I’m pretty sure she said during the design phase that she wanted it to look as if it had stepped out of a black & white movie. AIIRC, her sketch was black & white.
He’s not just on a streak of success — he’s been in a completely different league from the other contestants. It sure would be a shame if he choked.
Daran is the kind of guy who can fail and win just as easily because of the risks he takes. He has been on the bottom with some pretty bad looks, but I think he has adapted well to understanding the time constraints and what is and isn’t important
Well, I really disagree with the winner, did a great makeup, no doubt, but I felt it totally missed the mark in terms of representing Dahl. It was too scary, IMO. I loved George’s makeup, both whimsical and scary and the little details were great.
I can’t argue at all with the bottom looks or the decision to send home Chloe. Niko could’ve gone too and I wouldn’t have minded, both were bad.
I loved Tyler’s winning look, I think it was great overall … although I agree with Gangster Octopus that Graham’s design was much more Dahl-esque in concept and appearance. The funny thing for me is that I don’t care much for Dahl, and I didn’t really like Graham’s costume, but for the same reasons, so in that sense, I felt that Graham really GOT the challenge.
It was George who had the killer bunny, right? I thought that was also a very Dahl concept, I thought it was strong.
Either Niko or Chloe could have gone home based on their design, but I’m glad it was Chloe because I’m tired of how much time each episode spends on her complaining about how her ideas aren’t working out the way she wants.
This is my favorite point in the Face Off season, when everyone who annoys me is gone.
Ugh, I meant Graham, not George.
George’s problem was the face wasn’t cutesy enough.
I liked that Rashaad’s had two distinct looks that still looked related enough to be the same thing. I’m not sure I got edges vs curves out of it, but it was at least cohesive and it was a huge amount of work.
Daran’s was pretty good, the feather hair was good.
I loved Tyler’s, and I’m glad he won that one. It just looked complete and scary and focused and full concept. Graham’s was pretty good, and the way they were going on about how he really got Dahl, I thought he was going to be the winner. I guess I’m not particularly tuned enough to grasp what makes something Dahl. I did like his props, with the skulls and the berry bait. His schnoz and eyestalks were good.
I had to agree with all the comments on the bottom two. At first I figured Chloe as done, then they started in on Niko and talked about all the body suit work that didn’t accomplish anything and didn’t serve a purpose, pointless sculpture, and the head was rough and unfinished. In the end, I wasn’t sure which was going to get the axe. I thought Chloe might have gotten a sympathy save out of the failed cowl and the comments about Niko, but it didn’t happen. I’m okay with it, Chloe has struggled and her sculpt just didn’t work. I wasn’t happy with the teeth stuff and the shapes were off. It was hard to read what it was supposed to be. She should have pulled up some venus flytraps on her tablet for inspiration.
One week down and it fits my prediction. Chloe’s out and Niko was in bottom looks.
I thought that Chloe was channeling Georgia O’Keeffe at first, but when she added those “teeth” I had nightmares and wouldn’t sleep close to my wife.
Every week a couple of the contestants are shown struggling to make their ideas work, moaning “This isn’t working, I’m going to be on the bottom.” This isn’t the first time we’ve seen Chloe in that scene. Her piece wasn’t even close to the next worst (Niko’s.) I thought she did some good stuff from time-to-time but we have heard “She can do better work than this” from the judges too many time now.
This was a big topic of conversation in our house, too.
Niko’s creature made me think of Jar Jar Binks.
Well his books were for children, albeit with dark overtones. So something that just seems to me to be straightforward scary isn’t very Dahl-esque.
This is perhaps the first show this season where the judges rated everything exactly the way I would have.
Niko’s execution had some significant flaws, but I think his idea was one of the best. I can see that critter on the pages of a children’s book.
His execution was still better than Chloe’s, and Chloe didn’t have an idea that struck me as fitting a whimsical children’s monster. Even properly executed the way she wanted it to be, she’d have done a head appliance and a moss robe; almost everyone else did full-body work that would have been far better.
Tyler’s was definitely the best. The concept was great and the execution worked so well, from the movement in the arms and face, to the painting and sculpting.
I suspect the judges felt Graham’s design, while great, was too much like a Blue Meanie.
