So apparently I forgot to post last week. It’s been busy. Excuses, excuses.
Last week’s challenge was to create a new predator/plant combination for a “Hunger Games” style creature. They were explicitly told by Glenn not to make an animal creature with a flower headdress/cowl, to be more creative and more integrative of the elements.
Teams of 2 were randomly assigned, with most teams having two mentors. What was most interesting to me about this week’s results was that everybody did a very good job, the looks that were bottom looks here absolutely could have been Safe on other seasons, and only the overall quality of the work made them the worst this time.
Special guest judge was Josh Hutcherson, i.e. Peeta from “The Hunger Games” movies and a big time Face Off fan.
Top looks were assigned to Emily and Regina for their Hyena/Shampoo Ginger combo, and to Ben and Darla for their Ram/Cactus hybrid.
Emily and Regina got off to a rocky start. Their original concept was a hyena shaped head with the ginger plant texture and layering, but their first attempt at sculpting was not cohesive, going in two directions. They rethought the concept and started over, which put them behind. But Rayce was right, they just had to apply themselves and make smart choices from there, and it worked out to their advantage, with a Top Look. The paint was great, the new look was a better integration of the forms, and the kicker was Emily introducing the hemp from the mold room to make the hyena fur.
Ben and Darla had a very interesting Ram sculpt, with the horns integrated into the cowl in foam and them painted to give the texture of bone. My one issue with their hybrid was it didn’t feel like it had enough cactus to me. It was dry and felt monotone, but had subtle shading to give the weathered desert effect. Good efforts.
Safes went to the following:
Anthony and Logan had a Warthog/Pitcher Plant. The warthog sculpt used the large nostrils for the actor’s eyeholes, which allowed a larger head form to shake off the human form more. Good choice. I was less thrilled with the color choice, but saw the pitcher plant element in the colors along with the tweaks to the warthog head shape.
Kelly and Daniel and a Scorpion/Delphinium combo. Good scorpion tail fabrication, good overall look, good use of color to brighten the face over the rest of the head. Maybe there could have been more plant in the look.
Rob and Jamie had a Piranha/Blue Thistle combo. I thought this was a great one and in some ways liked it better overall than the Ram/Cactus hybrid. Really good sculpt and paint combo.
Bottom Looks went to the following two groups:
Julian and Adam had a Bat/Sugarbush Protea combo. This one failed on the specific instruction by Glen for not using an animal head and flower cowl. There just wasn’t enough integration in the forms. Also, the color choice was bad. They went green and took it too light. IIRC Ve called it a batvocado. Still, there was a lot of detail in the sculpt and paint.
Stephanie and Alan did a Thorny Dragon/Cockscomb mix. The biggest problem was the bland monotone paint that read a bit too yellow, with nothing to break it up. Also, the form was a bit too undefined. Particular of note were some swollen bumps in the jaw area that Alan said were intended to be venom sacks, but read like bad swollen jaw muscles or something.
The winner was Emily, for her efforts and especially the use of the hemp. The eliminated contestant was Alan for his poor venom sacks. Stephanie was at risk for her paint job, but the sculpt kicked it.
This week, we had their first individual challenge - to draw a playing card character (King, Queen, Jack, Joker) and create a Tim Burton style character incorporating the suit of the card. Special guest judge was Robert Stromberg, who worked on the Tim Burton “Alice in Wonderland” movie.
What most struck me this week was the relative drop from last week’s performance, with the saddest collection of mistakes and ugly fuck ups I’ve seen in a while. One after another they looked off or not very creative or just messed up. It actually felt like a struggle to me to find three competitors for the Top Looks.
The biggest problem to me was almost everyone took the too literal translation of sculpting the shape of the suit into the face and cowl and hair. It just was obvious, and in most cases not well done.
Rundown by presentation order:
Stephanie had the King of Diamonds. Had a pointy chin and nose, with pointy hair to give the diamond look. She had some intentional asymmetries to give it a sinister look, but the color was a bit gray and there were some application issues around the lips and eyes. Safe.
Jamie had the King of Spades. Her first big problem was that the description for the card is David and Goliath, and she wanted to go with a giant, but she got last pick on models and got stuck with a small woman. So she had to revamp her concept as the tiny king with the bit attitude. That could have worked out okay, revamps sometimes give stronger concepts because they aren’t the most obvious, but in this case the execution was dreadful. She sculpted the hair to form the spade shape, and ended up with a plastic looking head for the face and the hair. The sculpt was bad and not any texture, the paint was weak, the glossy look was wrong. And then there was the mustache. Bottom Look.
