Face Off Season 8

Cafe Society
21

Tonight’s challenge was take a model in an avant garde outfit and create an intelligent Clive Barker style villain like Pinhead from Hellraiser.

The models wearing outfits were paraded on stage, and the contestants picked from them for inspiration.

This time I did see them walk into the shop on Day three with the masks and cowls waiting on their stations, so I guess you’re right about that.

Anyway, my overall impression was a lot of WTF? I’m not a horror fan or a Clive Barker aficionado, and certainly don’t know Hellraiser, so my experience base is rather small (read nonexistent), so I’m having trouble with this challenge. The judges were making comments about so and so’s design not fitting in the Clive Barker universe or whatever. I had trouble with that.

My observations…

Top Looks:

Ben’s model had a white face like the skin being pulled over the head, and a black skullcap in the design of a feature on the dress. His was elegant and avant garde, and he did a good job bringing in the fashion to the villain. He won, and from the judges’ comments, I felt he would, but I don’t like him so I wasn’t that happy.

Emily had a strange design of a fallen angel. She made some really strange triangular shaped head in blue hues. Her original idea was a cage around the head, but the contraption fell apart during application and she had to revamp it with feathers and hope for the best. She got top looks for originality of profile and paint application, even though her concept didn’t fit Clive Barker and didn’t really feel like a fallen angel to me. That head was bizarre. She got kept in Top Looks, then not mentioned in the summary, so it seems like the judges kinda rethought it in process. I also note it didn’t have a mouth, so I don’t know how we were supposed to get the intelligent part from it.

Julian had a demon creature with a mouth on the back of the head that opened up to eat souls or somesuch. His creature was definitely scary and horrifying, but it didn’t feel demonic or human to me, rather it was alienesque. I could see the applause for the horror aspect, but don’t understand the Barkerness of the creature. It didn’t seem right to me. Also, the challenge was supposed to be an intelligent villain, and I didn’t see how this looked intelligent. It looked like a monster to me, not a thoughtful person.

Kelly created a woman who was so into beauty that she was cutting herself up with a scalpel, and she was truly creepy and gorey. The model played it sexy, and the judges were impressed. I would have given her the win.

Safe:

Adam created some very strange shaped head with gold accents. It was very unique and creative and well applied, but was odd that it didn’t seem to fit the challenge as either horror or whatever.

Darla had a post apocalyptic demon thing that the judges said looked more alien than demon. It didn’t really fit, but wasn’t bad.

Logan had a guy who was testing out various poisons and whatnot on his skin, and was a patchwork of results along with a toxic look. I think he had a decent concept, but didn’t quite carry it out as well as some of the others.

Bottom Looks:

Jamie created a black widow lady inspired by the dress that looked like webbing. Her concept seemed good to me, but her execution was weak. She had spider legs wrapping around the head and contorting the face, but the paint job was flat and not well formed around the edges, and the application just looked bad to me. Her overall quality of work was bad, and the judges didn’t like the forms around the chin and nose.

Stephanie was lost this week. She struggled with concept, and sort of came up with a seer that was distorted and misshapen, but didn’t really know what she was doing and that showed in her final product. It was a mess of disconnectedness that didn’t tell a story, and the sculpt did not accentuate the model’s face. I was afraid she was going home over this, but the judges kicked off Jamie, so at least there’s that. She’ll be around for more, though she has to get her head together.

I thought Logan’s would do better as fully representative of the challenge, and Julian would do worse for making a monster, not an intelligent villain. Whatever.

And Ben now has his second win, crap. Emily got an unexpected Top Look that she probably didn’t deserve on this challenge.

22

I’m with you in nearly everything.

Not a Barker fan either.

Not sure how they are supposed to do Intelligence with a mask or cowl? I guess I see INT in eyes but no fangs. (I never got how the Wraith were spacefaring in Stargate Atlantis, for example, since they hiss and spit as a posture. That never came off as intelligent to me.) So most didn’t work for me in that regard.

To me, demon versus alien is so subjective, so I don’t get the judge’s comments on that. If you took some of the makeups they did as alien and gave them a hellscape background or weapons associated with a demon, seems like it would work.

