Face Off Season 9

Cafe Society
1

Face Off on SyFy is back with Season 9. New people, new challenges, new disasters.

The first challenge right off the bat is a doozy - no Foundation Challenge, straight to the Spotlight challenge: the contestants were paired and assigned to create an alien creature inspired by stuff from the Natural History museum, but not to be too literal. And the twist - they have to combine two models into one creature.

Naturally, there are big ideas, consultations with Neville and with Mr. Westmore, good advice delivered.

Okay, now for the results. First, I must be getting jaded, because I couldn’t help notice all the flaws, the problems, the WTFs. All of them had problems IMO. That said, it was a huge challenge out of the gate, so I think the judges took that into account and ignored some of my complaints out of [del]pity[/del] recognition of the scope of work, and looked for the best in the work.

Now for the detailed rundown.

Jasmine and Ricky, Alligator skin. What I liked about theirs was they didn’t do an alligator, they just took inspiration. They made an armor shelled back with the upright head and torso. I liked the overall paint job and the concept at that point. What I didn’t like - the number one failure for many of the teams was masking the human forms. Just like the body paint challenge last season, too many of them look like two humans stacked together. This one has the guy on the ground and the girl sitting on his back. But they didn’t do any drape or molding or masking to blend that form together, so you can see both independent body forms, especially in silhouette. That said, it was a somewhat interesting use of form - until they had the guy raise his head and pop up some red ass thing at the back. What was that supposed to be? Why? It ruined the elegance of the form, having the back run straight down armor plating and making one creature. Ultimately, they were Safe.

Jordan and Ben, Azurite with Malacite. First glance - it’s an unintelligent animal, why is it draped in cloth? That said, there is a lot going for this one. First and primarily, they did a superb job of masking the human form and making it look like a real creature, not human parts. They were probably the best at that part of the challenge. Second, the creature looks like some sort of alien dinosaur. It’s got a full body makeup (except for that stupid cloth), the sculpting and fabrication look interesting and organic, and the paint is good. (And the models did good puppetry to look like an animal moving around.) The judges loved the paint as well, and they give this one the Win. I can agree with that.

Omar and Kevon, Clam. They took inspiration from a giant clam shell, so they made a giant clam. :smack: The idea was to use the models’ arms to open the shell and then have the other pair of arms form a projecting mouth thing from inside. They undertook a huge amount of effort to sculpt the clam shells. They were going to use the models’ eyes, but Mr. Westmore told them not to, to avoid having two human faces inside the clam. Instead, this thing is a disaster. One of the judges called it SpongeBob the clam. The clam interior is a cluttered mess that for some reason looks kinda like a giant face, possibly not intentionally. The rubbery layer doesn’t work. And then the judges said for all the time and effort spent sculpting the shell, it looked like L200 foam with shapes cut in it. Bad concept, bad execution, about the only thing they liked was the idea of the hands forming the mouth protrusion. Bottom Look. I will say they took a huge risk integrating the two models the way they did, which means they couldn’t put the costume on the people until last looks. Also. they at least hid the bodies of the models.

Nora and Scott, Ram Horn. I liked the sculpt and paint job. The horns look like foam tubes not well shaped. I don’t know what the shell thing around the legs is, but at least it hides the form of the legs. I think the biggest weakness is the second model doesn’t appear to be used. It isn’t obvious he’s even there. Maybe a profile would have shown it, but we aren’t shown that. The judges give them Safe.

Evan and Sidney, Scorl Tormaline with Albite (minerals). This one I completely disagree with the judges. First off, it looks like a human form from the front, and is wearing a cape and carrying a staff. Neville chastised one of the other groups for their concept when it was an intelligent queen that forced miners to mine silver for her, but he lets this pass without comment that this alien is intelligent. Second, WTF is that giant rock left hand? And the thing on the back doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t look like the albite mineral (I think that’s the pale one) in texture. Okay, what the judges liked - the black rock mineral and paint job are very good, and the creature has tentacles out the back that the second performer shakes about. That and the overall form is reasonably covered to not look like two people together. Still, I thought this one was pretty bad, and the judges loved it. Top Looks.

