Oh, interesting. Nice to see it confirmed that he really is a dick.
As a professional, what do you think of the contestants so far?
It’s been a few years since I’ve done prosthetic make-up professionally but I still have my chops. I really like Laura’s design work and I’ve been most impressed with her color palettes. And I think Rod shows the most ability to come through in a pinch. He produces quality under strict deadlines. Very desirable in filmmaking.
Sorry, that’s Roy.
I enjoyed this episode. Not being familiar with the Chinese dragons and culture, I was a little confused on this challenge. I mean, they’re using prosthetics and makeup to make what is typically done with puppets? Okay…
I agree the rat/goat head was exceptional. I guess I’m getting hung up on what it means to be a “dragon”. I mean, they were told to incorporate animals from the zodiac, they did, and then are told they aren’t enough like dragons. But Chinese dragons don’t particularly look like dragons to me. Chinese aesthetic is so different than Western, that I just don’t get it.
Tommy and Derek did have the best integration work - they were consistently on the same page, and like the judges said, you couldn’t tell where one person’s sculp ended and the next began. The paint was well integrated was well. Tommy handed the win to Derek, though, when he said it was Derek’s baby and he just tried to go with the flow. That guaranteed the win to Derek over him.
With Sarah and Eric, they didn’t like the horns and they didn’t like the paint, both of which were Eric. Ergo, that was pretty obvious who was losing. I liked the tusks and the lips aspect, but not the paint. Glenn Hetrick complained about unintentional assymetry, i.e. they couldn’t get things to line up. Okay.
Nicole got praise for the flags - she was the one who spotted that in the mural designs and made sure they were incorporated. The rat tails flowing off the face would have been interesting too. Overall, they managed to smooth out their differences and work together. I thought there’s had a good look and feel, too.
I hope Alana makes it through without losing a major appendage.
The judges were way off base regarding the lack of dragon influence on the costumes. The character dancing at the temple was a LION not a dragon.
True, but Westerners in general have difficulty parsing Asian art. It doesn’t help that there is a lot of visual overlap between depictions of dogs, lions, and dragons. The Dragon theme came from it currently being the year of the dragon, the lion dance was for TV wow factor.
As to the “dragon-osity” of the sculpts and designs, it isn’t that hard to do a google search for “Chinese Dragon” and make sure you knew what you were doing. It was fairly obvious that none of them had any real familiarity with Asian aesthetics except the winning team. What created their problems was hubris. They should ALL have immediately grabbed some reference material and made certain they incorporated the characteristic traits into their designs. Instead, nearly every team decided to go their own way completely,and it cost them.
On a more positive note, it seems that either the judges or the producers, ( or both) have learned from the earlier seasons when it comes to the judging. Every decision so far has been justifiable, and I love that they are incorporating individual challenges early in the competition. That is SO important to getting a final group who truly deserves to be there.
One thing that’s starting to get to me, after watching the pirate and dragon episodes back to back: “Man, I can’t get this mold out. It’s going to be ruined. Somebody help me! This sucks, if I can’t get this out, we have nothing!!!” <Commercial break> “Pop! Oh, it came out. Everything’s fine!”
They do oversell that drama a bit. That, and the part about Alana panicking because she’s the one with the least experience and blah blah blah OUCH! I’M BLEEDING!
I hate the pacing of the commercial breaks. As soon as they start doing that “coming up” stuff I start fast forwarding. Too much spoilerage, I want to see it unfold in order. Too much repetition.
And I still hate the “And the winner is… [commercial break]” crap. Don’t give me a 30 second dramatic pause and then a commercial break. I’m trying to anticipate those and fastforward there, too.
Oh, anyone else notice the tendency somewhere in the middle of the show, they’ll stop for a commercial break, run 2 commercials, come back to the show with a .5 - 1 min bit part, then return to the commercial break? The latest one was about how one of the guys is so hurried, he runs everywhere all day long.
Also, is anyone participating in the live interactive content online? I’m not watching live, and I don’t care for interactive content anyway, but I’m just curious what they are doing with their app.
A zombie virus has infested Wonderland! Great concept for a challenge!
But overall I wasn’t too impressed with the makeups. Most of them I felt were kinda blah and unexciting. Roy’s was by far the best. That guy has so much experience and creativity, my early prediction is Roy’s going to win it all.
We call those “interstitials” in our house, and I think they’re just a way of negating some of the benefits of DVRs for advertisers.
Loved the episode, again!
That crown of flesh was a wonderful thing to see. And damn gory, too.
I can’t say enough about how much I like the judging on this show. They catch all the flaws, and the fantastic techniques, that make the judging accurate and realistic.
Great show.
I was disappointed that Nicole got canned. I thought for sure the guy who missed BOTH ideas would get kicked off. However, while Roy is pretty good, I think Nicole is consistently doing good work. She is my pick for the overall winner. She is almost always in the top looks and seems to have a good head on her shoulders. But yeah, the judges are really good. They are critical without being condescending and offer good constructive criticism. I feel like that are actually trying to nurture these artists and not tear them down with pointless insults. There are times when they will flat out just say something is crap, but usually, the artist already knows that it is.