I also thought that Kelly’s was the best and was a bit disappointed that Ben won as I don’t like him either. I don’t know “Barker-esque” though.

I was really surprised that it was Jamie that went home. Her makeup may not have been executed well, but she had an idea. Indeed, I thought it was mentioned that if the face had been cleaner, it would have worked. They didn’t see anything in Stephanie’s that was good but she wasn’t let go? I especially felt bad when Jamie was coming off a win but that happens.

What really struck me was that nothing seemed to stand out this week. Nothing was great to us. I contrast that to Laura’s season where someone had an obvious winner for that week.

vislor

23

I don’t know very much about Clive Barker from a plot standpoint, but I’m a good design person and I wasn’t convinced on all the comments on whether or not the designs “fit” into the Clive Barker universe. So that annoyed me.

Ben bothers me to no end, I am irritated that he won. However, it was a very sharp design, and really did go with the outfit in a way that I didn’t see in the other characters. It’s hard to resent this win (and yet, I manage).

I actually really liked Emily’s fallen angel, and thought it DID have a look that was very in keeping with Clive Barker. Oh well, the judges probably KNOW Clive Barker, so what do I know?

I liked Julian’s design, but like the comments above, is there some criteria for if it looked like an alien or a demon? It actually does look like other Clive Barker characters, in a way, actually, I thought the judges might see as too much of a direct borrowing.

I did not like Kelly’s at all, and it seems like I am a minority on that. It looked muddy, and clown-ish to me. I always think of Clive Barker’s work (aesthetics-wise) as very slick, and I wasn’t getting this at all from this design.

I was on board with all the safe looks being safe, none that I would have moved around much.

I was so sad that Jamie is the one who lost. She has been an excellent contestant up until now – although I know that’s not really how the show is structured. She definitely fell apart here, which seemed so strange to me given that she has previously been strong in both design and execution.

Stephanie’s was an all-around mess. I would have picked Stephanie as the loser, but to be honest, in this particular challenge, her character and Jamie’s character were equally poor.

24

You have to admit though that he did meet the challenge. Which makes me think the series is in about the same place as “Dirty Jobs” and a lot of other shows – totally screwed for new ideas. When the challenge comes down to “fake someone else’s style and ideas” its getting close to time to pack it in. Not just “inspired by” or “comfortable in” basically what Clive may do next.

25

To me, to convey intelligence, it needs to have a readable face, it needs to have a mouth (for talking, you know?), you need to convey intelligence with the eyes, but also the overall concept. For instance, it’s hard to have an intelligent villain that you dress up as, say, a Reaver from Firefly. What bugged me about Julian’s was that it read as a monster, with fangs and dead eyes, not as a thoughtful being. For all that Emily’s fallen angel was original and creative, it didn’t have a mouth. Both Jamie and Logan had characters that tied to their outfits and seemed to protray an intelligent if evil character.
Logan’s wounds and such were hard to read and maybe a bit cartoony, but his concept was solid. Jamie had a solid concept, but her execution was dreadful. The texture and paint were bad, particularly around the mouth. And then the judges did not like the chin and nose on her, or the black widow paint on the back that wasn’t even correct.

I suppose in a way that can be a bit subjective. The thing is, she specifically said she was doing demon in a unique and creative way. Well, that’s not always good. Yes, they like originality and creativity, but there is something in aesthetic that ties together the past conceptions as background filter.

To me, Darla’s post apocalyptic outfit was very human. It comes off as an alien running around on a post apocalyptic Earth dressed like the humans he is imitating, or something. That’s just what it felt like to me, rather than a demon. I suppose it’s a bit difficult to pin down anything that would have changed the appearance for the better to match her conception.

This one is a hard call. On their records, Jamie’s was slightly better, but to me, I was less thrilled with her work all along. Actually, I was disappointed we lost Regina in week 5 because she had two strong showings prior, but hers was the worst that week.

This week, I have to agree that Stephanie just fell apart from the get go, and really didn’t have a concept, and didn’t know where she was going with it. So hers was pretty bad overall. I think the reason the judges picked Jamie was on quality of application - Stephanie may have made pretty much all bad design choices, but her application was acceptable, whereas Jamie’s application was below par. So I think it came down to poor work quality versus not really getting the challenge. They opted for work quality.