Missy and Meg, Herbivore Jaw. They had problems that hampered their efforts, but still. Biggest problem is they didn’t do anything with the legs, so they are definitely two people legs in trousers. And the butt. Also, they went with brown colorings. Mr. Westmore specifically said if it turned out muddy he was going to kill them. Yep, it’s muddy. There is some okay detail in the sculpt on top of the head, but the mask is very rubbery and the paint hides the detail. The body is a baggy mess without real form. I thought this was pretty bad, but the judges gave it Safe.

Stevie and Libby, Native Silver. This was the one that had to rethink their concept after Neville didn’t like their queen idea. They designed this creature with a fake head on top to lure in prey and then a mouth below that would eat it. Right off the number one flaw that jumps out is they did not execute what they drew. The body positions of the models didn’t work out right. The concept had a taller person with longer legs and then a shorter person crouching below with head in the crotch area. But I guess part of the problem was doing this without the models present, because what they got was the guy on his knees and the girl straddling his head with her feet barely on the floor. It took out the multiple leg look and just looks like two people sitting on each other. Second flaw, the face in the crotch is too much like a face and the “decoy head” not enough like a face to be convincing in the concept. And my own complaint, the torso has boobs and even nipples. But Ve did love the paint job, capturing the look of the mineral. Bottom Look.

Jason and Brittany, Turtle Shell. They put the two models side by side with some shell thing for their feet and rubbery drapes over the shoulders and arms. They had decent sculpts and good paint. The rubbery drapes were liquid latex painted over cloth, and the folds in the cloth are still a bit evident, detracting slightly. Also, they should have hidden the models’ legs better. Having two legs together coming out of the single base doesn’t make any sense. Should have wrapped that so it looked like a single stalk. Still, it was pretty good. I’d have put it in Top looks, but the judges gave it Safe.

So, we get to the end and it’s time for eliminations. We have four candidates: Omar and Kevon (clam) and Stevie and Libby (native silver). The results, a surprise twist, nobody is eliminated. Because of the difficulty of the challenge, they gave this one as a free pass to see what people would do. Good news is we get another chance to see what these people can do.

I still don’t agree with the judges on Evan and Sidney and their Top look, but at least the other set won.

2

Great recap, thanks for the overview!

I thought the season is off to a good start. I thought it was an interesting challenge in the sense that alien animals are interesting (although I thought using a natural history item was a little vague, I would have liked to see them each assigned a mineral or something rather than just… any old thing in the museum), and I’m weirdly glad they didn’t send anyone home because I would like at least one more episode to feel mildly invested in the prospective losers.

My thoughts on the designs:

Jasmine and Ricky, Alligator skin. I thought this was one of the strongest ones, I was surprised it was only safe. I see your point about being able to see the two models – it reminded me a little of some of the body painting challenges where the point is more to see the two models integrated as well as independently, so maybe that was an intentional style choice?

Jordan and Ben, Azurite with Malacite. This was my favorite, I thought it deserved the win, I just loved the overall shape, which seemed very organic, like an actual animal could possibly look like this BUT WHY WAS IT WEARING A SNUGGIE? It made me mental that the judges didn’t comment on that at all. I know at some point, Jordan I think mentioned they needed to it to cover unfinished areas on the torso.

Omar and Kevon, Clam. Oh man, this didn’t work at all. Definitely a bottom look.

Nora and Scott, Ram Horn. I agree, I couldn’t even tell there was a second model, it looked like she was hiding behind the first guy. I am willing to chalk this up, though, to the fact that with so many people in the field in the early episodes, we are not seeing that much of every design.

Evan and Sidney, Scorl Tormaline with Albite. I did not like this that much either, I would have made this Safe, and bumped up Jasmine and Ricky. The head felt very rubbery and immobile to me, something the judges often criticize. I get why they liked the tentacle things in the back, although I don’t know if it makes up for what I thought was a bland design overall.

Missy and Meg, Herbivore Jaw. I thought for sure this was going to be in bottom looks, but I can see how it wasn’t quite as poor as the ones that ended up in the bottom. This is the one that looked the most to me like the cartoon of people in a horse suit.

