Facepaint UK Blog

Are you a heartless mercenary, or a useless soppy pushover?

Answer this wicked quiz, written by an anonymous member - it's not quite what you might expect!

1. The line closed twenty minutes ago, and you’ve just finished the last face of the day. Tiny Tim complete with crutches hobbles over with his sick grandfather and asks politely if he could be a puppy. Do you:

A) Reply “The line closed an hour ago, and I’m only here because my lift isn’t here for another 40 minutes. If you want, I’ll do you a Batman glitter tattoo, but it’s double time after 4pm, so that’s £6…..Payable in advance please, granddad.”
B) Immediately agree, unpack your entire kit and paint the best puppy ever complete with a UV tongue, and throwing in a bit of cheek art for Tiny Tim’s little sister; before getting talked into donating £20 to the Tiny Tim foundation and doing a freebie at their fundraiser next weekend.

2. You’ve been asked to paint at your daughter’s school fete. Are your terms:

A) £50 pitch fees (paid to you by the PTA), £4ppf. School provides line managers, posters, a free advert in the programme, and a Public Address announcement about “Special Guest Professional Face Painter” every 15 minutes. Plus a guarantee that there will be no other face painters at the event - ever again.
B) Absolutely free of course. Plus, you don’t mind doing the International Evening on the 12th, sharing your kit with the two mums also painting, as well as giving a free ad hoc two hour face painting class to the others before the fete begins, buying £30 worth of (losing) raffle tickets and spending an hour afterwards helping the PTA pack up the Tombola.

3. You’re painting at the fete, and one of the young mums from the PTA remarks how much she’s enjoyed herself, and that she would love to do this to make a little money to supplement her income. Do you say:

A) “Look here Britney Spears, I tolerate you slapping on your glam-rock butterflies next to me because it makes me look really good. But if you’re going into this full time, I’ll see you as direct competition, and this town ain’t big enough for the both of us. If you even think of calling yourself a face painter, I’ll be on Facebook to every friend of mine that’s a supplier, and you’ll be lucky if you can buy Snaz Party Packs for 20% over retail at the Early Learning Centre.”
B) “Oh how wonderful, you were so good considering the materials the school gave you. Here, have this sable brush of mine, you’ll really notice the difference. Come round to my place next Tuesday – we’ll have a jam, we’ll make rainbow cake and I’ll show you some great faces. Are you free next Saturday? There’s a party in Stevenage I can’t be bothered with – oh don’t worry about childcare, I’ll have your kids while you do the job……”

4. You’ve been asked to teach a class at a prestigious stage school in London. You want to make a lasting impression on the students. Do you:

A) Hammer home the importance of health and safety over and over again. You make them associate you with changing water after every face. You constantly remind them that you will force each student to drink the water from their jars at the end of each session, so for their own good, it had better be fresh as mountain dew.
B) Fuss over every student and go to the ends of the earth to make sure they are all individually entertained and see you as their face painting best friend rather than a guest teacher. Rush about teaching tribal designs for the girls and dermawax wounds for the boys, whilst surreptitiously changing their water for them when it gets too murky, and cleaning their sponges.

5. It’s your first time as a FACE certificator. The candidate lives in the next road to you, would appear before you alphabetically in the FACE directory, and is two dress sizes smaller. She’s also on fire, storming through an outstanding clown and a tiger before painting a tropical sunset that includes a decent reflection of the sun, and the entire cast of “Lost” in silhouette on the island. Do you write on your report:

A) “For a woman of her hygiene, she did not steal as much from me as I would have expected. Her well-honed painting skills seem to have been acquired in prison, I did not agree with the way she handled the children by the throat – and her breath smelled strongly of alcohol.”
B) “I thoroughly recommend the candidate. Not only would I unhesitatingly work with, or for her, I let her body paint my husband.”

6. Your supplier of five years lets you down on an order. You ordered a 30g Wolfe black. They don’t have any, but know you need the order, so they don’t charge you for the Wolfe, and send you a 40g Paradise Black FOC. Do you:

A) Email them right away, telling them how disappointed you are and how your other supplier would never let you down like this. You don’t care about what they've sent you – you need that Wolfe right now – even if they have to buy it online from another site and have it couriered direct to you. Today.
B) Email them telling how much you appreciate their effort, and put in an extra large order that you didn’t really need. And then send a paypal for the Paradise – even though it was supposed to be free.

7. It’s the last day of convention! How do you spend it?

A) Bothering suppliers for steep last minute discounts, winning beginner’s competitions and flirting with the only male tutor
B) Looking after various random children, helping your suppliers pack up their stands, offering lifts to painters that live “sort-of” near you as well as judging and modelling for the kids glitter tattoo competition.

8. You are out one Saturday afternoon when you notice an amateur face painter at a random charity stand in the shopping centre. You hang around a bit, and look over the faces on offer on the A-frame. To your surprise, the tiger on the poster looks very much like yours. In fact, it is yours, printed off your website! It’s far too busy and public to do anything about it now, but one of the workers at the stand gives you a leaflet about the organisation. It provides the name and address of the area rep for the charity. Do you send her:

A) A horse’s head.
B) A donation.

9. You’re at your sister’s birthday party, and she’s having drinks and a barbeque in her substantial garden. There are some sixty family and friends there plus dozens of kids. As the day progresses, a lot of the parents are full of food and drink, and the kids are getting out of control. Do you:

A) Set up a ppf in your sister’s front room…using her paints.
B) Drive all the kids round to your house, put on jelly and ice cream for them – do glitter tattoos with the girls whilst the boys watch dvds in your bedroom on your plasma.

10. Your son has met a girl at university and fallen in love. She’s a very talented art student from Brazil and happens to have done a lot of face/body painting back home. They plan to get married next year. This is good news because:

A) You’re on easy street now baby! You can sack your painter, and bring your future daughter-in-law in on sub-minimum wage. No more back-breaking 10 hour shifts at Bluewater for you! The girl can do it all, and she won’t complain if she wants to marry your son…and his passport.
B) Your darling son will have found happiness. Even better, during the holidays, his fiancée can work with you at pro-rates. If they live with you rent free, they’ll be able to save up a tidy sum to start them off in life. You can even pass her some of your jobs to help her with her college fees.

HOW DID YOU SCORE?

Mostly As: Wow, you’re one stone cold bitch. You’re more mercenary than an ex-French Foreign Legionnaire called Dirty Pierre. You’re just waiting for the right time to oust the present leadership of your FP organisation, and it will be your own little empire, and you’ll be the Godmother. Painters will come and kiss your ring for membership, and will pay premiums to train at your highly endorsed school.

Mostly Bs: How on earth have you managed to survive this long? You’re a bona fide human doormat, weak, gullible, servile, hopelessly optimistic and romantic. You react like a guided missile to the sound of crying children, haven’t made a profit in years and you even do freebies and discounts for multinational corporate clients like General Motors and McDonalds.