Caricature at Sentosa

Did caricature for Barclay Bank's family last week at Sentosa.Met William doing Wire craft in the event.

Event Live Caricaturist

Can a caricaturist who do live drawing for events during dinner and dance, family days, production launch events and etc able to making big money? In my past years experiences till today, the answers is no; I repeat again: not every day every month having events that need caricaturist.

If you really thinking making lots money by doing fringe activities through event's booking, then you probably have to do like this new immigrant family from China, they really charge low rate and do all kinds of fringe items that demand by the event market which are: caricature, silhouette cutting, Chinese calligraphy, henna painting, airbrush tattoo and whatever known event fringe arts items, varnishing foods and whatever fringe art items that within and beyond your imagination, I guess that if for sure you can make big money.

So you will be always occupied event booking because any events companies sure need one of your fringe art service for their event.

I only emphasized on doing live caricature for such events, and since events and entertainment is a show business, most of them hired mainly to create the atmosphere for the events and expect us produce a big volume of drawings for the guests during our booking. So I always challenge myself with "minimum time frame to produce a maximum quality" of live caricature during the event working hour. I always try to complete it within 2-3 minutes for each A4 size black & white drawing with my familiar medium.
Within 2-3 minutes live caricature, try my best to produce a look-alike drawing in my style, just try to create some fun in this show business.I am not tend to offend any one, but just try to highlight that you definite can't compare your studio drawing's quality with my 2-3minutes live drawing, it is totally different thing, you only shown your childish jealous character, not professional at all and will be laugh be many other professionals in this trait. Just like a Restaurant Chef would never compare his dish with the standard of food that bought from hawker center. Unless you not deny you are an amateur artist that totally unable to differentiate what is live drawing for the show business, what is chargeable personal live drawing and what is called studio drawing.

If you believe you are an established and famous artist, you would not try your best to grab such little income of event live drawing job by talking bad of other artists, or do whatever bad thing or throw whatever black magic to kick anyone out.

Just by doing only live caricature drawing in events, can't make big money, just for example during 6.30pm-7.30pm at the weekend you can only do one job at place, so how much you can made during this day on 6.30pm-7.30pm?

For example like established and famous caricaturist Mr Einstein, he emphasize on his Media production or stage live drawing performance, or like our Singapore's famous portrait artist Mr Siew Hock Meng, a piece of artwork cost $1000- $10000 or more, you would never see them appear on dinner and dance or family day events doing free drawing for the guests which hired by the event company.

Event Caricaturist Day!

6.30pm – 7.30pm, 11th, December, Friday, 2009!
6.30pm – 7.30pm, 18th, December, Friday, 2009!

That was many event companies asking for caricaturist to do their dinner and dance since 2 months ago, as per usual, the above date and timing is the hot date for caricaturists’ pre-event booking.

Does it mean the economy of the market had picked up?
I don’t think so, because is just happened the whole Singapore island’s related companies having dinner and dance from 6.oo pm onwards.

Train 500 caricaturists to meet the ‘Caricaturists Day’ to meet the market’s need?
Wrong question! From my experiences, it only occurs 1 to 3 times within each year so far.

There are up and down period within the year, it could happened that continuously no events caricaturists demand or having super low demand, for example like the period that having H1N1 cases, many caricaturists will try to look for job and trying hard to check which competitor is undercutting them. Haahaa!

6.30pm – 7.30pm, 11th, December, Friday, 2009, can do pre-event caricature?
6.30pm – 7.30pm, 18th, December, Friday, 2009, can do pre-event caricature?

As an event caricaturist, please ask yourself how many places you can go in above mentioned time frame?

Clone 50 of you so made the 50 cloned ‘you’ grab the entire job?
Nope! Because the 50 cloned you already a real human, ‘they’ need to use the money to survive (just like eat, drink, clothing and related expenses)

My idea is getting 50 ‘Surrogates’ of me (a robot which made exactly like me, see Bruce Willis’s movie), so after the 50 ‘Me’ done the entire job, just back home and past me the earned $, and then all of them go back to the cupboard and sleep (or charging electricity)!

Hia hia!

The Art of Crowd Control During Events

Whether you are in charge caricature drawing, airbrush tattoo or doing any complementary items in the events, I am very sure you always face the big crowd or people queuing for their free stuffs.

After many years’ experience doing event, I found that crowd control for complimentary stuffs is one of the very important thing we need to do.

To me, crowd control is an art. You can’t expect there is always having event officers or crew to help in the crowd control, hence you need to control by yourself and I found that is the best way to make the show running smoothly.

For example, during my caricature drawing session (stationary type, not roving type), I will estimate how many people I can draw within the last 30minutes, and then I will quickly go to the queue and past my colorized papers to the limited peoples in the queue, I told the queue I can only draw these amount of peoples within the last 30minutes’ working hour, hence basically avoided any disappointment and frustrations.

Some artists was passing own made queue number to the queue in 30 minutes in advance as well, it work as well.