Stevie and Libby, Native Silver. The way the episode covered this, you knew it was going to be a mess. It completely looked like two people, and not really like any kind of an animal at all.

Jason and Brittany, Turtle Shell. This one also bothered me a bit in that it looked so much like two people sitting in some sort of pot, and not like an animal with two heads.

3

Makenzie said something about Neville having selected items for them to pick from, so it wasn’t a complete free-for-all.

I doubt it. I think it was just an oversight on how the finished product would look.

Snerk.

4

Second week of Face Off, and as usual, all the contestants are still a blur. No one is really standing out yet, in a positive way, although there are a couple who are pretty sure to depart weeping in the next few weeks.

Challenge was to create a Siren – a beautiful creature of the sea that lures men to their Doom. The “beautiful” part was the downfall of many contestants – apparently a lot of Face Off contestants spend a lot of time making zombies ugly but not much time making people attractive. It was so bad that in one case they had the model put on her makeup. I’ll be honest, none of the designs struck me as particularly outstanding by Face Off standards. You could kind of tell that none of the contestants were sure that they had nailed it – I’ve never seen such a low level of energy when they met the judges. It looked like they were all trying to hide behind each other.

I think the judges did pick the top two, although I wasn’t as ecstatic about the winner as they were – call me fussy, but I usually find a mouthful of needle sharp teeth to be kind of a turn off when I’m evaluating potential romantic interests.

As for the losers, well, I admit to being somewhat disappointed. There’s only one part of Face Off that I really detest, and that is the prerequisite interviews with some (usually) weepy girl who cries “My design is so horrible! (lip quiver) I know I’m going home!”. This year, it’s the red-haired woman. And I agreed with her – her designs for the past two weeks have been horrible and she should have gone home. Partly because of the designs, and partly because she’s really annoying. Apparently the judges kept her because they detected an iota of inspiration under the ungainly mud-colored mess that was her model’s cowl. But unless she improves greatly, I suspect she’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.

The two guys who were sent home? Well, it’s hard to fault the judges. All they had to show for three days of work was one imperfect cowl and a prop.

5

I liked the concept of this challenge - a Siren, using real deadly sea creatures to inspire each group differently. Beautiful but Deadly.

Now the rundown:

Omar & Sidney, Portuguese Man o War: Okay, so they get a jellyfish as their inspiration. So Omar gets busy sculpting the cowl, what does Sidney do? Starts painting latex strips to twist up to make dangly things. Now I’m thinking, jellyfish have stringers, so that’s interesting, but couldn’t he do that later after some sculpting on something? Okay. But then he doesn’t even make that many of them - a half dozen in the finished product, and what do they do with them? String them interestingly off the model? Nope, they hang them on the staff. :smack:

So Omar blows five hours the first day working on the sculpt and it’s going nowhere, atrocious and overdone and not reflecting the jellyfish at all. Day two he saves it by shaving the ridges down and detailing, then hands it off for Sidney to mold. That’s what Sidney did on the first challenge, too. He does molding for a living. Shouldn’t he try his hand at the crafting part of the skillset? Anyway, I agree with everything the judges said about the result. The sculpt doesn’t make sense, the paint doesn’t fit the sculpt, the big bulbous head isn’t beautiful, and Sidney didn’t do jack for the first day. I can see how it looks like Omar skipped a day as well, since he went in a wrong direction for a long time. Recovery is a bitch.

Oh, and for a guy who didn’t do much work, Sidney sure did a lot of talking. A lot. When the judges pointed out the head, he said the model had a lot of hair. “Well, use the hair.” You know how you could use hair? Making jellyfish stringers. What really hurts: when the judge says the best part of your makeup challenge is the costume. Anyway, they were Bottom Looks.

Jordan & Jasmine, Yellow Boxfish: I kinda like what they did with this one. I mean, a boxfish doesn’t have elegant lines to make sexy, but shaping that in the head and then suing the coloration on the body worked pretty well. I think it was pretty successful, and I might have picked it for Top Looks. The chest protrusions were going for the deadly aspect. Maybe not as happy with that. They were Safe.

