I completely disagree with Ve here. It was a family (or as is often referred to these days a “found family”). If they wanted people to make sure that there was a dna resemblance between all three characters, they needed to make that clear.
Up to week 4 - Dante’s Demons
Walk into the lab to find McKenzie with Neville and a bunch of sets of horns. Neville created 9 sets of horns that were 3-D printed, which is the newest buzz in the effects industry. There’s a copy of Botticelli’s Map of Hell, showing Dante’s 9 levels of Hell from The Inferno.
Challenge: Choose a set of horns and incorporate them into a demon character who oversees one of the levels of Hell. Everyone gets their own horns, and thus their own character, but they are still competing as shops.
Neville’s advice - don’t take the texture and pattern of the design literally. Inspire your creativity.
Ethereal Effects: Foreperson - Faina.
Faina - Anger, knobby thick horns: Go for fierce, angry brow. She gets behind working on the face, so is late with her cowl. Overseeing everyone else while trying to get your own work done is a bitch. She also pulls together the base color so all the demons tie together with color as well.
Kierstin - Gluttony, intricate filigree in goat horns: She doesn’t want to do the obvious fat demon, so she instead comes up with the concept of a huge mouth that stretches down to the belly. She doesn’t feel the horns fit, so she swaps with Nelson, and ends up with thick fat horns. Mr. Westmore cautions her that her teeth all being sculpted out of clay runs the risk of not filling in the mold, and it would be better to make them out of a different material. She makes her chestpiece too long, and has to trim the edge around the neck where she sculpted blend zones. So she has the challenge to make the appliances merge smoothly during last looks.
Nelson - Limbo, thick fat horns: Gets his horns swapped with Kierstin, agrees he can work with the intricate ones. He feels like doing a priest, and that inspires Faina to decide all the team’s demons will be dressed in priest robes. Thus a unifying theme.
Andrew - Heresy, tall, lumpy antlers: Heresy is mocking of God, so he incorporates a smirk into the look. He takes the lumpiness like cooled lava, so makes them black and ties them into the flesh like it scorches them. “It reminded me of the Grinch.” Spot on.
Suzanne - Greed, deer antlers: Deer-inspired demon with lots of gold. She starts working the horn fabrication challenge, but doesn’t think her idea will support the horns well enough.
Twisted Six Effects: Foreperson - Joseph. He sets out to unify the looks this time, so he has everyone read and study their circle of hell description. He notices a theme of classic elements, with wind, ice, fire.
Joseph - Lust, corkscrew spiral horns: He thinks lust couples with wind. His demon is all eroded from wind.
Phil - Violence, really spiky horns: “Rivers of blood and fire.” Sounds like fire. He decides to tie in mythological creatures with a Minotaur look, then burn the face like the fires of hell. Mr. Westmore is definitely correct that his first sculpt shows a friendly smiling face. He runs into a problem on application where the face doesn’t fit to the model and cowl at all. Something about the skull cap building up the cowl distorts the head a bit and makes it where his face looks even lumpier and poorly shaped. He gets it on, but it’s not pretty.
Jill - Treachery, gently curved horns that look like twisted strands: “Their eyes are sealed by frozen tears.” Ice. She wants icicles out of the head like crystals. I can’t tell from her sculpt what she’s doing with the face, but the forehead juts out like a baseball cap bill folded up. Kinda weird. Jill’s head sculpt is looking weird on application day already, with her intent to have the head splitting open by ice. When she goes to put the skullcap for the horns underneath her cowl, it adds some underlayer that bulges the cowl a bit more. Also, she didn’t sculpt the cowl high enough around the horn attach points, so they don’t stay supported and stand up. Catastrophe in the works. She finally turns them around and wedges them into the head and wraps the attach point in fur to mask the blunder.
KC - Fraud, long antelope horns with lots of holes and hollow inside: She decides metal kind of works for her element. The hollow look inspires her with fraud, so she thinks of her demon as twisted outside and hollow inside. “Wearing the flesh of souls, but empty inside.” Great concept. KC is a horn expert, so she starts building the skullcaps for all the teammates. She also shows Nelson and Suzanne for their team as well. Because KC is working on everyone’s horns, she can’t clean out her cowl mold to run overnight, and the team is too busy to do it for her. So they will have to run hers in polyfoam in the morning. 
(Thanks, guys.) So they run hers for her, and it comes out “shredded”, and has a lot of gaps with the face. So she has to use a bunch of pre-fab appliances to cover the holes, but it seems to work out. Good recovery for a disaster in the works.
Judging:
Twisted Six Effects: First impression is they go together, but there are some wonky shapes.
Joseph, Lust: He said he wanted the head to look like weathered stone, but contours in the face almost read more wood than stone. The spiral horns look great, but that’s about all on his that is interesting. She also has some staff with a ribbon that the model keeps holding by the ribbons and waving the stick around. Looks goofy. The judges are baffled - “I don’t know what I’m looking at.” “It really struggles to find any meaning.”
Phil, Violence: The face doesn’t really read bull, the chin in particular is lumpy and bad. Also, the shape of the head is large and amorphous. The texture is supposed to read like it is burned, but I’m not sure it does. He’s added some sticks out the back like hair and the spiky horns are pointing forward to mock Christ’s crown of thorns, but doesn’t feel right with the Minotaur. It’s a bit of a cluttered mess. “From the side profile, he almost looks like a demented giraffe…” Not a good observation to make about your own work.
KC, Fraud: The horns are set to curve inward forming an hourglass shape. That’s different. The face is certainly twisted up with lots of creases, but doesn’t read as anything specific, and some of the grooves in the head lack depth to the feel. She did make a big metal collar of blades, but it’s hard to see how that fits her level of hell. Glenn says he likes the suggestion of a greater story point.
Jill, Treachery: The head is so oversized and distorted, it’s like an alien from cheap sci-fi that has a “really big brain”. The face is peachy in color, not pale and blue like human skin that is frozen. She’s supposedly got the eyes frozen together by tears, but has the icicles coming off her eyebrows. :eek: I finally see what the inverted ballcap bill is - the skin from the forehead peeling off the skull as the ice shoves through. Doesn’t work. Too clean an edge and sticks out for no reason like a shelf. The head is extra enlarged where the ice and split through the top of the head, with pink brains and long icicles sticking straight up. The horns are lopsided, sticking out at different angles and jutting backwards. Glenn says that the horns are supposed to be the showcase element, and hers are pushed back and overwhelmed by the large ice crystals and fur. Really bad. She also has strange fingers that read like cinnamon sticks.
