There have been a few challenges that asked for funny. I think they were all spectacular failures… it seems to me that contestants either have a funny inspiration or they don’t. If they’re not inspired, the best they can do is odd or quirky.
I would like to see challenges that ask for things that are more different, maybe even ideas that don’t use a human model. For example, what if you teamed the makeup artists with animatronics experts and had them build fantasy dinosaurs? Or ask them to build puppet-monsters that don’t require a model to fit inside. I also think an awesome challenge would be to put dogs (or some other animal) in a makeup, but I’m not sure if you could get them to hold still long enough to pull that off.
I definitely agree that there are way too many challenges like this guitar one where it seems like the biggest choice for some contestants is what color to paint their demon.
This week’s challenge - design the supernatural entity that inspired the silhouette on the wall.
Daunting challenge, especially when most of the silhouettes seemed to be extraordinarily thin in places. Hard to pull that off on a human model.
I’m a little thrown by the judges this week. They made George safe, but I don’t see why he wasn’t in Top Looks. His demon fit the silhouette, including the halo, the spikey wings, and all the features. Plus, it was scary. Maybe they just wanted to award someone else this week - he had three Highs and one Low coming in, so this is his first Safe.
Versus Graham and his thingy. Yeah, the weird tentacle mouth thingies were creepy, but I don’t see how his really fit his silhouette.
Niko did a good job with his Minotaur. Great use of sculpt and paint to put in fake eyes but hide the actor’s eye holes.
Odd that Corrine made it in Top Looks with prefab ears. The actress really sold it with her creeping and capering. That more than anything sold the silhouette. Yes, it was a creepy idea of the goblin, and yes she had the nose and ears, and yes the paint job was good, but still.
I also liked Matt’s monster with the scary teeth - he really needed that. Rashaad had a sexy beast with some stellar horns, and Chloe’s demon had a very solid looking skull with texture that really read like bone.
Meanwhile, on the bottom looks the judges did a good job. Pretty much agree with all their comments there. Cat could have been helped by the arms, but not rescued the face shape.
But the absolute worst was Tanner. It wasn’t even a hot mess - it was a cold mess. It was a disaster from top to bottom, pretty much on every decision. They didn’t even list some of the biggest problems.
Number one off the bat was the design choice to have the horns wrap around and through the chest. That’s just a staggeringly bad concept. Then couple that with his execution, the horn design using cups and wrap tape didn’t read as horns, they read as hoses of some sort. And the backsides didn’t even line up with the front sides sticking through. Just awful. Then you throw in the face sculpt that (a) read more cute than scary, and (b) his failure to paint around the eyes and mouth, plus the sculpt area around the mouth left too much human mouth through. Epic fail. Even after Mr. Westmore pointed out the face was too cute and he needed to make the nose bigger and fiercer, he didn’t really make the nose more prominent or change the overall shape of the face. Bah.
Add in the saran wrap that didn’t stay, the bad paint job, the horns that didn’t stick, and the edges visible around the torso when the actor moved, the tears and all, just absolutely dreadful. The only positive I can say is that there were some sculpt elements in the head that were good if not particularly creative.
Honestly, Daran and Cat both got rescued by Tanner’s brilliant fail, because either of them could have gone home if Tanner had gotten something (pretty much anything) right. Maybe they can take the opportunity to regroup and get on track.
Running stats, it looks like Daran is leading the pack with 1 Win, 2 High, a Foundation challenge, and 1 Low.
Rashaad had 3 Highs and no Lows, but no Wins or Foundation wins (though we’ve only had a couple of those).
George is next with 3 Highs and 1 Foundation against 1 Low.
Next is a tie of Niko and Tyler, with 1 Win, 1 High, and 1 Low each.
Then come
Corrine: 1 Win, 1 High
Graham: 2 High
Chloe: 1 Win, 1 Low
Cat: 2 Low
Matt: 3 Low
And Rashaad has a wife and son - who knew? I had him pegged as gay.
That’s a different show, coming up in March - Jim Henson’s Creature Shop.
