Body painting for some face painters is a natural progression – once you have painted a thousand faces, you start to want to expand your painting surface.
Body painting corporate work can be very profitable – a lot of hard work, but it can pay well. Doing corporate images and logos is where the profit is, working in adult venues like nightclubs and doing private parties.
When you are contemplating expanding into body painting, you have many things to consider:
- Your personal comfort level – are you willing to paint completely naked people or do you prefer them to have their private parts covered? Or do you want to just paint over bras and shorts? And if you don’t want to paint even that maybe you really aren’t suited to full body painting. The term body painting is also used to describe simply painting on arms, legs and torsos as well. This can be incorporated into your regular face painting offerings.
- Where will you find body painting work in your market – are there lots of trade shows or corporate events where it would work for promotion? Or night clubs where it can be entertainment? Or for art/photography venues or projects?
- Are you comfortable in the environment where painting occurs – if you don’t like night clubs or bars that will reduce your marketing opportunities considerably.
- Local by-laws and regulations regarding nudity – this is important as you need to know what is legally required. Clients tend to want to “overlook” certain aspects of these laws and local enforcement could involve fines or even arrest! Make sure your contract makes it clear that compliance with local laws is the client’s responsibility.
- Are you able to take direction – your client’s will dictate what you have to paint which can be recreating trademarks and logos exactly onto a body or creating specific images that they want portrayed. You need to be able to produce examples, sketches, and complete in the promised timeframe. You need to also be confident in your ability to copy and replicate designs from other sources.
Considering the above points and still want to expand your services, it is a great creative outlet and income earner.
© Shannon Fennell 2009
This is an excellent primer into the world of body painting. A few extra tidbits to keep in mind:
-Painting over clothing (bras, endies etc.) takes considerably more paint than just painting over skin alone
-Bigger sponges, bigger brushes, bigger cakes of paint!
-If doing body painting in a hotel (trade shows etc.) bring an extra shower curtain and several sets of dark towels as the hotel WILL charge you if you destroy these items
Body painting is so cool too. There are so many fun things that are done with it in the face painting world.