I did kinda get an evil clown vibe - the hair and the pale skin and eyes sold that contrasted with the deep red of the blood.

I don’t get the love. Her King of Spades was plastic headed, similar paint issues, and using a female combined with the outfit made him come off as a bearded queen. She’s done some good collaborations, but the Monkey Business challenge with the two crashed aliens and the monkey alien had problems.

Yes, I grudgingly have to admit he really did meet the challenge in a way the others didn’t seem to.

The thing with Sci Fi, Fantasy, and Horror is the idea of “universes”. Sometimes real designers are challenged to work in an existing franchise, and have to try to fit the look and feel while being creative. I think it’s totally fine that they were told to try to make something that looked and felt like a futuristic version of a Clive Barker design. Not that I’d know a Clive Barker design.

There’s also the concept of working under a design lead and executing designs that fill in the gaps and background characters. Again, you have to fit someone else’s look and feel but be original. Though that tends to be more of marching to the ideas of the team lead, kinda like working on the teams in the finals week.

26

That loud evil cackling laughter you have been hearing for the past several hours has been me. With Kelly gone maybe I’ll actually enjoy the rest of the season.

(I did like their choice for the winner though. This is one of the rare weeks where I and the judges came down basically in the same places)

27

I didn’t care much for Kelly, but I’m really annoyed by Ben so I was hoping he would be the one to go.

Overall, I thought this was a fun challenge and there was a lot more good than bad. Even the bottom looks weren’t as awful as some week’s have been.

Top

Darla - Miss Sculptor. Love! This rocked. I thought she was alien and glamour, and seemed to be picking up on the campiness of the joke of having a galaxy beauty pageant. The whole thing just looked really sharp, and I think Darla really worked the costume to support her vision (as opposed to creating a character who is coincidentally wearing a costume). The way the sleeves ended in flippery-things instead of hands was an awesome way of giving this an alien touch without doing a lot of work. Plus, the model was slaying me when she won, how she was waving her arms around. Super fun.

Adam - Miss Cigar. This was awesome, it took a lot to beat this. This is one of those where I was convinced it was the winner until I saw Darla’s.

Julian - Miss Whirlpool. I am little conflicted on this. I agree with the judges that it is often a great call to go minimal, but to do it really well. I definitely see this about the head. However … I don’t know, there was NOTHING else so it also felt to me like he just didn’t do as much work as he could have. Like if he had done this, but included a little touch like Miss Sculptor’s pointy flipper hands, I would have loved it 500% more.

Safe

Logan - Miss Comet. I liked this the best of the Safe. I could have seen this in Top looks, no problem, maybe switched out with Julian. I really liked how he did a forehead piece that was extremely “alien” but still seemed glamorous.

Emily - Miss Pinwheel. I like Emily a lot, and get what she was going for, but the end result was all over the place, so this seems like a solid safe.

Stephanie - Miss Tadpole. I don’t think this worked very well, and the tadpole tail thing didn’t look like a tail at all. Depending on who else didn’t do well, I could have easily seen this in Bottom looks.

Bottom
Ben - Miss Andromeda. Even while he annoys me as a person, I also think it’s nutty that every show, every season, the judges have asked for a conceptual statement about what’s going on, and he seemed surprised, his “uh, I just did whatever I wanted” seems very lacking. I even agree that it was nice to see someone decide that a beauty queen from another galaxy might have extremely different features by which to judge standards of beauty, but he wasn’t succeeding at that, either.

Kelly - Miss Sombrero. Yeah, this wasn’t coming together at all. And am somewhat relieved that future episodes won’t feature her whining.

28

I was surprised that Logan’s (the one with all the holes running up the sides of the nose) was just safe and not top. Other than that, I agreed with everything, including the choice of which of the two crappy ones deserved elimination.

What’s with all the hatred for Ben? OK, he can’t smile because his mouth is way too small. But that’s not his fault. I don’t recall seeing enough of him to have a clue about his personality.

29

The foundation challenge was really great too and it looked like they had fun with it. Maybe they do have some original ideas left (the staff and producers) and been saving them for when it got down to the best.

30

I was really happy to see Darla win. She has had a lot of high marks, one low, and finally got a win, so that was fun.

