Question: how much would you charge for painting a statue?

Thanks for the answers. Seems like part of the problem was that he didn't know was primer was and just painted over the clay. I explained the difference between the clay and the difference between painting with brushes and airbrush, and that he was way better off with acrylics. I really like to paint that sculpture because it looks awesome, but he insists in paying for it so... wel'll see what comes out. Thanks again!

if you don't mix the paint well enough this happens to me all the time...... use a clear coat to seal it.

That's weird, I once had the sticky paint problem when painting Sculpey, but it went away after a few days. No idea what caused it since it was materials I had used many times together before (acrylic paint, Sculpey III). Might be a humidity problem. Maybe they used oil based paints or airbrush paints that require high heat to cure.

Get rid of all the paint then try using primer so the paint grips that instead of the clay itself.

For painting, charge whatever your time is worth, that's entirely up to you. If you charge $50 to do it, and it takes 8 hours to finish handpainting it, you're making less than minimum wage. If you "just" have to spray it green and detail the face and it takes you 2 hours, then...that's fine lol

I see. Maybe it was oil paintings, since he's a painter who mostly works with canvas and it was his very first statue. He told me how different was painting on a canvas from painting a figure. I wouldn't be surprised if he used his oil paints... and sorry, I was asking how much to charge him for painting his Hulk statue. I messed up the title, sorry.

CustomCat, just wanted to say I got into figure customizing after MANY years of painting on canvas, and there is definitely a BIG difference between the two. With a painting on canvas there is almost always a way to force disparate paints and materials to work together for a particular look or effect and everything will usually dry within a few days if not sooner (although once I mixed used motor oil with a polyurethane sealant and that remained tacky for several months), but with figures quite often various plastics and paints and other materials refuse to play nice together. Before I even started I read through the tutorials here and a number of topics in the forums to get an idea of what works and what doesn't, and even then I still run into surprises (such as you can still use alcohol to clean a painted figure sealed with an acrylic sealant, but if you do that with a lacquer sealer it will likely strip off a couple layers of paint).

Anyway, as far as what to charge, being that it's a friend of yours, are you more interested in making money for you time and effort or helping them out to get the figure done? Like DrN said, charge what you feel your time is worth.