Ricky & Ben, Blue Seaslug: Never seen a blue seaslug before. That’s a wild looking creature. I think the overall result wasn’t too bad. I liked the sculpting on the sides of the head and the colors and paint were well done. Using feathers for the fins of the slug was a good idea. Safe.

Libby & Missy, Striped Surgeonfish: This was a giant mess. It wasn’t even a hot mess - for that, there has to be some hot in it. The cowl didn’t make sense to me from the get go. It looks like it was supposed to be inspired by the fish tail, but it doesn’t work for me. And the hard edges on the cowl were strikingly bad. Glen asked and Missy said the face sculpt got air pocketed real bad and they had to put it under the cowl. I’m thinking you pitch it and start making blenders or hand sculpt foam for an overlay or something. That was a helmet of bad. Then they butchered the paint through lack of communication and planning. Really, talk about what you want, or sketch it quickly or something. Libby went in and painted over all the color work that Missy did. That’s bad. Don’t do that, you divide the work and own your portion if you can’t agree on a direction.

And then there was nothing about the body that matches the fish at all. The sculpt and paint have nothing to do with that fish. Bottom Looks with a vengeance.

Kevon & Meg, Textile Cone Snail: I’m not as sold on it as the judges. The sculpting on the body and around the face are very good, the end result there was great, but I’m thrown by the paint job. If you look at the picture of the snail, the skin tone is whites and orange with some black rings. The monotone was every well done, but doesn’t match the snail and is, to me, a letdown on that elegant sculpt. I think the sculpt was a beautiful way to give the illusion of breasts while making them a snail, not mammalian, feature.

I’m also not sold on the giant lopsided shell on the head. It’s beautifully painted, but I think it detracts from the beauty of the Siren. And the seaweed. As far as the face, the eyes were a weird choice. I understand that the teeth were adding the deadly element to the beauty, and I’ve seen it done before, but here it didn’t look like the model could cover her teeth, and that kinda hurts the beauty element. They did do one thing that nobody else got, though, and that’s incorporating the musical element. That’s such an integral part of the myth, and they’re the only ones that put music in their Siren. There’s some solid work in there, but the overall result is weakened IMO. But the judges loved every bit of it, and gave it Top Looks.

Scott & Stevie, Blue Ringed Octopus: I did not like the cowl design at all. It frames the head like a giant helmet. I get the tentacles for hair, but it doesn’t work for me. And the meshnet dress hides the model’s form and the work on the chest. But it’s not the disaster of the other two, so Safe.

Jason & Evan, Peacock Mantis Shrimp: I love the concept, the geisha look to tie the colors and elegance, the deadly sharp stabbing nails. The cowl design was pretty good, especially with Mr. Westmore’s advice to make it bigger. But the execution of the design had a lot of fail going on, starting with the wig. Geisha’s had tight, neat wigs, that’s an ungainly mess falling over her head. And then the face makeup - they shaded the cheeks and jaw in just the right way to make the model look like a man. Bad bad bad for a beauty challenge. I’m surprised there weren’t remarks on that. This one was slated for a Bottom Look, but I guess they only wanted two sets in each category. These guys got off lucky with a Safe.

Nora & Brittany, Flabellina Nudibranch: Whatawhoosit? Some kind of sea slug? The sculpts and paint were great, the color choices vivid but well done. Great recovery on the damaged chest sculpt, hand crafting the points out of make up foam applicators. Hell, tell the judges that and get extra cred on that. This model is definitely capturing the beauty aspect of the challenge. I would have picked it for the win. The one part that didn’t work so much for me was the center of the chest sculpt. I know they were masking the breasts, but it doesn’t really do anything for me, and the dress top is kinda awkward to give the reveal for the center work. But still the total result is great. Top Looks.

End result: Judges reward Kevon and Meg, and give Meg the Win for the face.