First, you have to get any animal to sit still long enough to apply make up, then you have to keep them from licking or rubbing and rolling and otherwise destroying it before you’re done.
That seemed more a problem with contestants’ vision rather than inherent problem with the challenge. I envisioned something more akin to the Burtonesque challenge a few seasons ago where the lady had her cello and both were blending together. No demon in that concept at all.
The bottom looks were all worthy,no doubt, but Tanner was like in a whole other galaxy of bad. That was clearly one of the worst makeups ever to appear on the show. I am always amused when someone thinks their makeup looks cool and it is actually awful, I’m thinking of the guy who put a huge vagina on Howard Stern’s back and called it a mouth. He was proud of that? At least Tanner knew his was awful.
I also agree with the winner this week. That Minotaur looked fantastic, the face sculpt was fantastic especially. The proportions were wonderful, just a perfect makeup from head to toe.
While I agree that Tanner was by far the worse, I kind of liked the horns wrapping around and then going through the chest. At least, I liked the idea and the drawing. Sure, it doesn’t really make any sense, but then I’ve seen a lot of demons and monsters in movies and TV that don’t make much sense but still look cool. However, his execution of the horns was terrible, just like his execution of everything else.
Isn’t there a “Making Demon Horns 101” class for makeup artists? Lots of people seem to be getting tripped up by them, particularly in getting them to stay on. I would have guessed that “gluing stuff on” would be a foundation skill that they’d all have mastered by this time.
Ah well, another week, another set of demons. Some pretty good work this week. The bug mouth demon was genuinely creepy. Still not seeing the “bigger and bolder”, though. Realistically, the only way you’re going to get bigger and bolder is to give the artists more time. They’re already pretty much at the limit of what 1 or 2 stressed out people can do in three days.
This episode was blessedly free of reality show drama, at least, except for the usual obligatory “Oh, my mold is sticking – I’m going home in failure, woe is me.” But they actually showed people working and designing for a change.
One thing I will say about Face Off is that everyone is so decent. The contestants all help each other; get genuinely upset when people are eliminated; the losers almost invariably handle it with real grace; and the judges seem genuinely sympathetic and helpful. McKenzie alone seems to have trouble generating any warmth – her “I’m sorry but you have been eliminated” seems almost robotic, but that may just be her stage presence.
This is one of the main reasons I enjoy this show so much. It made my little black heart grow three sizes when it showed Tyler cheerfully jumping in to help Niko and Cat. I had gotten the feeling that McKenzie’s “you have been eliminated” line comes across as stiff because she knows it’s dumb but apparently the show wanted to have a big “you’re fired!” reality show line and so she has to say it.
Niko was my biggest surprise because I simply haven’t been impressed with either his technical abilities or his mental grasp of the concepts up until now, but he really hit it out of the park last night. (I will note that one of his previous top looks was a partner challenge, and I felt he was carried by Corrine.)
I didn’t think Cat’s was THAT bad, the parts that she finished. If she had done the arms, I felt like it could have had more potential as an insectoid creature. The judges really seemed to hate it. I would agree with putting her in the bottom because she didn’t finish and thus didn’t match the shadow … but the judges were really focuses on the painting on the face being poor, and I didn’t agree. A beetle demon doesn’t seem any weirder than say, a vulture dragon, to me.
My husband and I were saying that we wish the show would spend less time on the hand-wringing about “waah, I’m going to be sent home!” and a little more on explaining some of the techniques. Watching the show as long as I have, I’ve picked up on SOME, but I still don’t always grasp why someone would pick one approach over another, what are the pros and cons, etc.
I agree. It made me think of a babirusa. Those are teeth, not horns, and they grow through the animal’s lip. Ow. If not ground down by foraging, etc., the tusks can curve around and penetrate the skull or even eyeball. Ew.
I also like babirusa because their name is a portmanteau - in Bahasa, “babi” is pig, and “rusa” is deer. Pigdeer.