Tonight they had to do Mutants. Select a random DNA image to see what mutation it represents, then work with a graphic artist on a software platform to render ideas. Nice software.
First off, I have to eat my words. I think Niko hit it out of the park tonight. He did good sculpting and excellent paint to really bring out the metallic coils. Tons of work but it came out well. I would have picked him to win.
Instead they awarded Tyler the win. I can understand them seeing subtlety in the paint we can’t from the screen, but I just didn’t like the pale white. It looked wrong to me. The hairs were a ton of work and the sculpt was decent, though the hands confused me. Overall, I didn’t think it was worth a win.
Rashaad had an excellent paint job, the blue and red made sense with the octopus. The suckers on the arm didn’t work out well, though. They didn’t look like suckers, but some sort of puckers, almost like small water bottle bottoms cut off and glued to his arms.
George’s problem was it wasn’t clear what his concept was, but the quality of the work otherwise was good, so he was safe.
Then there were the two bottom looks. Right off the bat, Daran’s was a disaster. His concept was too bizarre, it didn’t read like eyes in any way. That’s what Mr. Westmore told him without blatantly telling him “This isn’t working, do something else.” And even with the lights it wouldn’t have read any better. Plus, regardless of the eye thing fiasco, the rest of the sculpt was tragically bad. Top it off, the paint scheme was dreadful. The blue didn’t make any sense, and it was deep blue with no variation. He spent too much time with the lights and it killed doing anything with the paint to minimize the damage.
Whereas Graham went with the most immediate idea for a tunneler - mole. That shouldn’t have been a disaster in itself, but the whole thing just didn’t come out well. I see what he was going for, bulky frame and muscular to do all the digging, but it just came out as a big blob. So unfortunately, the save earlier ended up just postponing the inevitable.
The judges awarded Daran’s creativity even if it went off the deep end this week over Graham’s obviousness.
And what was that about Daran being on a roll?
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus]
Well his books were for children, albeit with dark overtones. So something that just seems to me to be straightforward scary isn’t very Dahl-esque.
[/QUOTE]
But I didn’t read Tyler’s beast as straightforward scary. It had some cutesy to the face, and the blue fur in the teeth. I thought it had elements of whimsical childlike nature.
I actually liked the Mole man. Yeah, low hanging fruit, but I thought the makeup and costume were well done.
My picks for the bottom were Elasticity man and Panoramic Vision man. You couldn’t tell what either of them were supposed to be just by looking at them. I don’t know how suction cups are supposed to make you think of stretching.
I think there must be an invisible difficulty rating, like they have with Olympic diving. Every one of these challenges has at least one choice that’s stupidly difficult to portray. “Wall climbing?” Easy. “Impenetrable skin?” Sure. “Panoramic vision?” WTF?
That’s the only reason I can think of for the judging this week. Because the mole guy was actually pretty good. Obvious? Sure. But if you’re going to make a mutant that can tunnel, you’re going to cross the human with a mole. Aside from a claw that was falling off, the makeup was certainly competent. No way was that a bottom look. But it only had a .5 difficulty factor, apparently.
Even at the very beginning, when they picked their mutations, my husband and I were laughing over panoramic vision – it just seems like such a low-key, mundane mutation (compared to all the other ones). Between Graham and Daran, I thought Daran’s panoramic vision was much, much worse than the mole mutant. I do get what the judges were saying about the mole being the obvious choice, but I don’t think it was as bad as the blobby eyeball. Plus, the white of the eyes isn’t the vision part, it didn’t even make sense.
Even though I generally like Rashad’s work, and I liked the dramatic qualities of his paint job, I didn’t think it particularly captured the elasticity of an octopus (I think the concept was good, I just didn’t see it in the final product). So in that sense, at least the mole communicated tunneling.
I agree the two top looks were great, and I would have been happy with either of them as a winner. I thought Niko’s looked fabulous overall. I feel like he’s one of those contestants that either does great or does awful (this reminds me of Alana from previous seasons). Sometimes I think he is clearly the top, but when his looks are on the bottom, I can’t even believe he made it as a contestant on this show.
What I liked about Tyler’s is that it was very emotional, I think he was successful in capturing someone mid-mutation, and the mutating is obviously not a pleasant experience. I felt the judges responded to this as well.