They get to send two home this week since they didn’t send anyone home last week. This was a tough call for me. Libby has had two bad weeks, doing Native Silver last week - she and Omar were on bottom both weeks. Sidney deserved to go for lack of doing anything. Missy had something in the cowl sculpt shape that Glen liked, and there was the piece that messed up to give some excuse for the edges. Omar had the cowl for the jellyfish that wasn’t great. I was thinking I’d do Libby because she was bottom last week, but Omar was bottom last week as well, so that combined with the lack of work is what tipped it over to him, I guess. Having seen the team interactions, I’d probably have kept him and sent Libby home. Oh well, I don’t expect her to be around much longer.

That was Sidney and Omar. One more flaw in their skillset.

6

I think this was a poor choice of challenge, as evidenced by how similar to each other all the designs ended up

7

You’ve never seen a horse with a blanket on it?

Here I totally agree with you — no way that was an animal.

Was no one else annoyed that there was no sense to the tentacles’ movements? It was clearly just someone whipping a couple of tubes around.

I guess you can’t penalize a team for the model’s lack of puppetry skills.

This was the most egregious of all. In many, you could see the forms where the two peoples’ bodies were. In this one, you saw the woman’s lags draped over the guy’s shoulders. Right in plain sight. WTF?

That’s an excellent idea. If only you’d been there to advise them.

8

I concur, although I like the shell. And the flowing, wavy lines of the chest sculpt were gorgeous (even if it was distracting to see the saucer-sized pasty sticking up out of it). But between the creepy eyes and the non-closing mouth, I would never call that face beautiful.

It’s quite possible they did, but it ended up on the metaphorical cutting room floor.

Me too. I wanted to send all four home.

9

That would require explanation in their back story. Plus, that cloth didn’t have a purposeful form, like something applied by an owner, or intentionally worn.

Okay, so a couple years ago I was driving around and saw a deer running around. At first I couldn’t tell what was up, but when I got close enough I could see it had gotten some black plastic sheeting caught on its antlers. It was scrambling around, and scaring all the other deer. This kinda reminds me of that - randomly draped, unintentionally placed awkwardly.

10

I liked Kevon and Meg’s, and thought it had a lot of really solid elements, but ultimately I didn’t think it was quite as sexy as the judges seemed to think. I can see it being in Top Looks for overall execution, but Nora and Brittany’s design felt more like a fully formed character to me, and I would have given that the win.

Not to offset the failure of Libby and Missy’s design, but I was intrigued by Glen’s response when Missy said the thing about the air pockets. Usually, I feel like the judges are hardline about technical failures – often, they will say something about how the contestants need to roll with those and come up with creative solutions. This time, Glen seemed to perk up, like this explained something to him about the final result, and he seemed almost sympathetic. It’s a tiny thing … but I’m always interested in how this show is edited together and it made me wonder if sometimes the judges have more to say on how to deal with unexpected mistakes that simply don’t make the final cut.

I also thought it was extremely poor Face Off form for Libby to have painted over Missy’s work, so I will now Dislike Her The Most.

11

Well, I can’t say if stuff was edited out, but she said the face piece was"air pocketed", which means AFAICT the foam mix wasn’t even and didn’t fill the form, leaving holes and bad texture and perhaps not leaving parts. I couldn’t see any face piece, and should probably go back and look at the sculpting, but she said she had to lay it under the cowl.

What that told Glen was that she was fully aware how bad the edges were, so she wasn’t completely clueless to think what she did was good. Which doesn’t really excuse the incompetence - look how the other group overcame their parts getting torn during mold removal. They just sculpted and glued on replacements from makeup applicators. Missy could have done something with blenders or liqid latex or something I’m not trained enough to know.

She came off a bit rude, while Missy came off whiny. Neither one communicated well. I think Missy should have stood up to Libby and said “well is too late to worry about it, I’ve already painted it. But look at the bright side - I’ll take all the credit and blame for the cowl.” But yes, painting over Missy’s work without discussing in detail what should be different, where the lines should be, etc, was bad form.

Yes, I know the should be able to make joint decisions, and I’ve blasted contestants who do their own thing in the past, and so have the judges, but there’s a point you have to stand up for your vision and divide the work in a way the judges can tell who did what. I would have given her more credit for owning it than letting Libby butt in, paint over her work, leave a muddy mess, and not have a clear distinction who did what without basically whining that your partner was too pushy.

