Poor, poor Greek Ladybird

[Myrskytär]

Hi everypony,

I have a dilemma. A customer sent this beauty to me to get her hair and left eye fixed, but I'm a bit uncertain what to do.

Her hair is very short and ugly. If I reroot her, I of course use real MLP hair from extra MLP tails. I think I can do that without feeling really bad. (She's Greek, she's rare and expensive, and my conscience screams DO NOT TOUCH HER!! ) But what about the eye? Should I repaint it or leave it as it is? 

I would like to hear your opinion please! :

visitors can't see pics , please register or login
 

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[freezestime]

I'd say definitely fix her eye if you can do that.

[RoseNoire]

Since it's a customer's pony and not your own, I think the wisest thing to do is listen to what the customer asks. You can of course have a conversation about the pony, her worth and what the restoration implies. Communication is the key.
The thing is to keep things professional and not making them personal. Altough you must feel blessed to have such a pony in your hands, it's not your own. I think the best for it would be to honnour your customer's request the best way you can. If you really don't want to touch her, you can decline the service and give the pony back to its owner as is.

[pinkkittywinks]

Ask your customer what they want and ask them to be very specific.

If you really do not feel comfortable repairing her, then don’t, explain to your customer you don’t want to touch her. I have refused to do some fix ups for this reason. Never do something you feel uncomfortable with.

If you decide you can fix her, do the absolute minimum, only put paint on her pupil where the paint is missing, so as much of the original paint remains. Less is more in my eyes, a conservative restoration is better than an over done one.

In all honesty, try washing, conditioning and styling her mane so it lays nicely. Some ponies can rock a pixie crop. Or make her a ladybird themed Easter Bonnet.

There are a lot of options

Love pkw xxx

[Taffeta]

Ultimately I'm gonna echo what both RoseNoire and PKW said. If you're not happy doing it, you need to tell the customer and return the pony so they can go elsewhere.

It's the customer's pony so they really have final say over what happens to it.

Personally I don't think it needs to be rooted or painted and I think removing the original hair given how much of it survives is a serious devalue on the pony, but again that's kind of at the customer's discretion. So long as they are open about it being rooted if they ever sold it on, and aware of the potential value hit.

There are some people who might pay more for a pristinely restored pony. But there are also a lot of people who will completely ignore ponies that have reroots, even if the alternative is an uneven haircut.

PKW's advice is also really sound as a restorative artist in this equation. She repainted a greek baby's eyes for me (the only time I've ever had this done, but this pony had NO EYES at all left) and she did a brilliant job on it.

But yeah, for me doing anything to that pony seems likely to devalue it going forward (no comment on your skill, just talking about the replacement materials).

[StillandSilent]

I would either do what the owner asks or return her as is.   If I were looking for a restore job, I would prefer to have it all done at once, by one person, rather than in bits and pieces. 
You are well within your rights to not want to change her, just as the owner is within theirs to want her restored.

[Leave a Whisper]

Warning: I'm taking a slightly harsher stance.

If the customer asked you for a restore and you didn't wanna do it, then why did you accept in the first place? You shoulda just politely refused from the get-go. That's a waste of their time and money.

Personally, if I was paying someone to restore something and had sent it off in the mail, especially with rising shipping prices, and was told suddenly that the restorer couldn't do it because it was against their personal conscious to "devalue" an item that didn't even belong to them, I'd be pretty ticked off.

I'm not pressuring you to take one action or another for the record. 'm just offering up a possible and different pov. Your customer could be way more understanding then me, for all I know. Although its obvious that they'd like the restoration done since they were willing to send it off.

I don't know what advice I can offer you that hasn't already been offered. What you do next is between you and your customer.

[Carrehz]

I think if it was my pony... I'd be ticked to have the restorer send her back unrestored, yeah, but I'd also rather they do that than go ahead with something they're not comfortable doing. IMO you can't do your best work if you're uncomfortable doing the job, you know?

I'm neutral on what happens to the pony - it's none of my concern either way - just giving my view on it all. Hope this helps in some way or another

[Artemesia's Garden]

If you decide you can fix her, do the absolute minimum, only put paint on her pupil where the paint is missing, so as much of the original paint remains. Less is more in my eyes, a conservative restoration is better than an over done one.

In all honesty, try washing, conditioning and styling her mane so it lays nicely. Some ponies can rock a pixie crop. Or make her a ladybird themed Easter Bonnet.

There are a lot of options

Love pkw xxx

I like either of theses options. Her eye is really easy to repair because it's just the pupil that's been rubbed. It might be hard to match the exact colour of the black/dark brown though.