I agree that I could have seen Logan and Julian’s switched but that’s getting picky.

I’m not a fan of Ben either and I think it’s because of his attitude. Season one was edited for DRAMA and that got old fast. If that had stayed that way in the show, we wouldn’t have kept watching. Season two had a bit but by season three, the contestants were helping each other out and we really liked that.

To me, then, Ben reminds me of a guy from season one who was all about himself. He did his own thing, not what was asked of him by the challenge. I will grant that Ben seems to have more talent than the guy from season one as Ben has gotten much further but I think we have had three or four challenges where Ben has done his own thing and gotten by. That frustrates me because other contestants that do this haven’t gotten as many second chances as he has. Jamie had one bad one after a win and high and got eliminated. Rob did well for never having done that type of work before (body painting) but it wasn’t good enough and he was gone. Ben then does his own thing several times, gets called on it, but is still around. I guess I would have preferred more explanation on that or to see their score cards for past seasons to maybe get more idea about the judges’ process to understand that.

I merely would have preferred to see Rob or Jamie or Kelly and what they might do than Ben. It’s purely a personal preference and the best I can explain it.

vislor

31

First off, the Foundation Challenge was different and new. I don’t know that I got a lot out of it myself, but the coaches got to judge blindly, so that was something.

The Spotlight Challenge was also fun and different. There was a lot of great work this week, and only two that had problems.

Darla, Miss Sculptor - I think the subtlety didn’t play as well on TV. I agree it had a simple elegance. The judges raved on things it was hard to pick up. I did spot the sleeves covering the hands to seem like flippers. It was good, but I wouldn’t have picked it for the win.

Adam, Miss Cigar - His was creatively different. The coaches applauded the originality of the head sculpt, but I wasn’t thrilled with the projection on the front. Though the spines on back were great, and everything else about it was awesome.

Julian, Miss Whirlpool - this was my favorite, with the green. It was elegant and beautiful while still looking alien. And I like green.

Logan, Miss Comet - I agree with safe on this one. It just lacks something in the beauty category that the top three have.

Emily, Miss Pinwheel - Emily’s was pretty good as a complete look, but the judges made a fair comment about the mouth. Now in theory, it is perfectly acceptable that an alien would have different standards for beauty, and the mouth thing might be totally normal or even special to them. In practice, though, they are creating fantasy aliens that still need to convey beauty to us grubby humans. So the fact that the folds around the mouth made it look pained instead of beautiful is what kept this out of top looks. I did like her use of latex paint to make a skin for the glitter.

Stephanie, Miss Tadpole - The dress turned out better than I expected it to. But we’re judging the makeup. The model played it well, but I agree that the tadpole tail didn’t really work. Still, it was good color and application, just not quite the level of the best.

Ben, Miss Andromeda - This one was total ass. The sculpt was odd, the texture was bad, the lack of color was disastrous, the weird eye thing just didn’t work, and combined with the dress did read more Power Ranger than Beauty Pageant Contestant. Frankly, I think he should have gone home over this, his was worse than Kelly’s. I can only think that he stayed in because of past record, where he has had 2 Wins and 2 Top Looks, where Kelly only had 3 Top Looks.

Kelly, Miss Sombrero - I don’t think there was anything disastrous about her original concept, except maybe to not do multiple eyes but still have the domes. But she got flummoxed by Anthony’s guidance, and then got lost. That left her with a muddled mess. Honestly, overall there were elements that worked and the application itself was much better than Ben’s, she just got lost with too much stuff and the tentacle ears. I would have kept her and sent Ben packing, but that’s my opinion.

Ben was kinda a jerk in the first episode, and he’s kinda been a bit full of himself. The body painting challenge he didn’t want to do a cooperative paint because he was so set on doing a blend. Yes, he’s done some good work, but he’s also had several Bottom Looks.

32

I’d not thought about this before. What gets judged and what doesn’t?

For example, Roy fabricated a lot in his first season, but they were kinda part of the makeup (IIRC), and so he was judged on them.

If the contestant fabricates the costume herself, shouldn’t that be included in the judging of her work?

Darla’s flipper-hands were part of the costume, but the judges applauded her for them.

