Face Off Season 11

Cafe Society
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Hey you guys, are we still watching Face Off?

This is Season 11, they are calling it Face Off All Stars. The details of the format are slightly different – the contestants are all from previous seasons, and they are in teams of two that will remain the same throughout the competition. My understanding is that eliminations will now happen every other episode.

Here are the teams:
Ben and Evan (both season 9)
Cig and George (both season 7)
Gage (season 1) and Rachael (season 7)
Keaghlan (season 7) and Melissa (season 10)
Logan and Adam (both season 8)
Niko and Cat (both season 6)
Tyler (season 6) and Emily (season 8)
Jasmine (season 9) and Stella (season 7)

In the first episode, Abstract Aliens, the challenge was to create aliens based on sea creatures for use with a green screen. My biggest take-away is that nearly all the models did what is apparently the universal sign of being a sea creature – a floaty arm wave.

Top Looks:

Gage & Rachael do a skeleton shrimp. This was solid. I thought it managed to look very shrimp-like even while being worn by a person. They also seemed to really get how to plan in a way that maximizes the purpose of the green screen.

Keaghlan & Melissa have something called a flying grenard, and their design looks great, it’s really floaty, and they use lights behind the eyes and the judges note that this is a perfect use of that concept. Overall this just looks so cool. This is the winner, they will have immunity next week.

Safe:

Cig & George have a batfish. They went for more of a goofy alien – it’s wearing a twee little suit. I liked the concept, but I’m not sure it worked 100% for me.

Niko & Cat do a vampire squid. The most successful part to me is that it has a flappy skirt thing that really looks like the webbing or whatever you call that part of a squid. I thought it was weird that it clearly had a muscled chest, but no arms.

Tyler & Emily have a deep sea dragon fish. I liked how it had a lot of head spikes and spindly arms, although I wish they had gone farther with making the overall anatomy look less like a person.

Logan & Adam have an octopus. I really liked the head – they incorporated a great octopus beak shape. I wish the body looked more like an octopus, it wasn’t really coming together as a whole concept.

Bottom Looks:

Ben & Evan make a Japanese spider crab … and it’s all over the place. It’s like an enormous set of legs, but they don’t work as part of an overall design of anything. I think the weakness of their team is demonstrated here – I always felt like Ben would get too caught up in one element of a design without keeping his eye on the big picture, and I always thought Evan did better when he had someone who was giving him good, specific feedback, and I don’t think Ben is that type of person.

Jasmine & Stella did a jellyfish. The main problem, as noticed repeatedly by the judges, is that they didn’t think through the green screen so the jelly arms or tentacles are overlapping in weird ways. Aesthetics-wise, I didn’t absolutely hate it, but I can’t argue it misses the main point of the challenge.

In the second episode, The Devil is in the Details, the teams have to create a character that is showing both an angel and a devil. They are supposed to use traits of their own for the angelic and the demonic personas. That second piece seemed a little weak to me – it seemed like the contestants ended up with some random good qualities and bad qualities and not all of them made sense as angels and devils (it was more like Virtues and Sins). The challenge is given to the contestants in a beautiful church with a lot of stained glass, and several of the teams incorporated that into their designs.

Top Looks:

Niko & Cat: Let me say now, in episode two, that they are a cute couple and seem really nice, but I am already done with hearing how their design elements are based on some aspect of their relationship. They do a Loyalty (angel) and Jealousy (devil) combo. It’s a great beauty make up on one side, with a very decayed looking demon on the other side. My favorite part is that it isn’t a line down the middle – they paid attention to make it look like the decay was creeping over in a natural way. It also has truly mammoth wings – there was something about the scale that didn’t quite work for me, but they were very detailed and looked good. They deserve this win. (They were safe last week.)

Tyler & Emily: I loved this. Their design is very architectural, but in a way that doesn’t overwhelm the character. I really liked how the figure doesn’t look like a traditional white feathery angel, but is still very ethereal-looking. The demon side is supposed to look like metal that is corroding, and it absolutely does. (They were safe last week.)

Ben & Evan: They created a head and arm of a demon that wrap around the model. The head in particular is very convincing, both in how nicely done it is, and the way it blends into the model’s actual head. The design is asymmetrical, but it still feels in balance (in past seasons the judges have dinged people for asymmetrical designs that look out of whack). Solid job. (They were in bottom looks last week, so this felt redeeming for them.)