Ethereal Effects: First read - 1000 times better. Just the element of the robe costumes make them look far more cohesive than what Twisted Six did. They look a lot better in basic facial structure, too.
Nelson, Limbo: His horns look fine but don’t appear to have any paint or anything done to enhance the look. The face… the creases and cracks almost read like cracks in bone rather than anything done to skin, but the lips indicate that the flesh has been pulled off there, exposing the teeth, so it’s confusing. There’s just something about the texture that doesn’t feel right.
Kierstin, Gluttony: Intriguing. The blue skin contrasts well with the white teeth and the red of the inside of the gaping mouth. The hollow, sunken eyes are creepy. The large horns on the small head could read out of proportion, but actually don’t. The teeth are awesome. The mouth stretches all the way down to the belly just below the navel, and she gives the suggestion of a throat by the contour of the chest and by giving a bottom jaw across her belly. The model does belly contortions to make the mouth move more. One might quibble that the tiny pointed ears look weird, or the edgelines around the skin-horn interface are not handled well, but the overall look is a great creative take for gluttony - the demon is all mouth rather than fat from overeating. Using a skinny model helps sell that, too. Almost like the demon is starving, so is a glutton because he’s never got enough food to be full. Glenn loves the mouth line around the model’s lower jaw and throat.
Suzanne, Greed: Yellow hair blends with the gold jewelry, so I’ll give her those elements. And the deer antlers are fine. I also think her face reads as demony without being generic. A built up forehead, jutting nose, and chin points leading into the throat. I give this more credit on second look over my first impression.
Faina, Anger: Red demon, black horns. Everything seems well-crafted, but it’s a bit generic. Although I think when the model moves around, the line between the face and cowl folds weird. Decent, but not outstanding.
Andrew, Heresy: The flat nose definitely breaks from human, but almost reads a bit bulldog. The lines and shapes in the face are well-sculpted, the bags under the eyes are impressive. The paint job has charring from the horns leading onto the skin, which is a different approach than red liquid lava horns. He also provided lumpy texture to the skin around the base of the horns to suggest there is more horn form under the skin there, that the horns don’t just end at the skin but run down into the skull. Nicely done. The judges feel it is a bit expected - “on the nose” - but it is done with skill.
In a twist, we reveal the winning shop first, then look at the individual make ups.
This week’s winning shop: once again, Ethereal Effects. No contest.
Kierstin: The judges rave over it.
Andrew: Ve thinks it’s the best paint job of the night. Neville appreciates that he continued the shapes from the horn into his own sculpture.
Jill: Neville complains about the skin color. Glenn likes the idea, but not the execution. “She looks more like a victim than a demon, like somebody’s done this to her.” Ouch. Neville points out the eyebrow thing.
Phil: Too many references, too cluttered. “Looks like the night-night sleepy cow that is going to lick you to sleep.” Neville points out he has got to work on anatomy. And the paint job sucked.
Winner: Kierstin, because she was the most creative and had a unique take on the concept. Plus the skill was top-notch.
Eliminated: Jill. Last week, her performance issues were largely due to interference from the shop foreman. This week, they were all her own.
McKenzie’s dress is a gorgeous number in reds and purples. I just love her stylist.
Because I love you, I’m going to try to knock another one of these out.
Week 5: String Theory
Opening scene, entry to a park with Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” playing by an orchestra.
Taking care of business - since Twisted Six lost again, the judges moved Andrew from Ethereal Effects to Twisted Six. Thus the teams are balanced at 4 each.
Spotlight Challenge: Each shop will create four characters to physically embody each of the seasons. Use Vivaldi to inspire you. The characters will perform in a contemporary dance choreographed by Travis Wall.
Ethereal Effects: foreperson - Kierstin. It’s her turn. She comes up with the four realms of each season, each represented by a royal figure. So their connecting element will be giving each of the characters a crownlike headpiece from their respective source material.
Suzanne, Spring: She thinks of a character that is the opposite of Jack Frost, who stamps his staff to bring in spring. She starts sculpting a headpiece of ferns and spring flowers. Mr. Westmore critiques her sculpt with a gap at the forehead, which will read as a man in a hat. He recommends using blenders to hide the eyebrows so it will read more as a fantasy character.
Kierstin, Summer: She thinks of southern California and beaches, so she imagines and starfish inspired crown, representing the sea and the Sun. She does a pretty good job of trying to watch the time and make sure everyone is staying on track.
Faina, Autumn/Fall: Faina decides she wants her queen to be edgy and dark, so she is going to stick to the darker colors of burgundy and orange, and dying flowers. This will make her character have a darker edge to her personality. She also has done body painting on performers before, so she has some tricks for making the paint jobs hold up. Faina observes that Phil and her are doing similar concepts of headdresses that are leaves, but she plans to just be better. The dancers are different sexes, so they will automatically be different, and then there’s her skill with color and paint. (Side question: how does one “toughen up your glue”?) On application, Faina is the first to get to work on the face, and plans 2 full hours for the beauty makeup, and is worried the others are falling behind.
Nelson, Winter: He takes inspiration from the Superman imagery of the Fortress of Solitude with ice crystals forming spires on the head. Nelson wants to have ice crystals from the cheeks and brow, but rather than sculpting them on the face, he instead wants to make pros-aid transfers. He sculpts on a flat sheet and makes a silicone mold, then pours the glue and thickener into the molds. This should be easier to apply. Nelson starts having problems with his bald cap separating and sliding back, so he goes in with some krylon adhesive and tries to lock it down.
Twisted Six Effects: foreperson - KC. She doles out the roles, which nobody takes any issue with. Because of the dance element, she wants the team to limit fabrications and focus on sculptural and painted elements. Looking for a connecting theme, Phil suggests foliage of the seasons, so that’s what they go with.
Andrew, Spring: Andrew thinks of his mom and her rose garden, so he thinks of a dancing rose.