Thoughts?
ETA: OK, you guys have convinced me. I hate Ben now, too.

33

Costume is tricky. Costume is a part of the overall look of the character, so it is part of the evaluation. At the same time, it appears that some of the costuming is prepared/purchased by another group and delivered to them on application day, and they have to modify it to work as they see fit.

Anything they fabricate is, of course, fair game for serious critique. The overall look and feel of the character is fair game, even if we ignore any specifics.

For example, I’ve seen some characters in a baggy brown burlap bag or whatever and then the makeup consists of the appliances and paint and whatnot. As long as the brown bag is consistent with the overall character concept, the judges won’t look to hard at the bag.

But one challenge was Greek mythological creatures in high school, and Miranda made a Cyclops cheerleader that not only had tons of eyes, she had a bizarre head shape and skin tone, and then the “cheerleader” outfit looked like something sci fi instead of something contemporary high school. So even though Miranda didn’t fabricate the outfit, she sketched out the look to send to the costumers and that contributed to the overall look that it wasn’t a Cyclops, it was an alien.

My point with Stephanie was that the dress design sketch to me looked plain for something to be worn at a beauty pageant, but the costumers did a good job. However, that wasn’t really critical to evaluating her overall makeup to me. There were other issues, things that were good and things that missed the mark.

34

This week’s challenge: make yourself into a superhero, and apply the makeup to yourself. Okay, this is a creative and new idea for the show, and very challenging.

Running down the results:
Top Looks:

Logan made himself into a dragon alter ego. I am thoroughly impressed with much of this. The color palate grew on me, but the sculpt and texture in the face is very creative and superb, and those have to be the most convincing and original wings we’ve seen. I loved the idea of latex painting the fabric to make skin, and the shapes and folds did a good job hiding the tubing and making them convincing. Plus, conceptually he did a twist on the superhero by making it in the past or whatever, but still kept the iconic superhero imagery of the mask and badge on the outfit. I pegged as the win - it’s just stunning work.

Adam made himself into a comedic superhero with big plasma cannon gun hands. Adam loved this challenge, and was the most iconic superhero look of the group. The comedy style definitely fit his personality. Good work, but not quite exquisite like Logan’s.

Safe:

Ben transformed into a villain - how fitting! Even he knows his place in the universe. :wink: He was a soldier that was in a helicopter crash and then resuscitated into a cyborgy thing. His work was spectacular. His mask looked like a scarred up face, the helmet and mask and cowl were great - they rival some of the stuff by Roy. And the emotive ability of the face was superb. The only reason he only got safe is the supervillain aspect wasn’t visually obvious.

Darla made herself into some sort of guardian angel character, done up in white and gold, and inlaid with filigree work matching the room where they received the challenge. I wasn’t very impressed with the concept or the look, and the textures on the face didn’t make sense. I’m not sure how she got Safe.

Julian made himself up as a guy who took over for Satan and is slowly losing the battle to be good instead of evil. Okay idea, and certainly works with some of the more minimal superhero concepts out there. The head sculpt for the devil character was different and original, and his paint was pretty good. I think it just fell short in overall amount of work and in reading as a superhero character visually. Very demon instead. I think he was Safe because of the quality of the work even though the image had the same problems as the Bottom looks.

Bottom Looks:

Emily made herself into some sort of Mother Earth character with powers of healing animals. She wanted to do a huge wig for some reason, and made a gigantic beehive hairdo of greenery. It was bizarre, and the overall character didn’t come off as superhero at all. She even realized it too late, which hampered her comfort level on the stage. And Ve chastised her for doing another big hairdo. Emily missed the boat on the concept of superhero, and the greenery and plant stuff was hokey instead of elegant. We’ve seen better Mother Earth goddess makeups. Her paint work on her face was very pretty, and the vine work was nice, but overall it was lacking for this challenge.

Stephanie struggled with her concept and it showed. She decided on a post-apocalyptic partial demon defending humans from demons, but went with a minimal approach in the brow piece and then decided to go for a black and white color scheme to mimic coming out of comics. There were a lot of problems, both from the lack of originality in the brow piece, the color scheme not working right, the paint application not going well, but most especially that the character just didn’t read like a superhero at all.