Roving Caricaturist

I not sure whether roving caricaturist is the latest trend and demand in the market or not, but so far almost all my enquiry about my caricature service was roving job, maybe someday I should check with the caricaturists who are worked in this line that are much longer than me to see if this really the current trend.

In my experiences, if you want to work as event caricaturists, you hardly avoid doing roving job, unless you have a real big famous name that can made all the guests in the related events come to sit down on the chair right in front you and let you draw their face.

Once you asked to do roving caricature, you have to be compromised you are belonging to one of the servicing staffs in the event, how was the guests seeing you was depend on your luck; what I mean if you met a group of guest that respect you are a professional or a specialist, you sure can tell and feel it; else some will treat you as an waiter or waitress, hence, once you drawn them and give the drawing to them and they could made a bad comment about it, this is a realistic world.

At this moment, you hardly tell or show people how stunning your background an experiences are, because to such group of people you just a waiter or waitress.

(Photo taken in 1993 while I doing roving caricature in a Valentine day event at Raffles hotel if I am not wrong. I got hair during that time! Heehee!)

Large Size Caricature Painting

Saw from today’s news paper and knew that the new Tampines 1 shopping mall having an official opening tomorrow, usually there are some performance and free gifts for the shopper on that day like balloon sculpture and etc. One of the items they are going to present to the shopping on tomorrow (18 Jul and 19 Jul) will be Australian Brad Blaze’s Speed Painting and Caricature that was very interesting.

Brad Blaze is an ambidextrous artist and the way he paint was using a twist-able painting board the paint in an unusual way using his both hands from unexpected angles!He is very creative and talented! The most important thing was the way and prop of his performance was real original!You can see his youtube capture at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFQk5j6ZQ6Q

Woodgrove Secondary School Events

Engaged by an event company to do caricature for Woodgrove secondary school’ funfair.That was great to met balloonist Sara in the event.I felt many years younger while work in this school; I am ‘Back to School’! Heehee!Interesting booth!

Hot Day for Caricaturists in Peak Period

As per every year in December which is the peak period for caricaturists’ demand due to many companies having their dinner and dance. This year’s hot day for caricaturist was 5th December, 12th, 13th December and 19th December.

As an event artist, you need to be super duple careful about your booking schedule, if you realized you are having double booking, that was no chance for you to find and replacement because all of your caricature friends also taken in these hot date! That will be a serious problem.

Nothing to envy, not because you are that highly demand but it just happened so many dinner and dance running at the same day, almost same timing which either from 6.00pm to 7.00pm or 6.30pm to 7.30pm.

I think as an event caricaturist, we only can pay extra attention to ensure do not have and double booking that’s all we can do, because the whole Singapore was having dinner and dance in many places at the same time! Meanwhile, no matter how hard we are trying to grab the job, we only able to do ONE show on that day, haahaa! That is part of our event artist live.

I would say, during the peak period, the jobs was looking for artists; during the down period, all the artist was seeking for jobs.

Some Event Artistes’ Rules and Regulations

As an entertainer, one of the basic golden rules you need to follow was you never allowed late for a show. In an event, if your performance needs certain times to setting up your stuffs, you may need to encounter that, plus at least 15mins to show your face to the organizer, the best should be 30mins earlier.

The other golden rules, you do not asking for food after your show in the event! Usually lots events having buffet lunch or dinner, to the event organizer, they only catered for their guests, and they always not inclusive the entertainers.

Unless the event organizer asking you to join them, else I would never take any foods from the buffet tables, because it was seriously lower down our entertainer’s image and giving bad image to out clients.

Recently I came across a client complaint a caricaturist Mr. R had taken their buffet without permission; some more eat before their guest arrived! And then I came across another complaint from client that there were 2 artists Mr. L and the daughter Ms L was aggressively asking for food or just go direct to take the food and asking for beer or wine without and permission during the event running!

There was another guy Mr. D, after eating the food, sometimes he even asks the waiter to pack some food in the boxes or plastics bag for him to bring home! That was really terrible! Other than them, there were few more artists and entertainers were aggressively asking for food during the event and yet complained by the event organizers.



For some particular client, they will blaming the event company and deduct their pay! Eating the food catered by the event organizer was strictly prohibited in my view except they invited you.

Everybody like food and beer or wine, but as a professional, do not spoilt your own image, so usually I ate earlier before I go for my work; the most I only asking for soft drink during the event.

Roaming Event Artist

In some event, some artist required roaming or mobile around to do their performance to entertain the guest, caricaturist and silhouette artist wan unable to avoid it! I even did a roaming palm reading as a fortune teller in an event before!

In my 14 years event artist experiences, I realized one the number 101 thing must be do it nicely, which is the posture while you doing the drawing or silhouette cutting or reading the fortune of the guests: You must be always standing in a nice way, do not hunch your back especially, do not believe you are so great that everyone always give way to you; like if you are in the restaurants, sometimes some people just passing by between you the guests you being entertained; worst still, some waiter/waitress might even accidentally hit you and pour the drinks on you shirt!

Hence, being a roaming entertainer, you might need to always taking care the surrounding environment while you doing your job. That’s not easy, and it needs to spend more energy to pay some attention on it.