KC, Summer: She listens to Vivaldi and thinks of Van Gogh, so she wants the colors of sunflowers and wheat and birds of paradise. Mr. Westmore approves of her sculpting the eyebrows. She has some difficulties with her cowl mold, but manages to get it apart and cleaned out just in time to get it run overnight. But she’s worried about the effect of the power-washer eroding detail of the plaster, but it’s what she has to do. During application, she has a thick edge on the forehead that she can’t spend a lot of time trying to blend smooth, so she decides to cut a grass-like texture pattern and hope it looks deliberate.
Phil, Autumn/Fall: Phil loves fall and the parade of colors from the leaves, so he wants vibrant reds and oranges up front and darker colors in back. He starts sculpting a bunch of leaves sticking up from the head. Mr. Westmore points out the practical element of how to clean the clay out and making the forms wide enough for a tool. Phil has some edge problems during application around the bottom of his face and has to trim his piece a bit. He gets to last looks and still has to do most of his painting, so he starts working in a hurry to get something complete.
Joseph, Winter: He is lost for a concept. He starts sculpting snowflakes that he has no idea of how he will use them. Generally, when a person is this lost this early, they end up with a Bottom Look. Can he beat the odds? His snowflake idea kinda looks like horns, and he loses the whole first day to nothingness, so the next morning Joseph sits down with Andrew to brainstorm. They come up with the concept of a winter landscape on his head, with snowpacks and with a couple of evergreen trees sticking up. I’m not liking this just from the concept, it sounds too similar to the “water park” fiasco from last season, with the water cascading off the mountain. He then presses his snowflake sculptures from the previous day into the sides of the cowl to give an interesting texture to paint. Uh huh. He starts his paint job well enough, using blues and purples to backdrop the snowflake shapes, but then he has a problem with the green on the trees running, and looking lime green. So he puts white over that to mask it, being snow. Basically he’s screwed.
Judging:
Guest judge is choreographer Travis Wall.
Ethereal Effects: First look is pretty cohesive. The basic colors define the respective seasons, with green Spring, yellow and blue Summer, orange and burgundy Fall, and white fading the blue for Winter. Also, they each have some kind of staff, though I don’t know where those came from.
Suzanne, Spring: Her character has a lot of green fern leaves for hair, with a few purple flower petals scattered around. The face is green with some shadowing and highlights. I would think bright colors would be a symbol of spring, and she should have done more with flowers. It feels to monochromatic for Spring. Also, the fern leaves are a bit too packed down around the head. But she did make a blender to cover the eyebrows, so that turned out pretty good. Ve comments that she made good use of the model’s bone structure, and I agree.
Faina, Autumn/Fall: Faina’s character has a crown of maple leaves in oranges and browns. The face definitely shows her experience with color and paint, with the right highlights and shadows. While the crown does rim the eyes, she somehow avoids the problem that the Fairy Godmothers had about the eye-framing detracting from the beauty. She also has some elaborate stippling and patterns on the shoulders and arms. My one issue is it feels a little too dark to me, with the red arms and neck. But the leaves in the dress have some lighter yellows and greens as well as orange, and her concept is a bit of an evil tone, so I guess it fits. Ve and Neville love the colors, and Ve compliments the body paint.
Nelson, Winter: His character’s head is basically spikes of ice crystals in a very blocky form, with more ice crystals growing out of the eyebrows and cheeks. His highlight color is white over blue shadowing, with the lower face being more blue. It’s pretty good, though there is something about the ice crystal hair that is too regular and blocky for me. Neville thinks the sculpting took a lot of time, but Glenn wishes the ice crystals came down more into the face. Also, the paint didn’t hold up to the sweating.
Kierstin, Summer: I’m not a fan. The starfish headdress is pretty good, but I don’t like the way she blended it onto the face and down to the nose. She then adorned the model with frizzy white spires of hair that she describes as supposed to be a mist from a wave crashing on shore, but it doesn’t read well. Also, because of the color choice of sand for the shoulders and face, it feels too much like a woman in a hat rather than an embodiment of summer. She does shake up the paint by having the arms with blue and white to represent waves, so that works, but the overall character is weak. Travis loves the make up on the arms, but they are baffled by the hair.
Twisted Six Effects: First impression, seems to blend from green on the left through green and yellow, into yellow and orange, and then crash into the pale blue turd. The characters are united through bouquets of flowers, but I don’t know where those came from.
Andrew, Spring: This is exquisite. The cowl has transformed her head into one large pink rose, with her neck and body being the green stem. The particular way he has crafted the curves of the eyebrows to lead into gentle curves of flower petals is wonderful. The beauty part on the face give just enough color for the lips and eyes to stand out while still reading as an integral part of the flower bud. And he sculpted the petals of the head with full detail to show the interior of the flower bud for when she is dancing around. He had some vine textures around the neck and running down into the shoulders, which he has blended into some painted vines on the body that, until Glenn points it out, I didn’t realize were not part of the sculpt. It is a seamless transition.
KC, Summer: The face is beautiful, with the long eyelashes and the colors, and the eyebrows being sculpted helps unify to the hair that is plants. She also has a lot if green in the design, but also has some yellow and red up on the headdress that represent birds of paradise flowers. The texture certainly conveys the image of Van Gogh painting strokes. Even the trimmed cowl line surprisingly doesn’t detract too much. The eyelashes are also well done, and they fit very nicely with the rest of the sculptured texture. The judges fawn over the colors, the detailwork of the sculpt, and the use of the sculpted eyebrows.
Phil, Autumn/Fall: The crown of leaves in texture is pretty decent in shapes, but the colors are not vibrant enough, and the colors shift all over all the leaves rather than being more uniform per leaf. It looks more like a blur of orange and yellow than anything specific. And the edgeline around the jaw and left side of the face is atrocious - scraggly and bumpy. Plus, the paint on the face is lacking. I do think the blend at the forehead is well done. Rough sculpture, Neville says “from a distance it is just a muddy semblance of leaves”, which exactly fits. And Glenn says the easiest think in the world would have been to steal a few leaves from the costume and apply them to the face to cover up the terrible edge line.
Joseph, Winter: Disaster. The head screams bad high school marching band costume, with the goofy hats with weird plumes on them. The shape doesn’t read like a mountainside, just a big white lump. The trees on one side are comical. Then there’s the face, which is done up in warm flesh tones, ensuring the outfit looks like a costume rather than a character. And the ears - god in heaven, what is with those ears? He was going for elf ears, but that is bizarre. And the one on the right of his head is at his temple, and is sticking out at a strange angle. Also, somewhere along the way the contrast got lost in the paintjob and the white snowflakes no longer stick out from the backdrop. And then, to top it all off, he has white “yeti” hair sticking out up the sides of the neck, once again ensuring the cowl looks like a hat. I don’t think there’s a single redeeming element of this makeup. Okay, I will say that the beauty make up is well applied but not consistent with the character. “This isn’t my best makeup, but I honestly don’t think it is my worst.” Yikes! “The misshapen lump that is his head is so strange.”