Stephanie got pegged with going home. I felt that when they made Darla safe. Emily’s record is better, so going on past work and quality of this paint job means that Emily still has a chance for greatness.

One other note - the judges actually chastised Stephanie for going with a demon on this challenge when there are so many other demon challenges. I think that’s a first, and a positive step in line with some comments here from previous seasons.

And I think it’s late enough to start checking records and guessing at the future.

Oddly, the best record seems to be

Logan, 3 Wins, and 0 Bottom Looks. I think that’s a first.

Then we have

Ben, 2 Wins, 2 Tops, 3 Bottoms
Julian, 5 Top Looks, 1 Bottom, but no Wins
Emily, 1 Win, 3 Tops, 2 Bottoms, with 1 Foundation Win
Darla, 1 Win, 2 Tops, 1 Bottom, and 1 Foundation Win
Adam, 3 Tops, 3 Bottoms, 1 Foundation Win

Looking at Stephanie’s record, I guess I’m not surprised she went home this week. Adam has a spotty record and no Wins. He really got this challenge, but he doesn’t always. So unless next week is right up his alley like this week, I put him on the short list for next off.

Julian’s record is pretty good, but doesn’t quite have the originality or flair or whatever to get a solid Win. I think it will be hard for him to make the finals.

Ben needs to dial in to doing the challenge as it is given to him. His skills are there if he can keep his personality out of the way.

Emily does beautiful paint work. Her trouble seems to be in a couple of cases just not quite getting what makes a character fit that concept. Her “Troll” didn’t work, and her “Superhero” didn’t work, both for that reason. Also, she has this hair thing that doesn’t always work. But when she is on point, she’s amazing and her paintwork rivals Laura’s.

Logan is the oddity. He hasn’t screwed anything up, but he also doesn’t always stand out. But when he does stand out, he Wins. Very confusing. And it’s hard to dial in what makes him win when he does. His first win was on the first challenge, with the aliens and monkeys. Team Rayce had three amazing aliens, but he won IIRC on the face of the monkey character. That was sculpting.

But then his second win was on the team body painting challenge, where the concept was what sold it more than anything, with the two people making one insect queen character.

And then this win was the superhero, which was great work on all fronts: concept, sculpt, fabrication, application, paint. Everything was spot on.

But then you have his Queen of Clubs, with the odd sculpted hair that didn’t read as a club or as hair, and the shading on the chin comes off as a goatee. Or his bog monster from the Sounding Off challenge.

But he’s done some other good work in his other challenges. I think he’s the hardest to pin down on how he’s going to hold up.

I really don’t know how to call it. I’m thinking Ben and Emily if they can hold it together, but we’ve seen other favorites get knocked out at the last minute, like Roy. So who knows.

35

I was surprised to see how bad I felt last week when Kelly lost. I didn’t like her very much (too much “If this doesn’t work, I’m going hoooommme” in the commentary), but I thought her work was generally good, and her alien creature was certainly more ambitious and better executed than Ben’s. Ah well.

This week, it was interesting to see that none of the women really “got” superheroes. Of the women’s designs, Stephanie’s actually had the best presence with the crossbow and the post-apocalyptic back-story. But you didn’t really need makeup for that – it might have been better if she’d gone Tank-girl punk instead of demon. I did think the judges were unduly harsh about the nose bridge prosthetic. Sure, it’s been done – that’s why it says “demon” and not “chick-who-got-hit-with-a-brick-during-the-apocalypse”.
Darla’s character was OK at best – she did the cape and the mask, but it wasn’t a very iconic or superhero look – she looked like she should have been swanning around Versailles sometime in the late 1700’s. And Emily’s was just a truly horrible concept – even as a nature goddess challenge, the hairdo would have been unwieldy, but can you imagine trying to change into that getup in a phone booth? Or trying to subdue henchmen?
Based just on the concepts, I fully expected Emily to be the bottom look. I suspect she squeaked by on execution – her face makeup was gorgeous, what you could see of it from under the hedge. If you had ditched the hair and given her character a utility belt, she might have been in top looks.

I think picking a winner must have been tough this week, and I suspect the tie-breaker was just the amount of detail work and fabrication that Logan did. We haven’t actually seen much successful fabrication this season, so that really made this one standout. But I thought Adam’s concept was the strongest, and I really liked the distressed look of his armor and mask.

