Thought I can park at the hotel carpark for an hour odd.
They should be charging me on per entry basis after 6pm, and the fee should be around $3, $4 max. When I stop at the entrance gantry point, I was shocked upon seeing the charge display. Thought I saw wrongly. Was that overnight parking or whole day parking fee? Guess how much? $7 per entry!!!!!! Nearly fainted. But the gantry had opened up, I can only drive through (if I reverse and knock into cars coming into the carpark from behind, that will cost me don't know how many tiems of $7!)
Crazy rate!!! Even higher than Carlton Hotel and Fullerton Hotel's parking rate of $6 per entry (or have they increased their rate recently too?) Merchant Court Hotel was upgraded to 7-star hotel, is it? Or 8-star?
I made a big turn in the carpark, heading towards to the exit. If there was no grace period, I will just park here.
Not that bad luck. No fee charged. I drove out and parked at the open-air carpark opposite the Hotel. The couple costs me $1.50 for 1.5 hours of parking. Still can have the remaining $5.50 for a good dinner. Blacklist this hotel carpark liao.
Back to the event organised by Jason from the Vision Event Management.
He has forgotten about my long-revised rate (more than 1 year already) of $200 per hour.
He thought I am still charging the market rate of $150 per hour.
I believe more than 95% of the Singapore caricaturists are still charging at this price. The remaining 5% are charging lower, ranging from $80-$120 per hour, depending on how desparate they are, in grabbing all events. They could spoil the market rate, given that some event companies just hack care whether they can do good caricatures for their client and guests. As long as they can pick up their drawing tools and draw a face on paper, they are considered as a caricaturist. This is very unhealthy for our market. I heard from most of the guests telling me that they have their caricature done before, but doesn't look like them at all. So they take it as the standard for live caricatures done locally. So when they get better caricatures, it will be a surprise for them. That's why you will see some of them quite reluctant to get their caricatures initially, till they see the first 1 -2 live caricatures done by me, and they will start to put their name on the queue list. This is the true fact, and I am not exaggerating any parts.
My rate helps to filter out those clients and event companies who don't look for quality, but quantity and low prices. I don't like to work with such clients too. No appreciation of your hardwork and skills. In fact, if they want fast caricatures, I can do up a sktech in less than 30 seconds with resemblance. No kidding, if you have seen me drawing live caricatures. My competitors saw that too. But getting 60 fast caricature skteches done in an hour is nothing compared to getting 9-11 quality live caricature sketches in an hour. What's the difference? Satisfaction and pride! This is what keeps me working in this line for 14 years. I have pride in my drawings. I signed on every piece of my artwork upon completion (except those I forgot to sign and this is rare). I am not afraid of my signature and url appearing on them. This is a guarantee of quality. Some of my clients asked me not to sign on the artwork, and I usually won't take up such jobs, except for those advertising purposes. I told them they will regret, as I won't guarantee on the quality without my signatures on it. I put all my artworks on my blog, be it satisfied or not. I believe that I have done my best within the timeframe and under that circumstances. Till now, I don't see any caricaturists in Singapore dare to put up every photos of the live sketching caricatures they have done for events. At most they put up 1 or 2 of their best caricatures done for that particular event. Maybe I am just too thick-skin. Good or not good, you judge it yourself. I will just show you what I have done. It may not look that good to you now, but it will definitely look better as we move on, as I believe the more I draw, the better I get. Skill comes from repetition!!! Right?!
Back to this event again:-
Told Jason that I have been charging at this new rate long ago, even for his previous event with me, and he can check through his account. But he agreed on the fee immediately. Thank you.
First one to grab his seat once the emcee, Jason announced the pre-event entertainment available for this evening.
The super enthusiastic one, but missed to grab the first seat.
She was laughing away on her caricature, kept bringing her colleague to my table to show them her caricature.
Bubbly lady. Laughing since she started queueing, and even after her caricature was done.
She told her friends that the caricature looked like her, but not exactly as in the form of portrait, and yet look funny and cute. Beside working on the face parts (too lonely and awkward with just the face alone), I will always add on the upper torso with different postures to give them something different. They welcomed this very much. And other caricaturists are following what I am doing now, and they told me openly that they are using some of the postures I have designed. Soon, you will see them using these postures in their drawings. I can't stop them from following or copying. What I can do is polish my skill and techniques further. I will just go on moving forward, and make sure that I don't lag behind. They want to follow, just let them be. At least, I am not following what they are doing. Good to have competition indeed. Keeps my passion burning.
Think these 2 guys are the photographers (from SIA Engineering). After taking some many photos, they think caricatures are what they can't get with their cameras.
As soon as I finished the face part, and moev on to the torso, they said 'thank you' to me and move on to continue the photo shooting.
Gave him a pro camera, with flash and a vest.
She wanted a nice face and figure as the caricature of Angelina Jolie, which I displayed for all my events. She was overjoyed upon receiving her caricature.
Requested both eyes to be of the same size. No problem!
Last one before I closed for the day.
Must snap a photo of my 1 hoiur hardwork, since they are still lying around for drying. In fact, most of them were dried. Some of the guests were very anxious to get their caricatures, but just afraid that it was not fully dried, and dared not ask me.
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