I agree that the judges seem primed for Roy to be the winner. He had been high three times, including this win, and been praised every time for the quality and the amount of work.
Laura (I think that’s who you meant) is also doing well, but after last year, I think I may be getting a feel for the judges.
I wasn’t fond of Roy’s Red Queen. I didn’t really like the crown, but I can see the quality and detail of the work, with the overlaid skin separate from the under layer.
I think the judges missed the call on Nicole. They should have sent Rod packing for failing to get the concept of zombie. Nicole had interesting work, just the paint job went dark - which she realized was bad, but was struggling with faulty equipment. Her airbrush stopped working. I liked the concept of eating the white rabbit. The bottle in the chest was interesting, though shoving a bottle into a chest through a ribcage is going to be a challenge. Even Tommy’s was worse. His rabbit head was the best part, and it wasn’t great. It just was a mess, with nothing really standing out. The shirt didn’t match the theme, the pants were dreadful - supposed to be white rabbit legs, but looked like baggy pants. At least Nicole had a coherent idea that was evident in the work, even if the paint job was bad.
I do like that they’re doing individual projects more this year, less collaborations. It is much easier to see the individual’s work, and lots harder to coast on someone else’s talent. If Becky last year had been doing individual work instead of collaborations, she wouldn’t have had that bad mess with Sue.
And Danger-prone [del]Daphne[/del] Alana got by with only dropping her cowl, not amputating something, so there’s that.
I thought the purple Cheshire cat was a weird color choice, but then Ve commented that the cat in the book was purple, so at least it made sense in that context.
And nobody seems to be doing the extra content with the online app?
You’re right, I meant Laura, not Nicole.
Nitpick: the cat in the Disney adaptation was purple. Mr. Lewis Carroll offers no physical description of the Cheshire cat. The term Cheshire cat was popularized, but not invented by Carroll.
While I certainly understand why Nicole didn’t win the Zombie Wonderland challenge I was disappointed that she was sent home.
Years ago (and many time since, I suppose) on Top Chef one judge called a dish a failure and Tom Collicchio said “yeah, but is it a failure of idea, or a failure of execution.” And that has informed how I make my own choices while watching competition shows. I think Nicole’s concept answered the challenge better than Tommy’s baffling bleeding eared skater bunny. Yes, the paint job was flawed, but their time is so limited.
I worry for Alana. and join you in being relieved that at least this week’s calamity didn’t involve bloodshed.
From the limited amount of time we got to see it I didn’t really get “crown” from Roy’s - wait a minute let me finish—it’s also possible that I just need to see it from some other angles. Without being told “queen” I might have thought she was morphing into some type of coral undersea sort of thing. However, the work he did was outstanding. I loved, Loved, LOVED the stretchy latex piece placed over the beautiful muscle-y paint job. Each week I’m amazed at how much he does, and does well. He also seems least likely to start crying in an on camera interview. I can imagine him observing some of the chaos and thinking “that’s right. You kids enjoy the stress and the drama. I’ll be over here working three times as hard and as fast as you.” I do hope he wins. My fear is that he’ll get shafted somehow by a team challenge. But that’s my fear on all competition shows.
Plus, he did ALL of that work AND saved Alana’s floppy ears. What a good guy.
And a damn sight better than Rob’s swelling/shriking vampire queen thing. Her execution was overall better than Tommy’s, just the colors went too dark too early, and the pulsing thing on the head didn’t quite work. Tommy had a rabid earless rabbit head with the wrong shirt and floppy pants for bunny legs. How did that beat Nicole’s Alice? 
Seriously, this is the first elimination they’ve made that I fully disagree with. There have been others where a case could be made, but this one strikes me as a WTF?
I think that’s part of why I didn’t like it. The extended bits didn’t say “crown” to me. But I agree the workmanship was excellent.
If I had to pick a winner right now, it would be him. Unless he has a complete breakdown some week - maybe he goes too ambitious for even him to accomplish in the time given - I am having trouble seeing how he can lose. He’s got abilities and skills outpacing everone else. Some of the others have their niches, but he seems to be well-rounded.
The judges have overall been pretty good about determining who is most to blame for team challenge failures, IMO.
My wife and I have been watching it for all three seasons. I haven’t watched many other reality shows, so I have no good basis for comparision; but it seems that Face Off focusses less on conflict between the contestants and more on the creative process - instead of “Will X sleep with/ally with/betray/murder in her sleep Y?”, the tension comes from “Will X’s mold fall apart/headpiece work/color palette impress the judges?”
I enjoy watching these people actually creating their art; and boy oh boy do they do some cool makeups!
I’ve seen all of two episodes and what I saw, I like. The problem is that I’m not a regular TV watcher so I don’t know when anything is on-- or even remember that it is on.
I must check to see if it is On Demand. That is how I watched the other two reality shows that I liked: Home Channel Star and Worst Cooks. Also must check to see if Tori Spelling’s crafting competition show has lasted and is on demand.
P.S. The stuff they do on Face Off is amazing!
I keep telling myself to see this but I can never remember when its on. What day is it on and are there repeats during the week?