Yes, but that’s impractical. They’re seasoned professionals, and they’re as aware of the flaws as anyone. And the show doesn’t want them to have hurt feelings, for sure.
Regular contestants are sometimes aware of flaws too. Doesn’t stop the judges from pointing them out. And why would their feelings be hurt? They’re big boys and girls. They should be able to take constructive criticism.
Well, I’ll be dipped! They actually put out an episode with suspense, didn’t spoil the reveals, AND it was engaging!
I liked this episode. They showed a large portion of the creative process, a lot of the in-between decisions regarding the choice of materials, and they hid a lot of the faces until the reveal. Truly enjoyed it, and didn’t fast forward through the episode.
Honestly, I’d love to see a half-hour episode about the actors on this show. How they feel about the multiple makeups, how they engage the artists, and how they bring life to some of these creations. For example, the guy that animated the hillbilly killer makeup did an excellent job of showing disdain and contempt, and the actress for Cyanide really sold it for such a lousy makeup.
I agree with the judges, although I wouldn’t have used the save this early.
My main comment about tonight’s episode is “how come every single contestant came up with a version of the foundation challenge that was genuinely creepy and effective and none of the spotlight challenges were even close to that?”
Seriously, in three hours they came up with some really cool, unsettling makeup jobs. And in three days, they mostly came up with “meh”. The winning costume was very literal and the back story didn’t really address “why an axe?”.
Once again, Dina manages to come out on the bottom. She’s strangely inconsistent in her abilities. Not sure I would have used the save on Sasha – I find I can’t remember anything she’s done so it’s none too likely that she’s going to make it through the shredder. Then again, none of the current crew seems to have the “star” quality of a Roy or Laura. They’re competent, but rarely brilliant.
On the other hand, the unadulterated joy and excitement she displayed when saved was worth an hour of TV viewing all on its own.
We call her “Luna Lovegood”. But it’s pretty amazing how few of the rest of the contestants have made much of an impression on me.
There’s Dina (cakes), and Cig (crazy facial hair)… then there’s, umm, 2 other women with funny hair colors? Or three? And some guys who are totally boring? One of them has weird hair also?
I agree that this was a good episode overall, but with pretty unimpressive makeup jobs.
I totally agree with you. Some of the contestants literally spent a day doing nothing but sculpting a bigger nose when you look at it in the grand scheme of things.
The online dating killer looked to me like what a frat boy wears to the Halloween party when he hasn’t had time to go shopping… and that was good enough to be safe!
Also, I have to nominate Chum Guy for “worst paint job ever.” Cig insisted that he knew what he was doing, but he wound up with red on red on red, and when you put that thing on TV, his sculpting is completely wasted. I felt like Chum should have 1) used more shading so we could see the sculpt 2) used whites and grays - after all, chum is chopped up fish parts and those are not always red and 3) used some human skin in the chest and/or head to allow further contrast in colors, rather than relegating the flesh tones to the arms.
Could have also used bits of silver “flesh” in places for the fish skins…
Yep, exactly what I was thinking. That would have given the creature enough contrast to appreciate it from a distance.
I agree, nothing was spectacular, and chum guy was way too monotone. He did have creative use of appliance to make the mouth work.
And I agree the winner didn’t address the reason for the axe. She was shot, so she came back with an axe?
I agree the bottom three were pretty bad. Dina’s reindeer was particularly atrocious. The sculpt was bad, the hair was bad, the hooves were terrible.
Keaghlan’s homecoming queen was problematic. Trying to twist the torso against the head and the legs is severely challenging. Overcoming the arms is, to my mind, the biggest hurdle. Plus, the choice of model wasn’t the best. Pick a chick with no boobs so you don’t have to mask the bumps in her back. Plus, the black and white template didn’t work, and it was just blah.
Sasha’s was terrible in the way the supposed veins were in the sculpt. The bulging protruding things were veins?
I’m not sure they should have spent the save this early, but I’m glad they did. Now we don’t have to worry about it, and they kept around Sasha and Dina, both of whom I want to see more from.
Sasha has been Top looks 4 times and Bottom 3 times - no middle ground. The other two bottom looks were with pushy partners that didn’t want to do the challenge they were given, but wanted to do something peculiar.
Dina has won twice and been Bottom twice.
Keaghlan’s been Top three times and Bottom twice.
So it’s an interesting mixed record.
It was depressing to see Dina and Sasha in the bottom, as they’re the only two contestants I like — although, admittedly, not because of their work. (It’s OK; the only other two I have an opinion of — Cig and Smith-Bros.-beard-fauxhawk guy — I hate, and not because of their work, either.)
But while the white skin with neon blood in not-veins was certainly bad, the reindeer was a travesty. I was amazed Dina wasn’t the loser.
And as MaxtheVool said, Sasha’s save was delightful.
“My socks? Oh, it’s an expression!”
I agree with everyone about Mr. Chum’s paint job. I saw no depth, no tone, no shading…. But it must have looked different in person, because someone (Neville, maybe?) even complimented him on it.
Much as I hate to say it, I think Cig is the only one in this batch with any real talent.
