15 Designs with 5 Step by Step photos each, no words except the titles.  Spiral bound, glossy card stock, typical Wolfe Brothers Face Painting booklet size.

$15 at Silly Farm etc.

Pros:

- Clear Photos
- Varied Designs
- Varied levels of skill among the designs
- No words so fairly international

Cons:

- Horror – I could only use maybe 5 of these designs at a birthday party/corporate event: Beast, Gothic, Death a.k.a a skull, The Monster, Old Lady- but only if I simplified them majorly.  The rest are scary scary scary.
- Product names and colors not listed

Overall:

I’m kinda bleh on the whole Horror scene right now.  I have to say that I don’t recommend this one unless you want complicated horror pieces.  It wasn’t worth my $15.00.

Favorite, 100% Never leave Home Without It Gold: Kryolan Interferenze Bronze

• This one is Super Duper shiny and luscious.  It makes pretty jewelry- very realistic metallic shine.
• Makes an awesome lipstick for almost every design.
• Has a bit of a reddish brown undertone so it doesn’t work well as a wash for fair skin.  You have to be heavy handed unless your model’s skin is mocha colored or darker.
• I use it for flower swirl bases on dark skin just like I would use Kryolan Int. Silber on fair skin.

Here it is used for a Princess Tiara on fair skin:

And here is one on darker skin:

Here it is as lipstick on fair skin (Hey, it’s me!):

But!  It does not work well for dots or for linework over other colors.

So if I’m looking to use a gold for linework over a base color, then I pick my Wolfe/DFX gold.

• Solid, bold yellow gold
• Excellent dots and great for line work
• Kind of boring when used as a base-  Even a bit dull for tigers, though it could work
• Wolfe and DFX golds are interchangeable to me.

The dots of “yellow” on top of the black swirls are Wolfe Gold:

Now, I also bought a 2ml size of Snaz Gold (Metallic, Electric, Sparkle?  I’m not sure) when I was first sampling everything.  It was kind of bleh and didn’t work well for my needs.  Very transparent and not shiny enough for me.

DFX Old Gold - I just got this one in the mail and I will be keeping it with me for gigs.  Very pretty!  It is kind of a dark, copperish gold.  I haven’t used it yet, but I will report back soon!

Here is a comparison picture of the golds I have:

Clockwise from Top: DFX Old Gold, Kryolan Int. Bronze, Wolfe/DFX Gold

Clockwise from Top: DFX Old Gold, Kryolan Int. Bronze, Wolfe/DFX Gold

I have not tried: Paradise, Kryolan Metallic Gold, Fardel (I’m dying for some of this!!), FWW, Ben Nye Lumiere Creams

Mostly it is comments from vendors about increasing negativity online.

Let me explain something.

Face Painters are Small Business Owners.  We understand marketing concepts because we use them ourselves.

We don’t like to be marketed AT.  We can smell a twist coming a mile away.

And we are also a bunch of loud mouths. 

We aren’t going to sit still and take the “Beat your customers over the head with a club ’till they love you and want to buy everything you sell!!!!” tactics.  We actually stand up for ourselves and for our fellow community members.

The Face Painting world extends internationally.  But we are also a very small community.

Word gets around.  Quickly.

So go ahead and take the grumblings with a grain of salt.  But keep in mind that the very small community that is grumbling is the same very small community that you are trying to sell to.

30 Designs with Step by Step photos and written descriptions.  57 pages worth of designs and photos.  Spiral bound, glossy cardstock, typical Face Painting booklet size.

$20 at Silly Farm etc.

Pros:

- Diverse authors with different painting styles
- Descriptions of the steps accompany each picture
- Pictures of the authors/painters at the back of the book

Cons:

- 80% of the designs aren’t for beginners (or even intermediates) on the job
- Several designs could stand some editing (cut back on the excess!)
- Product names and colors not listed

Overall:

I like this book, but I’m not completely IN love with it.
Was it worth $20?  Yes.
Would I recommend it to a friend?  Yes, but only for inspiration.  It is not for stuff they can use every week.

Designs I am IN Love with:

Garden Princess (Cover Art) – the dots get me every time!
White Tiger – 2 colors = mondo impact
Barbed Beauty – Cree!!!!
Camouflage Skull – One of my all-time favorites (for painting on myself at 11:00 at night before bed)
Dreamcatcher – I use the clouds all the time
Monster Mouth – This is so perfect.  I need to paint this one this week!

15 designs, each with 4 Step by Step photos on one page and then the final design on the second page.  Spiral bound, glossy card stock that is typical of Wolfe books.

About $15 at Silly Farm etc.

Robot - love it!

Pros:

- Excellent designs you can actually use on a job
- No filler!  All space is used for photos.
- Simple layout

Cons:

- No descriptions, products, or tools listed
- Some of the steps are not 100% clear on what came next
- Not for beginners – 2 of the designs are “showing off” and I couldn’t use them on a job.

Overall:

Love it.  I have most of the other Wolfe books and this is soooooo my favorite.  If you don’t like it, then we can’t be friends.