Safe:

Cig & George: They had an angel that was chiseling herself out of a stone demon (I think). This looked reasonably good to me, and also called back to the architecture of the church, the location where they received the challenge. In keeping with the architecture theme, they gave her a stained glass halo, which I thought was an excellent idea … except they also had some parts hanging off of it that made it look like a Native American headdress. The judges were very focused on this. I didn’t think it was as much of a deal-breaker as the judges. (They were safe last week.)

Keaghlan & Melissa: They did a metallic-looking angel that was being covered by a “devil” that was a bodysuit made up of a lot of eyes. My description sounds terrible, but I thought this was actually good. I liked that they went in a very modern direction, even though the different colors of the eyes was a great callback to the stained glass in the church. I liked the combo of the halo and the horns morphed into a single piece. (They won last week.)

Gage & Rachael: I really liked their idea, which is a demon who is wearing the skin of an angel. Their execution suffered a bit. The head worked out okay, but they also wanted to show an exposed backbone made up of grabbing hands (their devil is supposed to be “greed”) but the final outcome was hard to figure out visually. (They were in top looks last week.)

Bottom Looks:

Logan & Adam: The thing I liked about their concept is that they were starting with a warrior-type guardian angel, which I thought was fairly unique in this challenge. It went downhill from there. The devil was supposed to be “lust” (again, I think people were confusing this with seven deadly sins) and there was a hand grabbing his face, which was okay, and then a face and another hand coming out of his midsection. The judges pointed out that the placement of the face didn’t work at all, it didn’t make any sense. It’s true – it looked like maybe the angel ate the devil by accident. (They were safe last week.)

Jasmine & Stella: They bickered so much from the onset that I was ready to send them home based on that. They had a very difficult time arriving at a concept, and even got started working before they completely figured out a plan – which we have seen before is almost always a mistake on this show. The results reflect that neither of them had a clear idea of what they were aiming for. They called it the head of a devil and the heart of an angel, but they always seemed far behind everyone else in terms of progress and the work they put out for the judges was absolutely minimal. I was also alarmed to see that they put their model in weird stuffed pants. They were in bottom looks for the second time, so it was clear cut that they would go home.

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Yep! I’ve enjoyed both episodes so far, and the quality is just amazing. The editors are doing a fantastic job of showing how very-early-on mistakes in conception or in the partners not getting the concepts really lead to the team’s downfall.

I really wish Tyler & Emily had found a way to incorporate the traditional angel/devil roles into their makeup. It was truly gorgeous, and I liked it better than the winner… but the winner did follow the rules more closely.

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Sorry I’m slow. Since a new season is up, a new thread is due.

This season, in their neverending quest to keep it original and interesting, they have opted to compete with teams of two competitors from previous seasons, that they call “All-Stars”. They keep the same teams through the whole season, and are eliminated as a team. That means week one is an immunity round, and week two is an elimination round, with subsequent weeks alternating.

Cast of Characters:

Team TroeTron: George Troester & Cig Neutron, season 7

Tyler & Emily, season 6 & season 8

Ben & Evan, season 9

Team Love: Niko & Cat, season 6

Logan & Adam, season 8

Team Werewolf: Keaghlan & Melissa, season 7 and season 10

Jasmine & Stella, season 9 & season 7

Team Rage: Gage & Rachael, season 1 and season 7
Spotlight Challenge, Immunity Week: use a sea creature from the deep ocean as an inspiration for an alien character - they need to be unlike anything seen before on the show, so the challenge will integrate green screen technology into the make up. They can digitally remove any part of their model as they desire.

Tyler & Emily, Deep Sea Dragon Fish - In order to break up the human form, they opt to use green side panels to make the waist impossibly small. They also create some thin, bony arms with a gap in the forearm, and attach that over the real arms, which are greened out. By putting the arms on top, they use the models arms directly to control them but mask them out effectively. The rest of the alien looks pretty good. One minor quibble - the fabric on the sides doesn’t lie smooth, so the wrinkles create shadows which show up when looking at it from slightly off angle. Safe.

Ben & Evan, Japanese Spider Crab - This is a disaster. They make a torso with two huge legs arcing out of the top like a crab, but only two, and a third appendage off the bottom of the torso, with the model’s legs blanked out. The fabrication is shoddy, the color scheme garish, the paint job wacky, and bizarrely the head is a completely different color scheme from the rest of it. It literally looks like vomit. Ve says the head looks like a Mexican wrestler. Bad choices all around. Bottom Look.