My impression of the dance: Spring is graceful and elegant, Summer is the duel of the ladies, Autumn/Fall is lighted in red lights that mask any of the paint colors, Winter is the duel of the bad hair versus bad hat.
Judges score shops and announce there is no winning shop, it is a tie. They say both teams had good and bad make ups. I think Twisted Six had two great makeups, one bad one, and one disaster, while Ethereal Effects had one great one, one good one, one okay one, and one bad one. I guess that makes it hard to pick a winning team, but that just helps show another flaw in the system this season. Do you reward the quality of Ethereal Effects for their more consistent but middle performance or do you reward Twisted Six for their two great makeups, but overlook they had two of the worst make ups? I guess the judges found a loophole.
KC: Glenn says, “I’m really happy with this make up. It is the most resolved and finessed make up on stage tonight.”
Kierstin: Ve asks her about the hair. “You made that? It looks like a fright wig you would buy on Hollywood Boulevard.” Neville says the small amount of appliance and make up means the character doesn’t feel transformative. Travis thinks the way the skirt and hair were moving made the choreography unattractive, but that didn’t stick out to me.
Joseph: Neville states “The flesh warm tones up against the icy colors guarantee that this character is wearing some kind of hat, and it’s not a make up.” “The Christmas tree yeti feels like Burl Ives is going to come out the side of his ear as a snowman and start singing at me.” Ve mentions the snowflakes and the paint job.
Andrew: Travis thinks it is his favorite make up.
Winner: KC. The intricate cowl and colorful palette and the way she let the music inspire her to think of Van Gogh and then translated that into a sculptural look really impressed the judges. I guess I see their point. I think I would have given the win to Andrew for that rose and the 3-D paint blending to the sculpture on her chest, but this way does also finally reward KC for her strong work that hasn’t been rewarded because she’s been on the losing team each week.
Eliminated: Joseph. There’s no overcoming the “monkey-eared Christmas tree yeti”.
Once again, I love the color of McKenzie’s dress. A pastel aqua that looks great on her.
Okay, let’s get some other comments so I’m not just blogging here. 
Finally got around to watching this episode last night. I’m not sure why, but I’m much less invested in this season of Face Off than most. Not really finding anyone to root for yet, although, as usual, we’re starting to see the talent separate itself from the dross.
For the Vivaldi episode, I kind of liked the Ethereal Effects concept of the seasons as gentry meeting. In that context, their winter somewhat worked – the costume’s cowl looked blocky, but almost like slicked back formal hair. A little more elegance and it would have been quite nice.
The bottom look was obvious – there was just nothing good about the yeti snowcap. One of the most complete disasters ever to be put on the Face Off stage. The only good thing you could say about it was that it didn’t actually fall off during the performance.
I was not as taken with the winning design as the judges were. Because the entire cowl was cast and painted, it was very stiff and lifeless. Summer, to me, doesn’t say “flowers painted on silicone”. It might be the right choice for a dance, but in a movie scene, I think it would look really fake. I was a bit surprised that the autumn queen didn’t at least get a top looks nod.
Well, now I’m only two episodes behind on my Tivo watching, although that might be three after tonight.
I was feeling the same way, but they weren’t actually asked to go for realism in their looks. This ultimately was a dance costume, and she had a valid reason for the artificial look she had - the inspiration of mimicking Van Gogh. I was also surprised Faina didn’t get a Top Look nod. They certainly praised it in the quick review and didn’t have any criticisms.
Irishman, I’m reading this thread, and promise I’ll post; but I’m two episodes ahead of you - just finished the last episode before the finale. Some very interesting make-ups you’ll see.
Irishman is back!!! Woo hoo!
And I have no idea how I missed your earlier replies. I swear I didn’t see your first two posts from weeks past. Not sure what happened. I thought I had been coming back and checking regularly but maybe that was part of it.
Thanks for the great summaries!
I will come back and comment on specifics.
I started late and apparently missed a couple of threads on this topic that were already started, so I can’t cast aspersions.
Yeah, but yours are the official SDMB Face Off threads. You’ve been doing them longer and no one else puts as much effort into 'em. And we appreciate it.
Thanks, it’s good to know my efforts are appreciated.
I got another one watched, so let’s enjoy… Possessed Possessions.
Enter the shop, lights down, spotlights on several items - look, a creepy gnome statue!
This is another individual challenge, except as teams. Each person has their own character. The spotlight challenge is to create a character that is terrifyingly possessed by one of these haunted objects. This is a two day challenge, and the characters have to interact with their objects to demonstrate their possession.
Ethereal Effects: foreperson, Nelson volunteers. Everyone on both teams agree that with it being a two day challenge, they want to avoid cowls and big appliances.
Nelson, Violin: His character is cleaning her attic and finds the old violin. She is possessed, and he wants to show that by having her saw on her arm with the bow until she cuts slits. He wants to enhance his model’s brow for the possession, and then add cuts to the arm. Mr. Westmore observes that the lines on the brow are too “sharp”. This gets back to Nelson’s previous makeup with the demon from Limbo. He needs to work on his facial creases.
Suzanne, Clock: She has a different take on the whole possession thing. She decides her clock makes her hallucinate that she’s passing through a portal to the past, so she will be a 50/50 face of old stroke victim and young beautiful woman, with her arm and face half through a large clock face. Right away this sounds off. She is apparently an old stroke victim imagining she is passing through to the past - that seems the opposite of being possessed by a spirit. It should be getting pulled through the portal into the future, if that is the concept at all. But that’s not really a possession in the classic sense, where a demon takes over the body. So she is missing the point of the challenge. And then she goes for this large clock face portal thing, which is hard to imagine as she is supposed to be interacting with the clock, not some imaginary vision of the clock. Her concept seems flawed.