I think Ben got shafted this week, possibly because once again he decided to ignore the challenge and go off and do his own damned thing. He created a super-villain even though “hero” was specifically requested. Even dark, conflicted heroes don’t generally drool dark fluids – that’s generally reserved for the bad guys.

I’m having trouble picking a potential winner this time around. I’d say Logan has to be the front-runner based on not having screwed up yet, and having shown some real creativity on this last challenge. Ben and Emily both have the talent to go all the way but also have the most potential to shoot themselves in the foot, Ben because he just doesn’t listen in class, and Emily because she lets her personal aesthetic and fondness for glitter blind her to the actual challenge.

So…I guess it’s anybody’s game at this point.
Edited to add: I do think that having two weeping woman contestants in makeup being critiqued for their bottom looks was one of the grimmest Face-Offs to watch. I bet they don’t do that again.

36

I saw Emily’s not as a woman changing into a costume to subdue villains, but rather a “magical” transformation like the Hulk or Shazaam or He-Man and She-Ra. She “transforms” and the hair grows out and her dress becomes plant, and her face changes rather than is paint that is applied. She wouldn’t duke it out with her fists - she’d use her influence over plants to make them grow vines or have tree limbs and roots strike out, etc. Still, it didn’t really evoke Superhero.

I think that’s arguable. Certainly Adam had the most classic look, an Iron Man, the comedic version. But Logan’s had all the right elements - mask, chest badge, weapons. Logan even had the physique to pull off his look. But I did like all the distressing Adam put into his. His was a solid Top Look.

I think doing a super villain was fine. He did some exceptional work in the face, and the fabrication. It just didn’t read supervillain as a whole, it read more demon or zombie or whatever.

37

I’d have been happy with either of the top guys winning. Both were nigh-on perfect. Adam read more like a super hero. But Logan’s was a shit-ton more work, so he deserved the win.

I cringed when Ben said, “I’ve decided to do a super villain instead.” Doesn’t he learn? And didn’t Anthony say anything? This guy is his last hope. (I guess he could have something — hell, they could have argued for half an hour — and it stayed on the cutting room floor.)

I can’t imagine anyone fighting crime with that hair, even if you can stand still and cast spells.But her face was gorgeous, so she deserved to stay.

Whenever Stephanie says, “I don’t really have a concept yet,” she’s screwed.

Did anyone else find it odd that they left the hotel without anyone shouting, “Let’s go, guys”? Or is that just me?

38

Just an “I agree” post for the most part.

Yep, if you don’t have a concept, that’s not good. I thought the green lady was no worse than poison ivy? And the make up itself was great! I agree that maybe Emily and Darla should have been switched in this one as I’m not sure what Darla’s was.

We really thought Adam would get the win as his read comic book hero. Logan’s was good as well, though, so either way.

I’m torn on Ben. Again, he doesn’t follow the rules and gets a safe. Does that mean he does have that much talent/ability and if he did what they wanted, he do better?

Looking ahead, I can see Logan in the finale looking at his record but can’t tell about the others. He’s the most consistent with his work compared to how “swingy” the others are. All of them are capable of doing great work, as we have seen, but not consistently.

vislor

39

I give the win to the producers this week; both the foundation and spotlight challenges were clever and interesting to watch.

In one of Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovacs novels, a trainer for an elite military unit tells her soldiers - paraphrasing - “Weapons are a trap. They’re just tools; you are the killer. It’s your minds and hands that execute your will”. The foundation challenge with the powered color reminded me of that. It might have served as a reminder to the artists, too, that all the latex and airbrushes and vacuform machines in the lab don’t do a thing by themselves; the contestants’ hands and eyes and imaginations are what create the makeups. I was impressed that they made such cool designs with just powdered color, sponges, and their hands.

40

Cool designs that we barely saw. If I have a complaint about the show, it’s the editing. They spend too much time on establishing shots, “I could be going home” interviews, and recaps and I find myself thinking over and over, “dammit, this is time they could be spending showing fabrication or the results of a challenge”.

I dunno, maybe there’s more on-line, but I’m not that invested in the show.