Keaghlan & Melissa, Flying Gernard - Taking loose inspiration from their creature, they make a composite creature that is lots of pieces telepathically interacting. They achieve the look by painting gaps along the arms and through the torso. They end up with something with a very dramatic use of the greenscreen. The head is also original. Perhaps a little misproportioned, and I’m not thrilled with the color scheme, but really hit the green screen use. But the judges love the paint job for patterning and graphic design. Top Look.

Cig & George, Roughback Batfish - Another disaster. They remove the model’s legs and opt for two thin legs supporting a large body - completely disproportionate. This thing defies description. It looks like a red taco filled with cream cheese on the lower half and a big dollop of old guacamole on top. (I realize I just refuted myself.) Safe.

Jasmine & Stella, Helmet Jellyfish - They also make the legs disappear, and they wrap the body in clear plastic that is melted by a heat gun into lots of wavy shapes. The head is a deep orange and very much looks like a head and neck with nothing else connected. Around the head is a hood made of soft material that has no form and no apparent purpose. The tentacles are thin and floppy, suspended from strings on the model’s arms, so as the model waves her arms around, they block out parts of the body and tentacles. Fail. Fail, fail, fail. Bottom Look.

Gage & Rachael, Skeleton Shrimp - This one is a fairly direct translation of the shrimp, complete with claws and tail. However, the use of green screen is awesome. They also painted out parts of the body and tail to make it very thin with gaps in the body. They also do something cool with the claws, making them out of clear plastic, but including a rope through the middle to suggest blood vessels and nerves. I love it. Top Look.

Logan & Adam, Veined Octopus - They also opt to remove the legs, making their alien a body in a hovercraft with two arms that split at the elbows into four arms. Neville likes the idea, but thinks the execution looks incomplete. The sculpt is unusual and alien, but the color is orangish. Safe.

Niko & Cat, Vampire Squid - This is another mess. They also hide the legs and arms. Their body and head look like a giant pile of pizza, with two big glowing purple eyes. They do have a fairly creative squid skirt that looks pretty good in design. Safe.

Winner for immunity next week: Keaghlan & Melissa.

No elimination this week.

McKenzie’s outfit: pretty shimmery green dress

I’ll get to weeks two and three later.

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There was an earlier thread – you might want to combine them.

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I searched and couldn’t find one.

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Here. But upon looking at it, it wasn’t much of a thread. I thought it was longer.
Anyway – week three was Monster High. The assignment was to take some obnoxiously cute large-eyed Bratz clones from Mattel and turn them into characters for a live action Monster High show. In my mind, this was a very difficult challenge because the dolls rely heavily on the “enormous eyes == cute” gimmick from anime. And several of the dolls didn’t really have much in the way of distinguishing features. Also, because the challenge was Mattel dolls, I found I didn’t have a lot of interest in the challenge and I suspect that some of the contestant’s spontaneous enthusiasm was a bit forced.

The gimmick this week (as usual, this season of Face Off is “nothing like any previous season” which means that it’s pretty much exactly like every previous season with the occasional curve ball) was that instead of the normal judges, they got a focus group composed of grown up people who were willing to admit on live TV that they are fanatical Monster High doll collectors, not that I’m judging… For a group of amateurs, I thought they did a reasonable job, although I’m sure there were technical details that slipped by them. They did, I think, pick the best adaptation – the fish girl, which, interestingly enough, was probably the makeup that departed most from the actual dolls.

Unfortunately, I can’t remember the team members offhand, but, as usual, a lot was decided just by the choice of creature. The team that got the abominable snowgirl made the unfortunate decision to try to make their creature somewhat simian to match the canonical yeti – the result was a teenage ski bunny with a weird nose. (There weren’t any bottom looks this week, but this would have been one.)

One thing I noticed was that there was a big mismatch between the age of the models and the age of the characters. It’s tough to make a tall thin model look like a tiny big-eyed anime child. The result was that several of the models ended up looking a bit like women at a New Kids on the Block reunion concert trying to relive their teenage years. The Dracula’s daughter character really exemplified this, because there was no face prosthetic, so the result was just a late-20’s woman with huge fangs wearing clothes from a sweet sixteen party.

No one was eliminated, but the two guys who did the fish model did get immunity. And a bunch of Monster High merchandise from Mattel, so yay?