I would say, not much caricaturist or silhouette artist willing to roam around to entertain the guests; because it was quiet difficult to handle the environment while you spent your energy and time in the drawing or cutting the silhouette, hence, it could be quiet tiresome; moreover, it could be reduced your quality of drawing or performance it you re not use to it.

Super Hero, Singapore Flyer

Did an caricature event at Shangri-La Hotel, the theme is “Super Hero”! It was very interesting that many super heroes attended the party!
Did a caricature at Singapore Flyer as well, there are lots people there, other than tourists, there are many local people came to take the flyer as well.

Caricature drawing

Drawing caricature for public was not an easy job. It was different from dinner and dance or those special occasion parties or events. The public was come from all levels of educated people, means not everyone appreciates or know your art, whether you are an junior art student or you are a senior professor with doctorate/ master degree in art etc, the person being drawn in public events could give you a bad comment without thinking who you are, unless you are an Caucasian, a very foreigner looks artists, then they will treat you in a different way, this is the real world in Singapore.

I like the Malay guests, in my caricature artist life, they are the best, because they always respect you, respect your art, local Chinese, other than those nice peoples, they will give bad comment you on the spot in front of you regardless they are well educated or not; at least this is common in Singapore as my personal experience.

Basically, any local caricaturist sure will experience the same thing before; they cannot deny it, not because my skill but is the artistic taste level of the person being drawn. Those caricaturists who laugh at me for this, they actually insulting themselves, because they can’t avoid the same thing as what it happened to me; my 16 years experiences in the event industry confirmed this.

A senior art lecture said I can’t even draw side view caricature after he viewed my event; ops! I am not narrowing minded as him, because majority guest do not know how their side view looks like, they can’t accept the side view caricature. I searched many caricaturists’ website, few artist do it in side view.

I do not do any “special effect” for the guest being drawn (like pull the face long or wide) because most of the people cannot accept it. Other caricaturists who laugh at me, end up also do the drawing without add in “special effect”, because of the pressure from the guests. This is not western country, people can’t really accept they caricature being drawn in a surprise way.

Met Yunos!

I met Yunos, Zaki’s brother many years ago, at least 6 to 7 years ago. Seldom see him until last year. He said he was married and based his business at Indonesia, not bad men brother!

Now met him during an event while they hired Yunos and I as their caricaturists.

Look at our ‘fatness’, am I looks like Yunos or Yunos looks like me?
He got more hair to me! Must go Beijing 101 or Yunnan Haircare or Stevenson?

Another event with make-up

I thought I do not want to try any job with make-up any more, but last year-end had a Christmas series job, the event company hired some professional make-up artists to do it for their entire artist.

It was fun and excited! I met lots different artist like contortionists, mime, balloonists, magicians, foreign fashion models as well behind the stage! We are different from the public; at least this time my feeling was very different!

Ziv was the one who do the make-up for me; she’s the head of the make-up teams! She’s pretty and sexy!!! Please make sure to arrange such make-up artist for me for every event ok! Heehee! Thought my 'Uncle face' need professional make-up artist to handle lah.


Taken this picture while Ziv’s assistants doing make up for the contortionist.


Ziv was doing the final checking and additional make-up for her.


She’s the one! So beautiful! I should sing: “Your beautiful, your beautiful….”
Unforturnately did not get her contact. Ouch!


Met Vivien in the event! She was very beautiful as well! She had a very handsome and tall boyfriend!


Our tarot card fortune teller Kathy.

A Rough Event Caricaturist List in Singapore from my memory

In 1992-1995 (rough memories) , artist who do caricature in event as I remembers like Eienstien, Eric Ng, Saik, then follow by Poon, and Desmond, may be Pak Ah Bee from Clark Quay as well.

Eienstien was the pioneer artist who do caricature in Singapore.
Then followed by Eric Ng, had been doing caricature for events and also doing he caricature at Orchard Point.

Eienstein was running his own company and doing TV productions now. Eric Ng, was not so active in recent years and had been emphasze in his own business..

1996 onwards, numbers of caricaturist increased, included Zaki, Yunos (both of them could be already doing caricature in earlier years), then followed by Diana and Belle Kwan.

Thought one of the full-time portrait artist, Chong Jit Leong of Portrait Workshop had been doing caricature for events as well during this period, I did not know him at that time, only heard about him, then artist doing portrait and caricature drawing at Clark Quay.

Another full-time portrait artist, Pak Ah Bee from Clark Quay as well, doing caricature drawing or portrait for events.

Followed by another full time portrait artist Reggie Wan of Portrait Studio, joined the event caricaturist industry, if not wrong, should be around 1997 or 1998.

Then another guy who very aggressive that like to promote himself, Lawrence. He had went to United State for his study since 2002 (if not wrong)

Wilson Lee, the artist I met about 1998 was doing event as well, then follow by William Lee that I met about 2002.

Up to 2003, that will be about 10 caricaturist (including me) in the event industry, maybe few more people that I does not know.