Pretty good episode tonight. I totally agree with Dina 's win. Her human snake hybrid looked awesome. I liked Cig’s, although I thought it look a tad to literal. But then I guess with action figures that’s OK.
In my personal rankings the only one that matched up with the judges for the bottom 3 was Rachael. And I didn’t dislike hers as much as the judges did, but out of the bottom 3 that they picked I would have chosen her to go home.
I think they made the right call for both the winner and the loser this week, with the caveat that I think they should have kept the “save” for this week. Nothing Sasha did this week did anything to justify keeping her around – it wasn’t a terrible snake, but it did rather confirm my suspicion that she isn’t going to make it to the finals.
Dina continues to be hugely inconsistent with a leap from bottom looks last week to an outstanding job this week.
I’m guessing the rat snake makeup looked more impressive in real life, but on TV the claws looked cheesy and the hood hid all the details. Why go through all the trouble of giving him bad-ass tattoos if you’re going to hide them under a hoodie?
Yeah, the claws looked cheesy to me too. And I wasn’t wowed by the face like the judges were.
I liked this episode, although I was at a bit of a disadvantage with the challenge because I don’t know anything about G.I. Joe and have no clue what a G.I. Joe “look” would be. My husband had to explain what it had to do with snakes.
I agreed that Dina was the clear winner.
The Rat Snake guy totally confused me, too. Something must have been happening with it that impressed the judges, but it was either not coming through on TV, or I’m too clueless. I do like the theory of going minimal and really nailing it, and I have been happy when people went that route in the past … but in this case, I was missing it. I also vaguely recall the judges criticizing someone recently for doing a natural flesh make up because it was pointless to spend valuable time making actual flesh look like … actual flesh. I like that Drew stood by his decisions, though, and didn’t worry too much about not going big like the others.
I didn’t think any of the bottoms were absolute horrors like in some past challenges, and I think it could have gone equally between Sasha and Keaghlan going home. I was wondering if there was any desire (on the part of the judges or the shows producers) to not have “wasted” Sasha’s save last week by sending her off this week.
I remember that, although not very well. I think the difference between the two is that one person used prosthetics and makeup to create a person who’s had extensive re/constructive surgery on his face. and the other used prosthetics and makeup to create an ordinary-looking person.
I was not as impressed with Dina’s design as many others here. I think it deserved to be in the top, certainly, but I felt like the head was a very un-snake-like shape, being very big in the cranium so that it looked like a triangle in profile. That just didn’t work for me. I also think the head failed to be sexy… the sexiness of the final makeup had everything to do with slinky vinyl and nothing to do with snake features.
(I suppose one factor is her opalescent airbrushing. It may not have come through TV so well.)
I think I would have given the win to Cig; that character was an action figure come to life in a way that none of the others were. I think that fact should have put him on top.
I did like the rat-snake body modification concept. For me, the reason it worked is that his understated makeup still fit the challenge - it was still taken human features and making them more snake-like, even if it was a subtle modification and not a freak show mutant hybrid. Whereas, some of the previous criticism about that was on characters where the subtle makeup didn’t add anything to the character other than a big nose or a weird chin. In this case, the makeup still said “snake” and therefore directly related to the challenge. Also, silicon makeups like this are supposed to look more natural than foam because of how light reflects, but I’m not sure how much that comes through on camera. The judges sometimes say things about silicon that I’m not seeing on my TV.
I think Sasha proved that her save was wasted. And, to me, she’s proven that we can’t blame her early failures entirely on the other people she was with. She just sometimes gets a challenge and sometimes she doesn’t, and she falls back on techniques whether or not they’re appropriate - for example, she used the same technique for both feathers and scales. It is a good technique for feathers and a bad one for scales, but she doesn’t seem able to judge that herself. We saw something similar with the lion characters, where she tried a technique for applying fur that might not have been the best choice. I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt and think that she’ll be really good ten years from now when she’s had a chance to learn more techniques and to learn when each should be employed. Right now, she just doesn’t have it.
That was my immediate reaction - what’s with the damn hoodie? You just covered up half your work. That wasn’t the only offender - another of the contestants did a whole head piece, then put them in a hood.
Looking at it when the judges were commenting, I realized you couldn’t see any edges from the prosthetics to the skin. The paint job was very smooth and natural. Yeah, it was a difficult contrast sitting next to Cig’s cartoon action figure and the rest of the full head sculpt masks, and then you’re seeing this guy who barely looks like anything was done to his face at all. But I think that’s part of the reason he was graded well - the result was realistic.
That’s an important observation. I was thinking “Damn, Sasha was the save last week, that should almost assure her of going home. Being in bottom looks again after being the save is bad news.” But then the judges made a point of stating that there were some good elements in her overall disaster. I’m wondering if that was face-saving efforts.
Whereas with Keaghlan, when the most GI Joe thing is the outfit that she didn’t actually make, that says something. I liked her concept, but they were right, there was something in the face that missed being snake. But it wasn’t a baboon face, like the other bottom look. That was a very troubling result.
I have to agree. I think part of the challenge is that snakes have very flat heads, while humans have very domed heads, so trying to stick a human head in a snake head and have the face work is nigh-impossible. Give snakelike affectations, sure, but not an actual snake head.