12

Last night’s challenge was an odd concept. To celebrate the 100th episode, they made up real life couples for a whimsical and macabre look and held a wedding. To me, it’s odd to think making up yourself in a dead manner for your wedding. I guess you’ve got to be okay looking like a corpse and not beautiful for your wedding day.

Anyway, they got to choose their partners, were given a couple and a video to watch and get inspiration, and then had to come up with the concept and execute the makeup.

Jason & Missy, suicide off bridge: Their couple were so in love they committed suicide together to be together for eternity. The guy had a broken neck and what was supposed to be a broken shoulder, the lady had a fish in her hair from the water. Glen asked them how they thought they did, and Jason said 8 or 9 and Missy said she loved it. Glen disagreed completely, saying they painting put highlights on the shadow parts and shadows on the highlight parts, destroying the look. Plus, the shoulder had no connection to reality. And the sagging face was on the upper side, not lower side, and came off weird. Bottom look. I see their complaints, though there are elements that are okay IMO. The girl looks reasonably attractive for a corpse - hard to achieve.

Scott & Stevie, christmas carolers frozen in woods: From afar it didn’t read as much. Up close, some of the subtle points like the icicles were more prominent. I’m not thrilled with it, but it doesn’t suck. The judges agreed - Safe.

Ricky & Jordan, day-glo electrocuted couple: This one I don’t get at all. The chest and beating heart are interesting and reasonably well done, though I don’t see how that matches electrocuted by falling in the pool. And the rest of it makes very little sense. I don’t understand the blue, the day-glo color, what happened to the woman’s face, or just about anything else. I was sure it was bottom look. I really don’t understand the judges on this one, as they love it, love the day-glo as whimsical, love the sculpts on the faces. It’s bizarro world on this one. Top Looks.

Libby & Brittany, woods couple: This one is a very well done make up that has one strong feature in its favor, and one solid weak point. The good is that the bride actually looks beautiful. The bad is that it doesn’t really fit the macabre nature, the idea of corpses. They are more like forest spirits or something. Although, to be fair, the couple’s video didn’t give much else to go on and strongly wanted a woodsy theme, so they at least matched what the couple wanted. Glen was thrown by the hair behind the appliance with no effort and blending, but I thought that was intentional as part of the merging of the two of them, and the wood serves as a crown, like Mr. Westmore suggested. I loved the look, even though it doesn’t fit the challenge. They got Safe, probably for those reasons.

Ben & Jasmine, the Beauty and the Beast cat couple: I love the concept - cat lady and her cat being the beast he thought he was in life. At first I wasn’t sold on the bride’s look, but with reflection, I think it works for her pretty well. I love the yarn for the lady’s hair and the cat’s horns and beard. Awesome. In close up I saw the cat on top of the head - cute. The groom batting at the yarn hanging down was also great. They had a fully developed and fully executed concept that was whimsical, with enough macabre to satisfy the challenge. Best for the challenge. Top Look, with Win going to Jasmine for the paint job on the face. Though to me, if she had mentioned she was the one who did all the yarn work, that should have put her over the top, too.

Meg & Nora, artist and artwork couple: I was expecting better out of these two, but they were kinda lost on this one. It didn’t fit either of their aesthetics, and they struggled to make it work. The gay element could have been played up. The groom was particularly weak, as Nora struggled to find a way to convey he was artwork come to life. I think something more of a sketch or cartoon-like lines would have been more whimsical and sold the idea. This was too realistic for the guy and then the paint elements were too subtle. Make an anime character come to life. Plus, this is supposed to be a guy that inspired the artist to kill herself, but this guy looks like a sloppy dweeb stuck in grunge. Then the bride, the worm elements were pretty good, but the overall look was weak. At least they recognized the results sucked. Bottom Look.