She draws a line on the face to be the plane of the glass, so she understands the need for a distinct transition. She starts sculpting the appliance for the old half of the face, but I don’t think she knows what a stroke should look like. She cuts a piece of Plexiglas to be the clock face, and she cuts holes for the arm and face. So now she’s spending time on a big fabrication instead of her makeup. But it’s her concept, so she needs the prop.
Faina, Typewriter: Faina needs help with an idea, so Nelson offers up a WWII reporter (thus the typewriter), and the spirit is a soldier who everyone thinks was killed in the war, but he was really murdered by his commander. So the spirit takes over the reporter to try to tell his story. That’s a pretty good idea. I think Nelson does a good job helping here. Faina is able to take that idea and run with it, adding the creative elements to bring it to life. She wants the fingers typing so fast and hard they are bleeding. Good idea to connect to her object. During application, the chin piece starts to separate around his lip, but she really can’t do much to fix it without risking more damage. Oh well.
Kierstin, Radio: She decides the possession occurs through the ears because radio gives off sound, so she wants to enhance the veins and patterns coming from the ears. The spirit will be a little boy who died from being abused, and the possession will be of a boy now. She seems to struggle a little with her idea, going for the low hanging fruit idea because that’s all she can think of. She starts spending all her time practicing painting techniques on her own arm, because she can’t think of any prosthetics to make at all. This is where the team should help, especially the foreperson. Her paint work looks pretty good, but she does need something more to convey the demon possession. Nelson tries to bolster her confidence with the idea of just paint, rather than helping her think of other ways to enhance the character. I guess he’s trying to be supportive. Mr. Westmore tells her she does need something else to distort the face, and she is able to think about injuries from the abuse. See, she should have been thinking that all along, and Nelson should have helped come up with that.
She starts working on a puffy eye and a busted lip, then some small scrapes and veining effects to apply anywhere on the body. If this kid died from physical abuse, I would think he needs some more severe injuries to sell that, like broken bones or something. Of course, with a kid, head trauma could come in a brain injury, so maybe it doesn’t have to be that severe. Still, that’s the direction for showing the abuse angle. Nelson doesn’t give her any more advice or ideas, just tries to bolster her confidence. On application, one prosthetic for the busted lip won’t lie smooth, so she makes the call she needs pristine application with her minimal pieces, so she decides not to use it. That’s a risk, but she gets to work on the paint. To help with the injuries, she does some painting on his chest to show injuries and gangrene. That’s something.
Twisted Six Effects: foreperson, Phil is the default. He starts off on the right track by asking the team what they want to do together, rather than declaring something. Good for him. He asks if they want to keep separate stories and that is what they agree to, so there is more creative freedom. But to create a unifying theme, they go for a '50s era setting for their characters since that fits with their possessions pretty well. Also, they all want some kind of a gag. Ok. They team brainstorm.
Phil, Baby carriage: His character is a working mother who neglects her baby in the bath, so now she is possessed by the dead baby. He will do some sort of crying gag. He molds a small tube into the facial appliance so he can rig a tube to it and run water up for crying. KC demonstrates how to make the crying work. Good teamwork. Mr. Westmore gives him specific advice on how to make the tears work - make sure the holes are big enough to let the water out and not back up.
Andrew, Tricycle: He’s going to do a little girl who gets possessed by the spirit of an evil little boy in the tricycle. The boy was neglected and starved, so he’s going to go for starvation in the makeup. To create that look, he enlarges the forehead, and enhances the cheekbones and chin to create more sunken cheeks. Then he will add a weathered and wrinkled look. For his gag, he seems to be working on a string so the model can make the tricycle move on its own. Creepy. Andrew, being such a star, finishes his face sculpt early, so he gets to work sculpting a dead baby for Phil. That’s teamwork. Andrew not only sculpts and molds the baby, he also demos some painting on it. He’s doing a lot to assist Phil.
KC, Old Camera: She decides her character bought an old film plate camera that bound the spirits of those it photographed, so the spirits are fighting for her eyes. Thus, she will be scarred from the flash of the camera. She wants to rig the flash to work.
Judging time:
Guest judge this week is actor Cheyenne Jackson (no idea).
Ethereal Effects:
Nelson, Violin: She is disheveled and creepy. However, the face has issues. As I said, the wrinkling and folding is too severe, too edged, and the color is slightly off. The hollow eyes work, but the model had a large chin and something in the combination of the brow and chin makes it look like a man in a mask. The visible edge line around the chin doesn’t help. The arm gag is supposed to be where the bow strings cut her arm several times, but I’m thinking it should be more lacerated with striations on each cut rather than a single slice line each time. Bowstrings are a lot of thin horsehairs. The judges think his idea was creepy, but the execution is off, with the same comments about the wrinkles and the mouth being exposed instead of covered.
Suzanne, Clock: Well, she did it. The model is reaching through the large clock face to the small clock in front of her. The old age/stroke side has sag and a lot of contours that don’t look like face folds, and the beauty side seems a little subdued for a wedding makeup. I can’t decide if I like the old age hand or not. It is lumpy, and while some of the wrinkling is good and the veinwork is good, it feels off. The judges are perplexed, the story isn’t self-evident with the challenge. Also, they don’t like the old age.
Faina, Typewriter: Her soldier is bald and scary, with a very angry face. The paint job is pretty good, with the separation at the lower lip being a mild detraction from the overall character result. Also, one cheekbone is a little off - too high. It gives a slightly inhuman look to the face. But she did a good job working down the neck and onto the chest and making the hands match, and then having the torn up fingers from typing so hard. That part is great. Overall it is great, with just one sculpt error and one application problem.
Kierstin, Radio: From afar, there is very little to show any form of possession. There is a hint of puffiness around one eye, which has a pristine application, but could be a bit more pronounced. I don’t like the coloring around the eyes - too orange. She tried to give him a green tinge to show gangrene, but I don’t think it reads right. And she spent a lot of time painting the belly and chest to show more bruising, but it is completely covered by his shirt. I do love the veinwork around the ears and on the temples. That detail is great. Glenn does love that part of the paint job, but the judges are all perplexed with how she spent her time since she does have such a minimal sculpt work.
Twisted Six Effects:
KC, Camera: From afar the read is okay, but up close the face doesn’t look right. What is supposed to be burns and blisters around the eyes is a bit too creased and looks like Nelson’s bad wrinkles rather than injuries, and the texture around the mouth doesn’t make sense. But she did do a good gag by having the hands burned from the camera. That part is spot on, complete with blackened fingers, and red charred skin up the arms. The judges are also confused by the face makeup as to what is occurring.