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Week 2 Challenge: Niko and Cat’s surprise wedding! No wait, that was just her hope.

Actual Challenge: Create 2 characters to reflect the angel and devil on our shoulders - one angel, one devil. Make the characters reflect some trait of the team members, and make both characters into one creation.

Jasmine & Stella: They are completely lost. Head vs Heart? Fear vs. Courage? A goatlike devil with the Angel bursting through via the heart? Finally decide on a bull-headed demon for stubbornness vs. openness of the heart shown by a lighted heart bursting through the chest. Um, yeah, it’s that bad. The bull-headed demon doesn’t read as a bull: the ears, nose, and horns are all wrong. The angel is represented by this abstract shape and glowing heard sticking out of his chest. To tell how bad the light element is, I didn’t even realize it was glowing until Neville mentioned it in the question part. The legs aren’t great. This is a mess. Bottom Look, and bottom last week.

Ben & Evan: Selflessness vs. Taking advantage. They start with a Demon eating the angel. Meh. They realize it looks bad, so they change to a split face, devil wrapping around and absorbing the angel. This turns out much better than the original concept. The sculpting and blending are beautiful. The judges love it. Top Look. Redemption from last week, being on bottom.

Cig & George: Creativity vs. Self-doubt. Their angel is Chiseling armor out of the stone that imprisons her. The halo made as stained glass is nicely done, and there is a demon head on the shoulder, but the whole concept is missing something for me. Glen points out the halo looks more Native American in motif. Safe.

Tyler & Emily: Compassion vs. Guilt. They make a statue representing the angel demon character, with the demon represented by corrosion and ruin of the beautiful angel statue. The sculpting is great, and the concept shows a way to tie in the architecture of the church. And the paint and application really come off great as a bronze statue that is corroding. It all reads great and is well-crafted. The weakness is that is shows a statue rather than a character, and that arguably misses the challenge slightly. Top Look. Safe last week.

Logan & Adam: Protection vs. Lust. Guardian angel being seduced by a beautiful devil. Ugh, this is ugly. The concept isn’t bad, but the execution is lacking. The demon bursting out of him doesn’t have a rhyme or reason, and the hair is ridiculous. I can see what they were going for, but that wig didn’t achieve the look successfully. The angel’s coloring is muddy. Also, it’s two left hands. Bottom Look. Safe last week.

Keaghlan & Melissa: Selflessness being consumed by Self-criticism. Their character is an angel that doesn’t look exactly human, given the forehead growing into horns that form the halo as a closed loop. The sculpt is good, but I don’t get the concept of the multiple eyeballs consuming the body. Also, the idea was to show the halo starting to break into two devil horns, but the fabrication didn’t show that at all. Safe.

Gage & Rachael: Selfishness vs. Giving. Their idea is a demon parasite living in angel, with laced hands for the spine to offset the open arms of the angel. Except the execution reads more like a demon wearing an angel’s skin. Also, the paint job is horked up. Rachael started with a really purple color, but Gage didn’t like it and tried to darken it up. It sounded to me they didn’t communicate on that, instead he just started painting over her work. It ends up dark and muddy. Safe.

Niko & Cat: Loyalty vs. Jealousy. A beautiful bride being rotted from the inside out. This one is stunning. The beauty makeup is exquisite and the rotten side looks spectacular. They do a great job of not doing a straight line down the face, but making it seem more organic in mix. This is also the closest to the idea that I expected. The full costume works as a whole. The wings are some of the best wings ever done on the show - one white, one charred and blackened. My one quibble is the shape of the wings is a bit odd. But this whole is a definite clear fit to the challenge, and the work is all great. Top Look, safe last week.

Winner: Cat & Niko, and well-earned.

Eliminated: Jasmine & Stella, being bottom look two weeks in a row.

McKenzie’s dress: black, with white lace patterning in shiny stones.

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[Moderating]

Threads merged.

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Thanks for the merge!

The being covered in eyes is right from the Bible (Ezekiel) … and I was wondering if either Keaghlan or Melissa knew that from the Bible, or from the Wrinkle in Time series, where it also comes up as a motif. Or an art history class.

This past week, I was completely the opposite of Finagle. Usually when the challenge ties into a current game or movie, it’s something where I have no idea what it is, or what the design concept is. But I have a six year old daughter, so let me tell you, it’s ALL Monster High up in this house. :slight_smile:

I was wondering about the lack of bottom looks … maybe the show felt it was too harsh to be in the bottom because of a bunch of adult Monster High superfans.