Evan & Kevon, angel/demon combo: This had the interesting part that it was the light/dark dynamic that the couple mentioned, plus incorporated the pug look from their dog into the demon face. I think they loved that. The wings were less successful, plus I couldn’t figure out what the cowl was on the bride. Also, application error tore her face appliance, leaving a poor attempt at repairs. (But still better than Missy last week.) Also, there’s a fairly obvious line between face and cowl on the guy. The pug look was strong, the bride less so. Ultimately, the judges felt it had enough to be Safe compared to the other two.

The judges were sensitive in their criticisms in front of the couples, knowing it is the couples’ wedding day, which is more personal than a typical model in the results. The flow of judging was well done, to do the presentations to family and guests, do the close up reviews, then send all the guests away and do the reviews in private, and then go off and celebrate the party together.

The other weirdity, they put off the elimination until next week. I guess they didn’t want to rain on the celebration by doing the elimination. Still, it makes the flow off for this week.

My pick: Missy. Meg and Nora both have a strong week last week, and they were aware this didn’t work. Missy and Jason thought there’s was good. Jason was Safe the previous 2 weeks, whereas Missy has been Bottom Looks for three weeks in a row. Plus, the muddy paint last week (that wasn’t really her fault) and then the paint mishmash this week, she’s probably the one gone. I note that Wikipedia has her marked with the elimination color but an apostrophe as opposed to declaring her gone yet. Apparently someone else expects the same thing.

13

Okay, I just went back and rewatched last weeks episode. I specifically wanted to see what was up with Missy and Libby, and spotted some things.

First off, the episode was edited weird where it showed very little of their work. Everyone else talked about their inspiration and plan, and showed sculpting work and whatnot. For them, there is only the quick look at the sketch, one scene where Mr. Westmore comments on conflict in sculpt forms between the cowl and chest piece, and the exchange over painting the cowl. It’s odd to me there isn’t any more about them, especially since they ended up on Bottom.

Second, there is no indication anywhere there was a face piece that got messed up. Given the editing, I have no idea, but I don’t see it in the sculpting and I don’t see any panicked shots of “oh shit now what do we do”, which we got from the others on their mistakes and mishaps. So why not?

Third, I rewatched the exchange over the paint job, and it appears to me I have been a bit unfair to Libby. She actually says to Missy she thought the idea was to make the whole think black but just the tips. The editing makes it look like she just starts painting over, but there’s a glimmer that she spoke to Missy and perhaps they agreed to let her do it. Missy then whines about covering all her work, and Libby says she thought that was the idea. So while it does appear there’s weak communication, Libby makes the effort to explain what she wants to do differently than what Missy is doing.

Given all of the above, I’m annoyed with the editing because I can’t tell what actually happened, if there was a sculpt or if that was a lie, and how the breakdown of work actually occurred with those two. Oh well, Missy will be gone soon. Libby had a better week working with Brittany.

14

Yeah, I was a little skeptical about this challenge overall. DRAMATIC make up for your wedding? Sure! But a real corpse theme? It just seemed odd to me. Even within that challenge, I was surprised that none of the brides ended up being really, let’s say “beautiful and deadly.” We have seen make ups on this show in the past that were combinations of both horror and sexy … did not happen here, even in the best of the designs. Even something like how Yvonne De Carlo was sexy in the Munsters, and that’s definitely whimsical.

I was also :dubious: about the same sex couples –

Jason & Missy, suicide off bridge: I didn’t hate this the way the judges seemed to, it actually seemed like one of the more coherent backstories of the bunch. It definitely wasn’t great, though.

Scott & Stevie, Christmas carolers: I liked this okay, but I think if Christmas was the theme (and I think it was a good tie-in to the couple getting engaged at Christmas) … they could have done A LOT more with it. Safe seems fine to me, I guess.

Ricky & Jordan, electrocuted couple: Again, I thought it was okay? I liked the beating heart thing, and the judges always seem to like that. I appreciated that the couple seemed to match up, design-wise.

Libby & Brittany, woods couple: I liked it, I understand why they were trying to make the lady tree less … macabre, but I don’t think the end result was THAT attractive, either. It felt like they were trying to make it not quite so macabre but they were hesitant to take it all the way into beauty, either, so it ended up feeling more boring to me than anything else. I thought it was nicely executed in general, so I wish it had done better but I can see how it wandered a little far from the concept of the challenge. If they had made the groom a little more sinister … I think this could have worked even better.