Phil, Baby carriage: His sad mother is a bit hard to read - I guess that’s supposed to be the baby’s face distorting her face? It looks like she’s more of a grandmother than a mother. If he was aiming for an older woman, then it works much better, with the eye bags and wrinkled forehead being very good. However, his tear gag is misplaced, having her cry from the cheek below her eye. I realize the challenge would be to make a tube run to the corner of the eye and still be hidden in the sculpt, but this doesn’t quite work. Still, visually you can see what he was trying to achieve. The baby is a sick green. Andrew does good work.
Andrew, Tricycle: The model helps sell the character as a young girl by her bearing and movements. The bulbous forehead, the sunken eyes, and the withdrawn mouth are freaky. His paint job is great, and his wrinkles feel organic. The hair is perhaps off, looking like old lady hair rather than girl hair or ghost hair, but maybe that’s just me. The moving tricycle is shown as she walks and it follows her. Nice.
Winning Team: Twisted Six Effects. They finally got their first win, now that the team consists of KC (the one who has done the best work on that team all along) and Andrew (the transfer from Ethereal Effects who has been winning), and Phil getting a bunch of help. Still, they have the better set this week. The '50s look made them more cohesive, and their characters were complete and mostly told their story well.
Individuals:
Suzanne: She describes the character as having her true self be beautiful, but the ghost has made her look and believe she is aged. At least she fixed that part, but the portal element still doesn’t work for this challenge. Glenn asks her how she thinks she did, she loves it and had a blast. Glenn is perplexed by that answer. It doesn’t sell demonic possession, from the overreach of the concept. Ve criticizes how poor the old age sculpture is. Cheyenne says it was mixed up and didn’t make sense. Neville - “Simply substandard work.” Ouch.
Andrew: They love it. The distance read is great, the paint is great, the forehead is disturbing.
Kierstin: “Why are there so few prosthetics on this?” “I just had zero ideas this week.” “That type of paint job on top of minimal prosthetics could have had you in top looks.” They diagnose her problem as self-doubt and second-guessing herself. That’s where her lack of ideas stems from.
Faina: Cheyenne points out the flawless application of the forehead, the paintjob, and the fingers. Glenn says “Another stellar paint job. I love the character. I love the fact that the concept fits right into what we’re doing - it’s not overdeveloped.” Spot on design wise. Creepy eyes.
Phil: Glenn likes the angle he took, he comments that the hyperstylized look still works. Neville says he got it all right, the edges, the paint, the application. Cheyenne comments that he was worried about the ability to emote, but there was actually a good bit of elasticity in the face appliance. This week he has redeemed himself from previous disasters. They applaud him for paying attention to their previous criticisms and applying them.
Individual Winner: Andrew. Duh.
Eliminated: Suzanne. Her concept was wrong-headed and overreaching, and the fact that she couldn’t see how bad the sculpt and makeup was her downfall.
Kierstin was uninspired and unfinished. Nelson as foreman had two shop members struggle and he didn’t help them.
So, looking at record to date (and I’m doing this without reference to Wikipedia since I am behind)
Faina: 1 Win, 1 Top Look
Andrew: 2 Wins, 2 Top looks
Kierstin: 1 Win, 1 Top look (I guess), 2 Bottom Looks
KC: 1 Win, 1 Top Look
Phil: 2 Bottom Looks
Okay, I didn’t get the first week’s split into the record. I may have missed something. My general impression is that Andrew, Faina, then KC are doing best, and Phil and Kierstin have struggled. I think she has more skill but lacks confidence and ideas. I think he has ideas, but not execution.
Not only was Suzanne’s concept off, her execution was, as well. Her old age makeup just wasn’t realistic at all. One of the things I’ve learned from 12 seansons of Face Off, old age and lava makeups are the hardest to pull off successfully. (The other things are that a good paint job can save a crappy sculpt, half the drama in the workshop is “OMG I can’t get my mold open-slash-is my mold going to crack?!”, and that Glenn’s blood is about 1/3 tattoo ink.)
Actually, I think half the drama is “If I don’t get this right, I could go home.” But issues with the mold are up there.
Just giving you props for this one.
I just realized I don’t have any stats for Nelson listed. But I guess that speaks for itself, doesn’t it.
Also, go back and look at the first challenge and the Alpha for Ethereal Effects, wasn’t it Nelson who did that? Seems to fit the same problems with his other face sculpts.
I was telling my husband who was going to win, in which order, and I completely forgot that Nelson even existed until they showed him on screen.
I kind of agree that it would look odd in most movies, but they got the assignment that it was for a dance and so, that was a design for a dance. (I don’t remember whether they were told it would be pas de deux or not) I was kind of iffy on it until I saw it in the reveal and I was sold on it when I saw it dance. It was perfect for the assignment.
I got another one watched, let’s get it reviewed.
This week’s challenge: Zombie Fungus. The Cordyseps fungus is a genus of fungi that infect insects and grow inside their bodies. It is particularly appropriate to this challenge because one species that affects ants drives them to walk to the underside of a leaf and attach by the mandibles, and then remain their to die and sprout. It essentially takes over their nervous system and makes them behave in a particular way. Thus, zombie ants.
The concept for this week’s challenge is that story creators have taken this fungus as a fictional but semi-plausible infection source to create human zombies. Somehow the fungus jumps the evolutionary hurdle of moving from insects to mammals. Plausibility aside, it makes for a creepy new source for zombie outbreak stories and video games.
Each team will pick a real world fungus that has begun to infect humans. “In order to develop a cure,” each shop will create three zombies in three different stages of infection: 1 day, 7 days, and 30 days.
Okay, my criticism here is that 1 day is very early, and not a lot of time for fungus to grow. I would expect very minimal visible symptoms. It seems everyone wants a bit more than that, so I would argue the phases are more like 3 days, 10 days, and 30 days, but whatever. I’ll go with it.
Ethereal Effects: Foreperson, Kierstin; fungus, octopus stinkhorn. Kierstin is the one who has heard of cordyseps before, so she’s the choice to lead the team on this challenge. The octopus stinkhorn fungus is an interesting choice because the sprouting form is a colorful spread that resembles octopus tentacles. This presents an interesting opportunity for sprouting bodies. They elect to stick with a very literal version of the fungus because it already looks so “alien”.