This week there were top looks, and safe looks … but no bottom looks. I feel like maybe this is because there aren’t actual judges, and it seems awfully harsh to be in the bottom because of a bunch of Monster High superfans.

Excellent point about the age of the models factoring in, especially with Emily & Tyler’s Draculaura. Not even so much about the model’s actual age, but that particular model had a very mature looking face, and it really looked incongruous to me. One of the fans also pointed out that the Goth/Southern belle dress was beautiful, but doesn’t really capture the point of the thing, which is that the characters are all trendy high school girls.

Venus McFlytrap by Gage & Rachel was a bit of a dud. Her mouth looked so stiff and unnatural to me, like when you wear those plastic fangs at Halloween and they end up looking more like a dental appliance than a vampire.

Cleo, from Melissa and Keaghlan, wasn’t that exciting either. I really liked their hieroglyphic mummy wraps. They absolutely made the right call in scrapping their face prosthetic, but I think their straight beauty make-up could have been a lot more exciting if they had planned on it from the start and had more time with it.

Clawdeen, by Cat and Nico, was okay, I guess. It didn’t look like Clawdeen to me, although it was probably fine as a random teenage girl werewolf. I think my biggest issue is that they didn’t do the ears on top of her head. You wouldn’t think this would be that big of a deal, but it completely changed the balance of her head. The perky ears on top of the giant hair is key to the cuteness of the character.

Adam and Logan were driving me crazy with Abbey Bominable, because they were SO committed to this idea of giving her a monkey nose. Now, there may be something a little unfair about that, because when they consulted with the brand designer from Mattel, they asked something like “but can she really be like the abominable snowman?” and the designer seemed really emphatic when she said “Yes!” I think in their minds, this was the endorsement that she was supposed to look like an ape … I don’t know what the designer thought they meant, though, but it wasn’t that. The part that was too bad is that without the nose, the other elements of the design were really great. (In case anyone unfamiliar with Monster High is wondering, the character’s design always emphasizes more of the ice element, she’s almost like a snow/frost princess, more in the direction of Elsa from Frozen. If I was on the show, I would have really played that up.)

Ben and Evan and their Skelita were a big success. They mentioned they wanted to add more color to the face, but were running out of time, and that is the only thing that could have improved this for me – to make the face even more Dia de los Muertos.

Lagoona Blue by George and Cig was the winner, and a definite home run for me. They succeeded in making her even more like a sea creature, but at the same time, keeping the character cute and bubble gum glam. I love that they were able to prove that this was possible – to go more monster, and still have it read as Monster High.

My biggest annoyance with the episode is that once again, the show made a big thing about how some contestants (in this case Cig and George) were completely befuddled by beauty make-up, with the whole “I don’t know what mascara is, lol” I think it’s really ridiculous that an aspiring make-up professional wouldn’t need to master that skill early on. It’s going to come up in so many jobs, it’s not like you start out at Glenn or Ve’s level and get to pick your own jobs and have a whole studio full of other people to delegate things to. Grumble grumble.

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Good calls.

Think about how to model personality traits as good and bad. I think the Virtues and Sins fits right in. I also liked how most of the teams used matched sets - Loyalty vs Jealousy, for instance. The only one that was really a mess on this was Stella and Jasmine.

I thought they did a decent job tying in the church architecture, and the stained glass execution was creative and absolutely worked. I get the Native American look, though, and I had the same read. Still, this was a Safe one for me, which is what they got.

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Week 3 Challenge: Take Monster High dolls and create realistic characters for a live action movie version.

As previously noted, the dolls themselves do not have much in the way of distinct facial features to work with. This means the contestants will need to conceptualize what it means to be a monster girl.

In an interesting new twist, judging will not use the series judges. Instead, it will be a focus group panel and the Natasha Berling, Mattel Vice President of Design. That’s a very different way to go. Usually they make the specialist an extra judge, but this time they are leaving the regular judges out completely. The value of the focus group is getting a read from real Monster High fans on how the makeups turned out, and what they like and dislike. The disadvantage is missing out on technical evaluation from makeup specialists.