So Daran is bottom looks because when you look at his make-up you have no idea what the mutation is supposed to be, but Graham is sent home because he did an obvious representation of the mutation.
Huh?
Personally, I thought Graham’s execution was just fine. Of course, I didn’t see it up close and personal.
What killed me about Daran’s quandary is that there was an easy fix. Yes, as delphica pointed out, you don’t see with the sclera, but that didn’t seem to bother anybody. His problem was that no one realized the flowy white stuff had any connection to the character’s eyes. So why didn’t he mold the plastic parts to cover the actor’s eyes? Rig it somehow that it’s tinted white but the actor can still see through it, then put the LEDs under the parts that aren’t the actor’s eyes.
I still cannot figure out what Daran’s was exactly, was the whole head supposed to be an eyeball or something? I think if they just based it on this week’s work (which I think they are supposed to, but I could be wrong) Daran should have gone, but I also think they see that Daran is very, very good most of the time and want to see more form him.
It’s funny how so many of these were animal-human hybrids, more Dr. Moreau type stuff, if you ask, me than mutations. Graham did select the low-hanging fruit and it was well executed, but it was also the least human-like.
When Niko, first described his makeup I thought “Here he goes again, trying to do to much.” But it wasn’t. I was a little confused though, were the coils organic to the character or did the character wrap himself in coils. I liked the makeup, but it wasn’t that sophisticated, just molded and painted pieces. Definite second place for me.
I really liked Tyler’s because there was humanity in it and it was well done. Now I am basing this on the judges saying they loved the paint job because it didn’t really come through on TV.
The costume was fine, Ve said the guy looked more like a slug than a mole. The pudgy rolls of skin and fat didn’t read as a mole.
Octopuses are known for having no bones and being able to stretch and change shape. They will change to look like plants or rocks or sea floor - whatever their surroundings, they will change not only their color but their texture. Octopus was a pretty good idea for an animal-hybrid to define elasticity. I don’t think the face really said stretchiness in itself, and I thought the suction cups sucked ass, but the concept of an octopus made a lot of sense to me.
Yeah, I was a little thrown by that one, too. Need some sort of wrap-around eyes, but how to do that is the question.
[QUOTE=delphica]
Even at the very beginning, when they picked their mutations, my husband and I were laughing over panoramic vision – it just seems like such a low-key, mundane mutation (compared to all the other ones).
[/QUOTE]
Panoramic vision guy: “Ha ha ha, you can’t sneak up on me, I have panoramic vision!”
Impenetrable skin guy: “I don’t need to sneak up on you, I have impenetrable skin.”
Wall climber: “You see 360 deg around, but what about up?”
The white parts were his eyeball extensions, the parts that allow him to see. He was going for uniquely creative rather than making sense and being understood by the audience. I don’t think originally he was trying to make them like the whites of the eyeballs, he was going for some unique organ that conveys sight somehow differently than a pupil and iris to a retina. But when Mr. Westmore told him it was unclear and suggested painting on blood vessels, I guess he didn’t understand the idea either and was trying to make the connection to eyeballs in some manner. When the lights got pulled out and hosed, I guess Daran fell back on Westmore’s suggestion without any real reason other than he had to do something. But it didn’t really help and it didn’t fit with his conception, from what I can tell.
Rules? There are rules? 
Seems to me when picking high and lows, they are going by the jobs that week, but when picking eliminations, they can rely on past records to influence their decision. If you see someone in bottom looks three weeks in a row, then you might send them home even if their disaster is not quite as bad as someone else’s disaster but that person has been safe or Top looks more often.
How do you convey mutations? Superheroes have done it with that exact thing - think X-men. I think they were going with the “mutation means connection to biology” angle and thus tying in to animal hybrids rather than pure effect itself.
Impenetrable skin - we’ve seen stone, i.e. The Fantastic Four, so going with armadillo plates is a different approach.
For elasticity, the octopus was a workable idea, but Rashaad could have just gone for elasticity and not made an animal hybrid.
I think Daran went for the non-animal hybrid, but had a sucky mutation and then went with his outlandish concept. He clearly recognized it was a stretch, but went with it anyway.
Wall climbing - think Spiderman, we’ve seen him wall climb without his face being distorted. But they are trying to do full makeups, so there’s a bias to go for big concepts that affect the face, too.