The new season of Face Off started last night. I didn’t see a thread on it, so I figured I’d start one.
The first competition showed a lot of great talent, but I don’t know what that one guy was thinking with his “burned up cheerleader” I liked seeing Sean Astin as a guest judge.
The main competition I really liked, the Star Wars cantina alien. Some great stuff, and while I can see why they chose to go with who win (they did a phenominal job - I really liked their alien) I thought the runner up looked like it could actually be in the movie. That one screamed Star Wars.
I’m glad that only one person left the show, because there was no way that that finished (well…unfinished) project showed what their partner could do.
During the pool challenge, I knew that the voted-off guy was going to be a pain in the butt. His design was just damn boring, and quite amateurish. I didn’t, however, see the love for the winning design, but for two hours, it was very impressive. Secondly, it always amazes me that the contestants are “surprised” by the party-turned-challenge. Its a damn staple of most reality shows!
For the main challenge:
I was really amazed at how quickly the two girls whipped up that makeup job! Unless the time crunch was an artifact of the show, and not really an issue, those girls did a darn good job. I can’t wait to see how they do when they have more time.
My inner geek was screaming that if their character was really from Degobah, she wouldn’t be white, as the reflective abilities of that color wouldn’t be needed.
I think they made the right choice on the winner. Blending the facial makeup with the baby-body was a very hard task, and he did it well. The dude’s power-armor was damn beautiful, too.
“Ow! You’re crushing my eyes!”. I felt so sorry for that model! And he did it multiple times! The moment an artist disregards the model, you KNOW they’re in for a world of problems.
Next week, Tommy had better do the mother-of-all-makeup-jobs to prove his worth.
Again, I was really impressed by the judges. No focus on interpersonal issues, and all the focus was kept on the makeup and the detailing. I still LOVE that they do the close-up examinations, and can see where the artists made shortcuts. I don’t think they miss anything.
I was at least vaguely wondering whether the jerk who left was some kind of plant or something. He was both so insanely unpleasant AND so clearly untalented. Did the producers just find some random guy, pay him money, and say “ok, be a contestant for one episode and be as unpleasant as you can be, and then leave”.
It certainly did make the episode far more compelling than it otherwise would be, as it gave us a villain and a storyline, which are usually lacking in the first episode of a reality show as we get to know the contestants.
In what universe did red/yellow flower brother deserve to win over purplyorange flower brother, in the pool challenge??
I’m glad the judges weren’t smoking crack as they sometimes do in the Cantina challenge. Two highest were miles about the rest. I admit the girl looked better, but it’s hard to beat the ambition and imagination of baby-mecha.
I knew tiny-mohawk was bailing right away, when I noticed they weren’t interviewing him at all
Lots of things annoyed me about this show in past seasons, but I’m glad it’s back!!
I knew Joe was going to be the asshole of the episode when in his very first moment on camera he described himself as (paraphrased) “a director, writer, producer, editor, make-up artist.” Someone describing themselves using all those terms just screams self-important douche. Glad to see him quit since he couldn’t handle the (incredibly deserved!) criticism of his “design.”
I’m glad Joe self aborted and didn’t give the judges a chance to eliminate his partner for being too whiny.
I hate team challenges. And the constant rhetoric about needing to be a team player in real life is pure unadulterated bullshit. In real life, there is a hierarchy of leadership, and people who are loathsome to work with can be put in their place. And probably wouldn’t be hired to begin with. And aren’t competing with each other at the same time as they are supposed to be cooperating.
I liked both the top two. The other one was more Star Wars feeling, but the winner was quite an ambitious success.
When they had to incorporate something from the party “anything goes” I was hoping someone would grab one of the hosts.
I’m glad that Joe left, too, but did anyone else catch what he said after the Foundation challenge when he got called for his incredibly shitty job (and seriously, that didn’t look anything like a human head, burned or not - it looked like shitty papier mache done by a poorly supervised kindergarten class)? He was mumbling about how he’s always facing the same criticism, and that’s the price you pay for being an original. Dude, when everyone you work with tells you how bad your work is, it’s possible that you’re coming up with 100% original crap. But hey, at least your personality is terrible, so you’ve got that going for you. The only reason he quit is so they couldn’t fire him - you know he sitting in a bar somewhere right now, telling anyone who’ll listen that he had to leave because they didn’t understand how awesome his art was.
I love the two winning designs, and teams. Loved how the winning guy was so willing to give others credit and help out other teams when the chips were down. I almost felt bad for the judges - if these designs had been in two different challenges, they could both have gotten first place. They were really incredible, especially for a first challenge. Makes me really excited about what we’re going to get to see this season.