Gage & Rachael, Venus McFlytrap - Traits: plant girl, pet flytrap plant. Part of her head is shaved. Tried to make a prop of the pet flytrap Chulean, but it looks too cartoony for me. The teeth are odd, because venus flytraps don’t actually have teeth, though the do have spines that help gate the mouth as it closes to trap the insects. Those teeth don’t evoke flytrap, they’re just ugly. They styling and color work, though the eyebrows don’t. Also, her skin tone is a bit flat. The panel observes the face looks a bit more mint, different color than the rest. Actually that doesn’t bother me. Look at real people, our skins vary in tones across our bodies. They also note the eyebrows. She does overall capture the look.

Cig & George, Lagoona Blue - Traits: Sea monster - scaling, fins, webbed fingers. They decide to accentuate the fish monster elements rather than downplay them. This one is just beautiful from head to toe. Despite claiming to have never done beauty makeup, they knock this one out. The shimmery paint makes the scales reflect good, the bold shapes and fins and gills make the monster element much more prominent than the dolls. That’s a risk, but it pays off big time. This reads like a monster girl, not a girl wearing monster clothes. And even though they play up the creature aspects, she still comes off cute and fun. The panel likes it. One thing that could be taken negatively is they go for a very glam, stylish look while the doll is often portrayed more sporty. That could be seen as missing he character. But instead the fan likes that she can be girly, too. This one is absolutely stunning.

Niko & Cat, Clawdeen Wolf - Traits: werewolf girl. Teeth, big pointy ears, fashionista, big hair. They add a face prosthetic to make the face more wolfish, and then apply hair to the arms and legs like the doll. But that doesn’t come out very good. Looks stuck on and tacky. The face prosthetic looks fake to me - almost wooden. I like the attempt to add a wolfish aspect to her face, but the execution is rough. Also, her character is supposed to have big pointed wolf ears. They make pointed ears that attach to her real ears, but they stick out sideways and don’t look like wolf ears, they look more elfish. Also,they’re still too small and lost in the hair, like Mr. Westmore warned. They really needed to be tall and stick up off the top of her head.

Logan & Adam, Abbey Bominable - Traits: Yeti girl, underbite, teeth. Blue skin. Blunt, direct, straight out. Has pet tiny mammoth in carrying case. They get caught up on the concept that yeti is “simian”, but they didn’t really verify that with the consultant. They just said yeti version. Apes have all sorts of noses, but they get hung up on the long-nosed monkey, which looks like it has a penis hanging off its face. Yeah, there’s no way to make that a cute girl. They skip the underbite and teeth and give that funky nose. Also, their skin tone is more green than the blue of the doll. But the style and flair are right. The panel loves the overall look, but the nose gets everyone.

Ben & Evan, Skelita Calaveras - Traits: Day of the Dead skeleton girl. They decide to make flat bone pieces to make the bones of her body, and use her face for the negative parts of the skeleton face. Interesting idea. This one is a bit mixed for me. They really nail making her look skeletal. However, the skeletal shape of the face detracts from the cute aspect. It’s a tough call. It does read as a realistic skeletal creature.

Keaghlan & Melissa, Cleo De Nile - Traits: Mummy girl, not much mummy, mostly girl. Teenage girl with a pedigree, superiority and preferential treatment expected. Wrappings embedded into skin. They start trying to make a whole face prosthetic, for no apparent reason. During application and painting, it looks like crap - a bad drag queen. So they ditch the face - the right call. The face looks a million times better. If they had gone this way from the start, they could have done a bit more with the beauty aspect, but this at least looked real. The bandages turned out great, and the overall look is spot on.

Tyler & Emily, Draculaura - Traits: supercute, fun, girly, frilly and lace, red hair streaks, fangs, drawing colors seem to be red and green, but staffer says pink is her signature color. Without many distinct facial traits, they decide to make bat wings that sprout from her collarbones. Interesting. At first it seemed cheesy to me, but the final result turned out pretty good. The model really helps sell the supercute and fun aspects. The big wig and teeth are great. Maybe the Victorian style dress doesn’t quite fit for a hip, young teen girl in the modern world, but they were aiming for a specific look - her birthday party. It definitely reads vampire girl, though maybe the outfit should be less black wedding dress, more fun style. But the panel think it fits.

Draculaura, Skelita, and Lagoona Blue were the panel’s favorite three makeups, Top Looks.

Natasha picked Lagoona Blue as the winner.

