same, once we explain that we need to practice our new design ideas. And they are just about always thrilled with the result!

If you say it with *confidence* the kids will be satisfied If you seem unsure, they will push you

This is a good thread. I plan to put up specific designs when im doing events and thats it. Like Perry said I will let them know that this is what you have to choose from! Id be more then happy to change colors of the design they want but as a new painter I feel its important to stick to what you know and save free hand for when I am home and have more time to practice. This is just my opinion.

When they make requests like unicorn and dragon fighting, I say, I'm sorry sweety, but right now I can only do one thing at a time b/c the other kids are waiting patiently. I promise that the unicorn or dragon is going to look awesome thought! Maybe next time we can do the other one