Some snakes do have wide heads behind the faces, and that could have been the reference, but the anatomy of a snake and human differs in how the neck attaches - the snake’s neck would have run out above her head, not below. So I chalk it up to anatomical challenges.
That’s what I was expecting. When Glen said he nailed that aspect of the challenge, I figured that was it.
In that way, she’s reminiscent of Miranda. Miranda was on Season 2 as a rank newbie, and she sucked rocks. She bombed out quickly because she didn’t know how to do anything. When she came back in season 5, she was a damn good sculpter. A few years of experience brought out some massive talent. Of course her confidence hadn’t caught up, and that caused her emotional breakdown, but skill-wise, she became great.
Sasha is probably in the same boat, in both categories.
This week: Clowns, but demonstrating their own personal childhood fears. Interesting.
Top Looks:
Cig - his fear was dark water. He imagined falling into murky water and having skeletal monster creatures pulling him under, so he created one of those monsters but painted with clown colors and put in a clown suit. His is truly frightening. The teeth are excellent, the sculpt great, and his paint job is wonderful. He found a way to give it a wet look so it looked like just from the water. He made the paint job smeared and runny like from the water. Just absolutely frightening. I thought he would get the win for it.
Dina - her fear was tornadoes. Her original concept was a big tornado hairdo, which was lame and boring. When Mr. Westmore critiqued it, it shook her up, so she reimagined and came up with something much better. She made a clown that was at a children’s party and caught up in a tornado, so he’s cut up and damage from storm debris. The card peeling up the skin is incredibly good, the rest of the paint job excellent. I think my one complaint is that everything is on the head, she didn’t do anything with the body, and that’s maybe why it doesn’t read as well from afar. Still, there’s lots of spectacularness. Like the muscle she made from paint. She sculpted that with the paint on application day.
Sasha - her fear was old porcelain dolls. She decided to twist the concept, and instead of making a clown with doll features, she made a porcelain doll with a clown paint job. I loved her concept, and her execution was very well done. She made an old, cracked face and really did the sculpt well, then painted it with Mr. Westmore’s advice to make sure the base color wasn’t bright white so it looked old. She put just a touch of clown around the eyes and nose - which is just about the type of old-timey look a doll might have. And then to top it off, she took a bald cap and laid in hair to create the old doll hair clump look. It was brilliant.
The judges gave the win to Sasha. Perhaps part was because of the risky decision to twist the concept, and also maybe a little to justify their save.
Safes:
Stella - her fear was monsters under the bed. She made a blue clown guy with multiple hands coming out of the oversized pants, and then lost toys from under the bed. The multiple hands made me think of pedophile clown. There were some elements of the sculpt the judges liked, but the incorporation of the toys was weak and overall it just wasn’t amazing.
George - his fear was worms. He made a clown that was made up of worms, with giant worm arms and then lots of tiny worms combined into the face. I really didn’t like this concept or execution. The judges kinda liked the creepy worm arms, but overall it was weak.
Rachael - her fear was cockroaches. She went for a cockroach hybrid painted like a clown, with cochroach head features and antennae. The actor helped sell it with movements. It wasn’t bad in my eyes, but not with the top three.
Bottom looks:
Drew - his fear was spiders. He wanted to make a big spider body for the head, and put several eyes on the forehead. He ended up toning down the head because the clowns had to put on a show and be active, and he was worried a big head would get in the way. I think he should have taken the risk, as what he ended up with didn’t come across as spidery enough. Also, the nose was supposed to be a big spider leg, but he didn’t have time to paint it right and ended up covering it with a red ball, which made it bizarre and it didn’t fit. What he ended up with is a mess that doesn’t really read spider.
Damien - he also had spiders. His concept was a clown that swallowed spiders and they erupted from inside eating him from inside out. Everything about his was blah. The concept was boring, the sculpt was unoriginal, and the paint was nothing. He did make a bunch of tiny spiders, but that wasn’t enough to save his design.
The judges sent Damien home. Basically, his design was too unoriginal this late in the game.
I agreed with the top looks, although I would have put Stella in the top and Sasha as safe. Sasha’s was good, but it wasn’t scary.
Damien definitely deserved to lose, but I thought that George’s was worse than Drew’s so I would have swapped them for safe and bottom looks. The head on George’s clown made me think of gummy worms instead of creepy, crawly things.
Agree with you about George’s head - that was just a mess. And conceptually, I think it was a bit off. With creepy-crawlys, the fear - to me, at least - is that a whole bunch of them will crawl all over you. So even though Damien’s clown was flawed, the bunch of little spiders erupting from beneath the skin creeped me the hell out, more than Drew’s one big spider would have, even if he’d done a better job. The close-up on Damien’s clown left me squirming.
As good as Cig’s was, Sasha I think deserved the win. I couldn’t tell if the cracks were painted or sculpted. If they were painted, then that’s about the best trompe l’oeil paint jib I’ve yet seen. Plus, the decision to use classical Pierrot clown face fit the doll and the concept. It was a beautiful makeup.