There was no Bottom Looks this week, possibly because they didn’t want to put the focus group under that kind of pressure. Though it does rob us of the fun of evaluating the worst.

McKenzie’s outfit - black with pale green trim and intricate lines.

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Really? You doubt that a bunch of geeks could love [del]action figures[/del] dolls? From a monster themed line?

Presumably if Mattel were going to do a live action movie, they’d pick actresses who could pull off looking like teenagers. Given the limitation of the models, I think the makeups themselves were all valid.

I think this would have been my other Bottom look, for the face prosthetic and the ears. Though if Cleo had come out with her face prosthetic on, that definitely would have been the bottom.

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Ugh…yeah, that bugged me so much. I’m surprised Mr Westmore didn’t try to guide them away from that, since it was such a terrible design choice. (Then again, I often find his advice suspect, which is weird, since I really like his work.)

This also bugged me.

Another thing that bugged me was the choice of characters offered - I know Draculaura’s the main face of the line and all, but she offers so little in the way of a jumping off point for fx makeup without going full on horror movie with her. I disagree with the guest judges on the wing-things they did add to her, even. Though, I suppose you do the best with what you got.

I’d have much rather seen Frankie Stein in the mix…it’d be so easy to play up the Frankenstein elements without killing the ‘cute girl’ aspect.

I actually quite liked the ape-ish Abby, though, personally.

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Oh, and on a more positive note, I agree with this, and think they did pretty darn good, given the compressed timeline scrapping the prosthetic left them with.

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Not having Frankie seemed really odd to me, too. I let my 6 year old watch this one, and she kept asking when they were going to show Frankie.

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And week 4, Niko and Cat’s surprise weeding. In retrospect, after looking at last week’s rather unimpressive werewolf and this week’s Statue of Liberty ice queen, it’s not that surprising, except that they had a win on Week 2 and went out on the reveal stage thinking that they’d done a pretty good job. They were visibly crushed when the verdict came down. Not sure I’d seen contestants so shaken. Part of that may be due to this being an All Stars match where the level of competition is really pretty damn high. A makeup that would have sailed through week 4 of a typical Face Off competition just doesn’t quite make the grade.

Notably, the other bottom look (Keaghlan and Melissa?) really had a lot of good things going for it. The judges just fixated on the proportions and positioning of the headpiece that gave the character a somewhat masculine appearance.

I was a little annoyed that we didn’t get a better look at Cig and George’s use of makeup under silicone. They had immunity so the judges didn’t spend much time on their model, aside from muttering that the technique would be more suitable in some other competition.

Tyler and Emily pulled off a stunning snow on trees effect for their ice queen. Not surprising, as this challenge is absolutely in Emily’s bailiwick. Her weakness, as they foreshadowed in this episode, is that she is really, really young and has seen very few movies. So anything that requires genre savvy, rather than just a decent sense of aesthetics is going to prove challenging for her.

Tough week. Lost a couple of talented and popular contestants.

Not sure how the handicapping is shaping up (we’ve already lost a team with a win), but for my money, it will be Cig and George against Tyler and Emily. Except that this being “a new and different Face Off”, in the final, they’ll probably break up the teams, and send them into a dome to kill or be killed.

17

I think Mr. Westmore is trying to walk the line between advising them on how to make their makeup choices work best versus taking away their creative choices and approaches. “That looks like ass” is a valid observation. “Put the ears on top of the head, not the sides” is more subjective, it’s about how you execute and whether that choice was a good one, which is what the judging is for.

I kinda wondered about that, what else could they do besides ears and fangs? They did, too. Thus the collar thing. Note: if it was supposed to be forming wings during transformation, it doesn’t work for me - wings come out of the back.

18

Yeah, but he’s not generally been shy about saying stuff like ‘are you sure that’s a good idea?’ or what effect they’re going for. He’s more than once given advice that prompted the team to scrap their whole design.

19

In that specific case, he had short pointed ears and told them to make them longer so they stick out of the wig and can be seen. Otherwise it’s a waste of time and effort. He didn’t see the “point out to the side” version.

I was also commenting more generically. Kamino Neko said, “Then again, I often find his advice suspect,” whereas I usually find his advice to be spot on. I think there was one challenge I remember where he said do something a certain way and the judges dinged them for doing it that way. I almost always agree with what he says, or think his advice is helpful.

He also wasn’t very thrilled with the full face prosthetic, but gave them advice on how to do it well.

20

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