I wish there was a “Makeup around the eyes 101”. On so many models you can see the skin behind the makeup it instantly ends my suspension of disbelief.
I also kind of find it funny that, after being ripped apart, the judges then praise the loser on how great he or she is and how they’ll go on to have a fantastic career.
It is fair to be criticizing one abysmal project while still recognizing the person’s overall skill. We all have bad days. Even the contestants who have major weaknesses in their skills could still be a valuable member of a team effort in a commercial project.
I know, but it’s kind of funny to hear the juxtaposition of the criticism/praise. Even just saying the implied, “With the exception of this challenge,” before heaping praise would sound better. But it’s not a biggie. Like I said, I just find it amusing.
Just what is the value of a ‘VIP trip to one of Kryolan’s 85zillion (or so) locations’? At least the winner gets a wonderful Fiat automobile to keep a mechanic in a garage happy.
Can someone tell me why the models always look like they’re hyperventilating during the reveals? When they do closeups, it seems like they’re panting. Is it because the prosthetics are limiting their breathing?
Well, we’re starting to see a clear separation of talent now. The top look could have gone to any of the top three, as far as I’m concerned. The bunyip was a bit overdone, but that was the description of the beast. The amphibian thing had a very striking look. And the winning thing was actually funny.
I’m actually surprised it wasn’t Cat sent home, especially after we had to spend the entire episode listening to her whinge about how her creative choices weren’t being respected.
The judges’ rationale for eliminating Matt seemed odd – his partner had immunity so he should have worked harder? It’s kind of hard to do it all by yourself if your partner is mentally checked out for the week. I admit that the Jersey Devil was pretty poor – wings almost never work in a costume, and they didn’t work here.
I’m having trouble watching this anymore. Are they repeating it after the first 8pm (central) showing anymore? I was trying to find it late last night. They had other crap on.
Two weeks in a row I’ve missed it.
I always watched the later repeat at 11pm. Is the repeat on a different day/time?
My thoughts on the top looks are exactly the same as yours. Any team that can make fun fur not look ridiculous probably deserves not just to win but some sort of special Presidential commendation.
As for the bottom looks, I could have seen any of those three go as well. I was also thinking Cat should go, for the reasons mentioned, but she did do some work, so I had no problem with sending scarfman off. BTW, the minute those wings came out on the NJ DeviI turned to my wife and said, “Those don’t look like wings, they look like drapes.” So it was funny when Ve said the same thing.
Well, we’ve seen contestants, including Matt himself, do better solo work in the same amount of time. He probably would have been better off thinking of it as a solo challenge with an assistant rather than a team challenge.
Even if you look at the little he did do, though… that face scuplt was terrible. When the one thing you do contribute to a team challenge sucks, you’re pretty much doomed. We can point to lots of people in different seasons who went home for just that reason.
That said, I’d rather have seen Kat go home just so we don’t have to listen to her anymore.
And it seems to me like there’s not much of a competition left for the next couple of episodes. We pretty much know that Kat and Corinne are the next two going home. Fake redhead girl is safe in the middle most of the time but hasn’t pulled off the kind of win you need to make it into the last three. We know that Niko and Daran both have moments of brilliance, but neither has been consistent. One of them will screw up and go home. Or both… I forget exactly how many people need to be eliminated to leave us with three.
Although I agreed with the top and bottom looks, none of them wowed me. The winning look could use some modifications, mainly a smaller eye, but I did love the stomach mouth. Which I find kind of funny because of the failed back mouth a week or two ago.
I too was thinking Kat should go home. Her endless whining about not getting her way. She should have put her foot down early and demanded to have a more equal say. And the situation with Matt; If I was on the show, had immunity and with a partner, I’d let them take the lead since it would be their neck on the line. Or if I was paired with a partner with immunity I wouldn’t allow any decisions I thought would get me eliminated.
I started to watch this at lunch time today (I had recorded it) and somehow managed to delete it. Apparently though, it shows before the next one, next Tuesday so I’m re-recording it hoping not to re-delete it.