I’m really excited the show is back. Some of those portfolio submissions were pretty impressive.
The first foundation challenge showed some talent. I agree, though, that I thought the other flower girl was better than the one Sean Astin chose. I also loved the cat girl. I thought it had the right blending of catish with human.
For the Cantina challenge, they had to think about the nature of the challenge. You have maybe 2 to 3 seconds to make something startlingly unique, eye-popping, and make the audience think “wow, who is that?”. I mean, they are backdrop characters, not full fleshed characters, but still you want them to look like they are a person in a bar, not look cartoonish.
I agree that the black bounty hunter warrior was generic and didn’t have anything remarkable about it. The two freak-hair girls did an amazing job pulling that off at the last minute. I was impressed how the frills turned out and that the paint looked that good in so little time. I suspect that up close it might not have been quite as quality. It’s interesting, that seems a case where inexperience played a role. Tatapolous was concerned they chose molding over fabrication. I think it eventually turned out, and the frills look more fleshy when latex, as opposed to bony stiffness from foam. I also loved that they chose something besides a bounty hunter. Bar girl/waitress was refreshingly different.
The red sax beast was dreadful. I agree with all the comments, no coherency, color didn’t work and absorbed the texture, didn’t make much sense. Only reason both of them were safe this round was because of the utter disaster of the other bottom look team. I mean, they could have shot their model and still been safe with Joe and Tommy’s result.
For the top two looks, I liked the result on the runner up better. I understand the judges deciding to reward the ambition of the other two, especially since they pulled it off. I was a little put off by the arms and feet just kinda hanging out rigid, but then realized that as a background character, there’s no need for articulation or anything - that 2 second time limit I mentioned. We will see how well constructer guy does when it comes to sculpting and painting.
As for Joe and Tommy, I really felt sorry for Tommy. I mean, he was trying his hardest to make the best of the situation - deferring to Joe’s drive so they could get something done, trying to work despite the constant interruptions and active intrusions. Joe was such a pretentious ass, I’m glad he walked out. I would have been sad if Tommy got booted because of Joe’s antics and Tommy’s poor approach to the judging. I think I would have waited until the judges commented, then made my defense along the lines of trying to cooperate but not being able to do a single task without intrusion and interference under a constant spate of derision. I think I might have summed up: “I agree with you, this is a disaster. This doesn’t represent my best work; this doesn’t represent my worst work, because, frankly, I wasn’t able to do a single piece without intrusion by Joe sticking his hands in and changing things. I hope you will let me stay and get a chance to show what I can do when I’m allowed to actually show my own skills.”
Yeah, I totally caught that. Joe’s burned girl was dreadful - the shape of the head didn’t look human, the coloring was all wrong. Dude, original is great, original is one of the key points they’re looking for, but there are two other important points: design choices for how to fabricate, and execution of fabrication techniques. The concept of a burned cheerleader in itself was fine, it was the shape of the head, the coloring, etc that just make that a WTF design. And guess what, the same WTF design carried over into the cantina creature, with the bulging head, etc.
Geek comment: just because characters are hanging out in a bar on Tattooine doesn’t mean they live on Tattooine all the time. Mos Eisley is a space port. I imagine there is a heavy turnover of spacers of all varieties travelling around the sector or whatever. Maybe there are haulers on a regular route to Tattooine, maybe there are some just passing through on a one off. There’s no reason to think that a bounty hunter hangs out on Tattooine full time, other than Jabba makes his home there because it is out of the way of Imperial interference. Not every bounty hunter is working for Jabba, even on Tattooine. Just like Han didn’t live on Tattooine, he was just dealing with some business in that sector and trying to pay off his debt.
Aside: I noticed SyFy has a new competition series coming out this fall, Hot Set, about SF set design. Awesome!
This show frustrates the heck out of me. Why do they always create full prosthetic monsters or aliens? It made sense to do aliens in the first episode. I loved the little short alien in the walking machine.
Tonight was pirate night. Think of the great makeup in the Johnny Dep films. Pirates with scars, tattoos, and great costumes. That takes real skill to make those small prosthetics and to blend them seamlessly. Instead we get monsters again.
I got fed up in season 2 and quit watching. Those alien/monsters got so monotonous episode after episode. Now, they are doing the same thing season 3.
I do like the new cast. They got some real talent this season.
Yeah this is an issue of “made for TV”. Really awesome subtle work doesn’t translate well to the dumb-dumb audience at home. I"m sure the judges would love it, but the audience feedback would be terrible.