Kierstin, 1 day since exposure: Her character is a nurse that was exposed across the face, so the fungus begins to show up there on her. She also suggests showing bubbly areas where it hasn’t yet sprouted but is developing under the skin. This needs to be a minimal makeup, but she is worried because she went too minimal last week, so she needs to ensure there is some level of prosthetic. I think she has a good handle on what to do, with a beginning sprout coming out one eye, and then really work on the detail. And then do some other bumps and whatnot. Mr. Westmore comments that her sculpt doesn’t look like it is bursting through, it needs to have more flesh spilling out around it. I have to agree. Also, she started her sculpt coming out the patient’s left eye, but KC is also doing left eye, and Nelson has the left side of the face, so I guess that’s why she changes to the right eye. She also starts creating a lot of blenders that show pustules that are beginning to form under the skin. So she has another element she is contributing besides her one character, which will also help with the amount of work question.
Faina, 7 days since exposure: Her character is a patient in the hospital, with one sprouting out the eye and another sprouting out her leg. Thus she’s further along than Kierstin’s, but not fully engulfed like Nelson’s. Seems appropriate. She begins working on the face, and also sprouting out the eye, but far enough along to have tentacles waving, and other growths spreading under the skin and distorting the face around the other eye. I’m a little worried about the sculpt coming out of the eye, but it’s still early, so I’ll give her time to work it. Faina also offers to help Nelson clean up his cowl so he can work on the chest piece. Teamwork. During application, I observe her eye sculpt doesn’t look any better than before. I’m worried. She gets to work painting all over her character - face and legs. Then she notices that the paint jobs aren’t looking the same - Nelson’s is really dark and Kierstin’s is still white, so she points it out and Kierstin gets to work on the color to tie it in better. Good job.
Nelson, 30 days since exposure: His character is an escaped patient very along in the development of the fungus, so it has a huge one sprouting out of the side of the head, with the tentacles wrapping around the head like an octopus. He likes this one because he can go extreme and gory. Mr. Westmore gives specific advice to paint the bumps to make them stand out. Nelson makes a lot of his face appliances as Pros-aid transfers. He says they go on faster and with no edges because they are glue, you get them wet and then press them on. Maybe that’s a good use of the materials.
Twisted Six Effects: Foreperson, Andrew; fungus, brain mushroom. Brain mushroom just seems so appropriate for this challenge. It does have a texture that resembles brains. They decide their infection spreads from eating the fungus. Seems a poor choice for rampant spread, but okay, it does tie in to the theme of eating brains.
Phil, 1 day since exposure: They want this level to be under the skin, starting to spread but not yet very far along. Phil’s character is a hiker who gets lost, gets hungry, finds the brain mushroom, tries to eat it, and gets exposed. Thus the infection is beginning under the skin. His sculpt starts with a lot of bumps and texture all across the face. Mr. Westmore comments that it doesn’t look like brain mushroom under the skin, it looks like a burn victim. He is very right. So Phil starts over, and he says he has a better idea of how to look more like brain texture. Looking at his rework, he thinks he’s fixed it, but I still don’t see it looking better, but I’m not getting a great look. He also decides to sculpt the piece of brain mushroom that his hiker found and bit, so he does a separate mold in a bucket. Phil also makes a chest piece for Andrew because he has the time. During application, Phil works really hard on the edge line running down the middle of the face, because that would be very obvious if done poorly, and he got hit on that before.
KC, 7 days since exposure: They want this to be breaking out in places and spreading. KC feels her character will be emaciated from not eating, and the fungus will be breaking through the mouth and the top of the head. KC also decides to have breakout from the spine. I think they definitely need a spine breakout, though I would think that should be on the 30 day, but okay. Let it ride.
Andrew, 30 days since exposure: This one will be running rampant, really big and spread all over, and the body deteriorating. Andrew wants a lot of breaking out of the head, and maybe a chest piece as well. I think he needs to go pretty far. Mr. Westmore comments that he needs to address the off eye so it looks distorted.
Judging Time: Guest judge, video game writer and creative director Neil Druckmann.
Ethereal Effects, Octopus Stinkhorn: First impression, they seem to go together. They are at distinctly different levels of breakout and color change to the body.
Kierstin, 1 day since exposure: I think this thoroughly redeems her from last week. This is a minimal prosthetic that still has enough to show she did work, and it is very detailed in texture and paint job. The pustules are gross, the color of the face shows signs of change, and the blood around her mouth is gory. The red eye completes the look. Also, where the fungus is breaking out the eye shows bulging skin and tissue as it is pushed outward, and hints of where the eye-white is around the growth. The points have just started to split, not curved at all. I think it looks awesome. The judges are in love. Ve is impressed with the paint on the arms, being subtle but sickening. Neil likes that the blood from the mouth dripped down the front of her scrubs in a neat line that has a nice streamline to it. As a foreperson, she unified the look but shackled them by not taking ahold of the fungus creatively.
Faina, 7 days since exposure: This is a problem. Everything that was good about Kierstin’s is bad with Faina’s. The plant is sprouting tendrils, but they are fat and globby. Ve says it looks like a big red starfish on her face, and that sums it up well. Also, the tissue that is split open for the fungus to erupt is not done well IMO. It just looks like a ring splayed out under the “starfish”, with no context of what flesh or where it came from or fitting to the contours of the face, and it is skin-colored on the inside of the flesh, not bright pink or bloody red. Then there’s the color on the face, which comes off as a flat gray-green without depth or dimension. This is a striking failure for Faina, who is so good with paint. I do like the bit erupting from the neck. Glenn comments that the paint on the legs is beautiful, but what went wrong with the face? I think she got psyched trying to go back and match Nelson, and that threw her look off. The sprouts coming out of the legs are a bit better than the face, but still a bit starfishy. Neville wants the texture on the starfish to have more specificity, because it feels “anonymous”. In other words, you can’t tell what it is, it’s just lumpy. Neil comments, “There’s a fierceness to this monster, but it’s just being thrown off by this cartoonish thing sitting on her face.” Yes, it doesn’t feel like it’s emerging, it feels like it’s attached.