Don’t Miss These Designs:

Angel
Devil
Mermaiden *
Crowned Royal
Robot *
Love Spider
Shooting Star

* These are designs that I use for birthday parties.  Does that make me unoriginal?  Maybe, but the kids love these ones.

Soft-cover, staple bound, typical “booklet” style.
$14 at Silly Farm.

Pros:

- Easy to use designs for the intermediate painter
- Extra breakdown of the components of the masks i.e. Skull cracks, teardrop butterflies, spiderman web etc, are given at the beginning of the book.

Cons:

- Steps are drawings / paintings instead of photos.  It kills me every time!
- No mention of product names or colors given
- Some designs are dated or fussy looking – Marcella’s painting style has evolved since this book was printed.

My Go To Designs:

Spiderman Mask – Love it!  I can’t stand Spidermen designs with red lips now.
Batman Mask – Another awesome one.
Dragon Mask - Easy to execute yet effective.

Overall:

One of my first books and it holds a special place in my little face painting heart.  I recommend it but don’t expect to be blown away by every single design.  You’ll get your $14 worth though.

$14 – $15 at Silly Farm or direct from Snazaroo
Soft cover, staple bound, standard Snazaroo “booklet” style.
51 actual pages of information.  The rest of the ” 56 PAGES” are the covers and the Table of Contents.

This was my first try at the cover design and it did take me 3 minutes. Not perfectly executed but you get the idea.

Pros:

- Lots of designs that easily pass the “What is it?” test.
- Good step by step photos
- Tells the names of the colors used (all Snazaroo)

Cons:

- Written instructions are painful to read.  Cut out the words and give us more step by step photos.
-  Step by step photos given for 26 out of “over 150 photos ideas” meaning you get lots of pretty finished pictures but you have to figure out the steps for the majority.
- Designs lack that “oomph” factor.  There is just something missing for me.
- Some designs look like they take longer than 3 minutes.  But I haven’t tried them all so I can’t say.  Maybe Roberta just has ‘em down pat!

Overall:

Cute little book with lots of pictures and bland written instructions makes for a good jumping off point.  I like it and I’m glad I bought it, but I need a little something extra and I’m not sure what it is.

Could you figure out similar designs from searching the internet for free?  Yes.
Are you going to take the time to do it yourself?  Probably not.

Here is my version of 3 minute cheek art stolen from what I'm pretty sure is a Kerry Ann Smith design. Hers was much better. Love you K.A.S.!

One of my pet peeves about face painting books is not having step by step PHOTOS (you know who you are).

Fast Fun Faces delivers the actual step photos and some other goodies.

Here is the Dreamy Dolphins design that I adapted to my style:

Pros:

• Lists Products and Colors used
• Easy Designs
• LOTS of designs (29)
• Mostly children as models

Cons:

• The wording on some steps is fuzzy
• Several of the faces add a full base when it is unnecessary
• I’m not a huge fan of the style of some of the paintings

Smashing designs I haven’t seen elsewhere:

• Noble Knight – totally worth the price of the book
• Totally Tiger – cute cute cute version of a half tiger
• Witch’s Web – I like the details and color of this one

Overall:
I like this book.  It was easy to use as a beginner since the designs are simple and I really like that they told us what colors they used (all Kryolan though).

Oh!  Here are the colors I used in my take:

• Wolfe Metallic White
• Snaz Pastel Blue, Sky Blue, and Electric Blue
• Wolfe Dark blue (for the dolphin bodies)
• Wolfe White
• Liquid Bling in Silver
• Paradise Black
• You’re Welcome :P

You can find this book at Silly Farm for about $15.

First Try at a Design

Price – $15.00 at SillyFarm

Description -

• 8 1/2″ X 11″
• spiral bound
• 29 pages long
• Includes a laminated Practice Face sheet with blank face on 1 side and 14 mini tribal designs on the back
• 12 Face designs (1/2 face, masks and eye designs) with steps and then 2 bonus arm designs w/o steps make up the Workbook

First Impressions - This was one of my first purchases as a beginner face painter. I was way intimidated and in hindsight this was a bit of a silly book for me to have purchased as one of my very first endeavors.

Overall Impressions – Now I use this workbook as an excellent source of tribal patterns. The designs flow nicely and are mostly intuitive.

Pros -
• Fairly easy to follow Step by Steps
• Great tribal designs for the face that you probably haven’t seen before
• Excellent practice sheet included with mini practice designs on one side (I used my Paradise black on the sheet and it worked out fine)
• Cheap!

Cons -
• Cheap and therefore not super durable
• Hand/Arm designs did not have step by steps

Recommended – Yes! If you are past the initial “learning to paint” trial period, then this one is so worth it. You must know how to do Swirls and Curls already.

Suggestions – Please Please Please do more of these Melanie! I would love to learn how to take regular cheek art pictures (skulls, spiders etc.) and transform them into tribal pieces. Also, please make a DVD, or a YouTube video or something. Tribal is awesome and in demand.

Do You think Tribal is worth spending the time to learn?  Do you memorize a set pattern or do you make them up as you go?  Leave a comment below!