As to season three: First off, I’m not sure why Joe even made it onto the set. His portfolio designs were sculptural, abstract, and bizarre. They resembled more people in mardi-gras heads than anything else. I agree with the above poster who thought it was possibly all to drive drama. I felt so sorry for poor Tommy.
However: THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, for abandoning team challenges early in the competition to allow us to at least get a glimpse of what the contestants are capable of on their own. I’ve said from the beginning that this is how this show should be run. We should whittle off the chaff on an individual basis **before **teaming up the real competitors. It works well to do it this way: CC was in the bottom of the team challenge, and on her own her design was lacking. So she goes home and doesn’t have the opportunity to get carried by a far more talented contestant. Hell do a double elimination if the episode constraints are an issue. Once the bottom people are gone, then the team designs should all be complicated and skillful; here we could really watch the judges tear into the make-ups.
The Sea Urchin one was just amazing. The look, the concept, and her execution was damn good.
I disagree with the vote-off. At least her Barnacle look had some barnacles, even if they were totally wrong. The Jewels look was just stupid, and uninteresting. It had NOTHING of the concept in it, and a lot of octopus. The guy had an idea, and stuck with it, even though the concept wasn’t what he was supposed to be working on.
I’m glad loser-guy from last week was safe. It showed his work has some merit.
I really, really wish this show had the 90-minute format each week. There’s just so much detail I’d like to see, and I’d really love to see more regarding the creative process.
Yeah, but remember that CC was in the bottom looks last week as well for the “jazz alien”. I agree with Glen that her skill set just wasn’t up to part yet. That was two failed concepts in a row.
I nearly couldn’t complete watching it due to wincing at poor carpal-tunnel guy What made it worse is that nearly everyone had horrible ergonomic practices. Pounding on clay with palm heels, twist while lifting, digging with fingers instead of tools…gah! Has none of these people ever taken an industrial safety class? They’re all going to be crippled gnarled messes by the time they’re 40.
I think the concept for SyFy is creature makeup, not just make up. That, and as mentioned, subtle pirate tattoos isn’t going to work as well on the screen as monsters.
I was thrown by this one. Everybody had something that made me kinda question. The sea urchin one, the chestpiece seemed off on a woman without alluding to boobs. The line of the appliance on the face folded weird when she smiled.
The shell one was pretty good, except I couldn’t figure out what kind of sea creature that was supposed to be. Maybe an octopus, with arms curled around the nostrils?
The knife one was an excellent reef, and the concept of knives in the torso was interesting, but the shape of the chestpiece didn’t work for me, it protruded weirdly and was odd shaped. And what was with the neck?
Meh.
She didn’t really have a concept, her barnacles didn’t look like barnacles. But I agree, Jason the jewels guy could have been sent packing for not using his assigned item and doing a sorry job with what he did do. But CC was low two weeks in a row, so that probably factored in.
I liked the seahorse head and profile, wasn’t impressed with the chest/neck.
I worked with Joe on a few occassions and actually picked up some good tips for creating quick zombies. He did, however, pull a fast one on crew and cast of a film he produced/directed that was based on the Chupacabra legend. Everyone worked deferred and when he sold the film to a distrubutor he skipped town. It was enjoyable to experience his downfall on Face Off.
I really liked the concept for this week, because they’ve never done something as different as Chinese dragons before. And I totally agree on the winner, that gold paint looked awesome! I also liked the white one, but they were right that it wasn’t dragony enough.
But it’s sad that the time one twin wins, the other twin is eliminated. Those guys seemed really close.
I really liked the concept behind the mouse-tails-as-mustache concept, but I agree with the girl that having them dangle down would have been awesome.
I also agree that the Goat one looked the best - but it didn’t have enough elements of the Dragon.
I would have liked to see a little more integration into the rear-end of the dragon, perhaps some hooves or tail, though.
Overall, I was really impressed with the lack of manufactured drama this episode - Although I’m pretty darn sure that if Other Redhead Chick keeps cutting herself, Other Twin might be coming back :D. My gods, keep that girl away from sharp implements!
And JimPatro - thanks for the behind-the-scenes info! Nice to know that his bad character wasn’t simply due to bad edits.
What made it worse is that nearly everyone had horrible ergonomic practices. Pounding on clay with palm heels, twist while lifting, digging with fingers instead of tools…gah! Has none of these people ever taken an industrial safety class? They’re all going to be crippled gnarled messes by the time they’re 40.