Nelson, 30 days since exposure: This is a mixed bag. He has elected to go with one really huge breakout fungus with tendrils wrapped back around the head. This does look like an octopus on his head, but I don’t think the fungus behaves quite that way - the tendrils more flare outward than actually wrap back. There are a lot of other lumps and small breakouts all around the head, but I’m a little worried the stripe across the forehead follow the contour of the tendrils too linearly. He is striving for old dead decaying skin in color and a grimy texture from the zombie wandering around, so he goes dark, but the judges feel it reads a bit muddy. I like the texture around the mouth, but his Pros-aid application on the cheek means he neglects doing anything directly around that eye, and it sticks out. The breakout on the chest is okay, though the hole in the T-shirt is a bit too clean edged. Glenn comments that the front is dry but needs to be really shiny and gross like the back is. Neville comments on the cheek and eye and top lip and not being blended well. That’s the Pros-aid transfer. I guess it wasn’t the right use of the materials. Ve says she feels the octopus thingy is the best part, that it is well done, but the rest is substandard. The skin in particular is chalky and dry and muddy. Neville says it should be more animated off of the body, i.e. not clinging like a literal octopus, should have more ins and outs from the skin.
Team as a whole: Ve says that they took the fungus too literally, they needed to be more creative with it. Neville says that none of them actually understood how the fungus functioned. I think that means they didn’t have a systemic life cycle for the fungus - how it infects, how it spreads within, how it sprouts and grows on the exterior. I agree.
Twisted Six Effects, Brain Mushroom: First impression, gross but the 30 day exposure guy is not selling the zombie very hard, just standing there straight up. The 7 day exposure girl is twisting and hunched to show the spine work, so she’s doing good, and the hiker is eating his mushroom.
Phil, 1 day since exposure: Phil said he knew what to do to make this cohesive with the others, but it doesn’t appear that he did. This still looks wrong in texture, like burned skin rather than growth under the skin. Also, with that much of a spread, I would expect some starts of breakouts and skin ruptures. Like I said, 1 day would be very minimal, less than this, but 3 days works but then it should be starting to rupture. The guy still feels alive at this point, but really ill. The coloring could work for that. He did bring it down into the neck so it isn’t confined to the face, so at least the spread looks organic. The judges note the texture is burn victim, and Neil points out the color on the head is very different than the color on the hands and legs. That might be explainable with the infection still localized, but if the guy is dying, that’s a systemic issue. Ve says he should have done clusters that resembled the others.
KC, 7 days since exposure: I’m immediately struck by the bright orangy reds she used to color the mushroom and especially to ring the eyes. The texture and sculpt along the face and head is great, but I don’t think the color matches their reference image or Andrew’s 30 day. And the bright red eye rings don’t make any sense to me. Same think on the back of the head and spine - sculpt work is okay but the color is bright, especially the blood dripping from the wound. I do like the hints of emaciation she included, but the skin color also looks paler than both of the other two. Glenn thinks it feels like it is right out of a video game. Ve comments on the color around her eyes being bright, but groovy looking and creepy. I don’t agree. Neil likes the design choice of spreading from the back and into the head. He also says she pushed the color the most, and yet it didn’t feel cartoony. I disagree - very cartoony to me.
Andrew, 30 day since exposure: Awesome teeth. The face and eyebags and skin are just right. The mushroom has some orange tones, but it is much more muted and dark than KC’s. The extent and spread out of the head is great. I wish he had more coming out the back of the head and neck. If this fungus grows in the nerve tissue, the spinal cord is a prime candidate for exposure. He did a great job on the fake ears - are those ears he sculpted? Wow. Up close, it reads a lot better to the judges than afar, with the textures in the fungus standing out better. I think that’s in the paint, being dark from afar but having better contrast up close. Neville compliments his sense of anatomy. He really looks like emaciated face. Glenn wants to shoot it in the head and see how long it takes to kill it - in a good way.
Shop as whole: KC and Andrew did really well, Phil didn’t. Why is there that disparity? Andrew needed to guide Phil better.
Results:
Time for the “Twist” that we all saw coming - from this point on, each is competing as an individual rather than as a shop. YAY! I think the winning shop would probably be Twisted Six for Andrew and KC’s results, though Phil was a misfire. The other three were more cohesive but individual results had more issues, with Kierstin’s being the only really good one. But they aren’t going to bother with that nonsense, so on to the individuals.
Winner: KC. They loved the look and nailing the video game aspect. I don’t remember that being a design criteria - one of the sample sources was a movie. And I hate her color choice, but the judges liked it. Whatever.
Next moving on:
2) Andrew. He’s been consistently good.
-
Kierstin. This week was spot on and totally redeemed from last week.
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Nelson. His results this week were the best of the remaining ones.
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Faina. Her work is usually a lot better.
Eliminated: Phil. He’s creative, but needs some practice with design, especially anatomy.
Another nice dress for MacKenzie.
Okay, I rate them
Andrew
KC
Kierstin
Faina
Nelson
Kierstin is a little less consistent than Faina, but she has done some surprisingly good subtle work, and her paint jobs are also strong. If she trusts her ability and doesn’t have a brain fart, she can do well.
Thanks, @Irishman, for doing these! So good!
Yes to Nelson just being there, as others have said. Nothing bad but not a standout, either.
I was happy that they finally went to individual judging. Needed to do that a bit earlier. Really glad that Kierstin stepped it up after the bad minimal showing but missed a bit as a lead.
Thanks again, Irishman!
I’ve caught up, if not with the show, at least with Irishman. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the format or just this class of contestants, but at this point I still can’t attach names to anyone and I don’t have any favorites.
Possession: Only a couple of comments on this one. It’s really painful for me to hear the artists coming up with backstories for their possessed objects. There’s a reason that they are makeup artists and not screenwriters, and none of them have dual-classed. I guess I’m not sure where it says that being possessed means that you develop horrific face wrinkles, but that seems to be the take away from this episode.
Fungus: Well, technically Twisted Six would have taken this one, if they hadn’t rendered the whole conceit of the season null and void by going to an individual format. Seems like it should have been an easy week as I assume that makeup artists cut their teeth on zombie designs. And there were some good results and some surprising missteps. As the judges noted, Faina’s starfish eye just looked goofy. And there was simply no excuse for Phil not carrying the brain fungus motif into his prodrome design. A huge misstep that rightly resulted in him heading home.
As a sidenote, apparently there’s another similar show also hosted by MacKenzie that’s starting after this season ends?