Kelly had Queen of Spades, whom she made into a judge in the Judge Judy form, passing judgement from the bench in her robes and gavel. The cowl gave the spade form. The exaggerated wrinkles were a little strong, the purple face was pretty bad color choice, and then she topped it off with contacts that made the eyes not look human. Safe.
Logan had Queen of Clubs. I really didn’t understand what he thought he was doing with the gold forms, were those supposed to be hair? The look like an odd helmet on her cheeks and forehead, with scalp visible between the plates. And for some reason he gave her a black goatee. I assume that was supposed to be the stem for the club, but it’s a black point to the chin on the white face with golden petals of the club. ??? Safe.
Julian had Jack of Clubs. His was the most convincing one using the shape of the face itself to pull off the suit, which isn’t high praise. But he had a very good application and paint job, most looking like a real person, with good old makeup and some interesting choices. Top Look.
Ben had Jack of Diamonds, whom he sculpted for patience so he made really old. It was kind of clownly looking in paint job, but it wasn’t the obvious diamond shaped head, just used pointy chin and nose to sell the idea. Safe.
Adam had the King of Clubs, whom he styled the King of Night Clubs, a Rat Pack style comedian. Except, in his own words, it didn’t look like a king, just looked like a pimp. The Pimp of Clubs! Safe.
Rob had the Jack of Spades, whom he made over into a Musketeer style character with an eyepatch and a big floppy hat. The patch was too large, covering much of one half of the face, and he had some application errors where the adhesive didn’t hold around the sides and neck, but they were fairly well covered by the hair. Safe.
Daniel had the Queen of Diamonds, and he was fairly lost. His original concept was a lot of sharp diamond edges on the head and cowl, but Anthony thought it was coming off more horror than whimsical, so he started over and did a queen with diamond motifs to her face. It was a subtle look which didn’t convey the diamond look well, it was poorly done in that the lips were kinda swollen to make a protruding diamond shape that just came off poorly, and it really wasn’t whimsical. He got hammered for being lost, and then Ve commented that if he’s done an evil queen with diamonds protruding from her face, at least that would have been a concept. Bottom Look.
Emily drew the Queen of Hearts, and she had a very interesting twist. Instead of the classical heart shapes, she went with actual, beating hearts. She gave her queen a necklace of arrows with hearts on them, then did the hair up in a giant asymmetrical heart hairdo. Her sculpt was facinating, the application and paint were flawless, but the concept really pushed the envelope by using real hearts instead of cartoon hearts. The guest judge actually said they would have eaten that up for the Burton movie if it had been proposed. Hers was stunning and beautiful and original and creative, and pretty much the solid top pick out of a field of mush. Top Look and Win.
Regina drew the sole Joker, so she played up the comedic element and gave him two faces, one on the back of his head. It was a fabrication nightmare scrambling at the last minute, but it came together and was reasonably convincing. She had a good Safe.
Darla had the Jack of Hearts. She went with sculpted in hair and beard instead of applied hair, but her technique was good. I didn’t like this one as much as the judges, because I thought she was going more for the heart shape being created by the hairline rather than actually sculpting a heart-shaped face, but the judges gave her a lot of credit. I guess that played the whimsical element like the oversized Queen head from the film. They loved the way she used the beard and applied it low enough to not interfere with the mouth. The judges gave her a lot of praise, but I wasn’t as enamored with it as they. Top Look.
Anthony had the King of Hearts, so his concept was a King whose queen was killed in front of him and now he had a broken heart. The King was supposed to be emaciated and sad, and he chose a female model to play the role. I don’t think there’s a single thing he did that worked. He was going to have a big bleeding heart chest piece, but Rayce convinced him it would be more gorey and horror than whimsical, so he dropped that. The head is bad sculpt, the paint was atrocious muddy mix of read and white all over, and the hair suffered from not having any wigs left he thought would work but making do, and making do poorly. Ve called out the hair, and said this wasn’t even a good clown make up. OUCH! Bottom look.
I already pointed out of the top three, only one was really great IMO and that was Emily, and she was the obvious Win.
Out of the bottom three, I was expecting the bad clown to be eliminated, but the judges decided to axe Daniel and his Queen of Diamonds. I guess they felt his lack of direction and concept was worse than Anthony’s atrocious result but at least he had a concept that he could verbalize. Jamie’s was bad, but not at the level of bad of these two.
Also, all three Top looks were on Laura’s team.
Also, Kelly and Stephanie are tied at bottom going into the next challenge, each with 2 Safes and 1 Bottom look. Emily, Darla, and Regina currently have the best records, but it’s early to make much of that.
They had to get the model to do that? (Isn’t that cheating?) Judges made the right call here. Adam’s overall record is not looking that great.