Ben & Jasmine, the Beauty and the Beast cat couple: I was a little mixed on this one. I definitely GET that they took an unusual combination of themes (when the couple was saying they really liked cats, and really liked Beauty and the Beast, we were laughing at home – I mean, HOW do you get to that point where your wedding theme is cats + Beauty and the Beast) and were willing to do that in a big way … but I still think it could have been better. The characters didn’t look that much like cats to me. It was cute, and it was definitely whimsical. I thought this one was an easy one to do a monster-like beast vs. a more beautiful Beauty, and they didn’t take that path.

Meg & Nora, artist and artwork couple: this was mostly a mess. I understood the backstory they were going for, but it is a story that is so difficult to convey visually – there is so much cause and effect. I think if they had come up with a solid way to make the guy look like a painting (there was a challenge like this two seasons ago), they could have maybe pulled it off. I was a little … eh, I don’t know … I know one of the guys in the couple said he liked to do drag, so yeah BUT I also thought the costuming was hiding, in a sense, that this was a gay couple and you’d think they would want to celebrate that.

Evan & Kevon, angel/demon combo: AGAIN, a good opportunity to make a beautiful bride that was also otherworldly and even macabre … but it didn’t work out at all. I liked their design a lot better than their finished product.

It was the kind of week where I would have made just about everything safe. Nothing seemed that awful (well, maybe Meg and Nora) and nothing seemed that great to me.

15

YES, exactly, it’s wedding day, let’s have some beauty in there. No, it’s all corpse this and rotting that.

I agree, I couldnt tell the paint issues myself, though the sculpt problems stood out. I’d have made them Safe, and put the electrocuted couple on bottom, and bumped up the woods couple or the demon/angel couple.

Yes, plain straight up carolers. Could have amped the christmas and whimsy.

I thought she was pretty, though not matching work from previous seasons like the forest goddesses a couple seasons ago.

She wasn’t a cat, she was a “cat lady”, who has a dozen cats that are everything in her life. He was more monster than cat, the cat was his nature, the monster his self perception.

I was thinking making her more beauty to fit that part of the theme, but that’s a bit at odds with the cat lady element. I think she came out fairly attractive within the character.

Yeah, too plain for drag.

Too bad the rules require differentiating within what’s given rather than meeting some objective standard. :wink:

16

It must have been a pretty awful wedding party for the four contestants on the cusp. I didn’t have any problems with the judging this week, although I actually thought they were a bit hard on Missy and Jason’s couple. The anatomy might have been off, but the broken neck/head gag worked pretty well and basically lifted them over the whimsey threshold. In contrast, nothing about the artist/painting couple really clicked and the Pygmalion back story was pretty lame.

Missy came off slightly less annoying in this episode – she did help out other contestants and I realized that her normal speaking voice sounds like she’s about to break into tears at any moment, so she probably wasn’t just amping up drama in her “I might be going home” moment last week. Given that she’s been in bottom looks each week, she’s a strong favorite for elimination. But I still think that the overall look and concept of Missy and Jason’s couple was so much better (largely due to the broken neck gag) than the artist couple that one of those two really should buy the elimination.

17

A little hard to enjoy, knowing you might be going home. Flipside, at least they got to participate with the couple they helped.

Yeah, I agree. The shoulder was bad and the face droop was off, but the whole look was still better than the art couple.

This week was something new: a “Focus Challenge”. Basically the elimination challenge this week was something where they explicitly stated to focus on the face and make a really clean make up with really good edges. Okay. But they still had to make the whole character, including costume and hands and such. Well, at least they explained the most important detail this week was in the face application.

The other thing, this was an individual challenge, doing literature and horror mashups like “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”. With so many contestants doing individual challenges, you could get a feel for who was going to be in the spotlight and who was safe by which makeups they focused on during the judging. They completely skipped the judge reviews on a couple that I thought had troubles - the two King Arthur ones.

Fun and complex challenge.

Evan, Sherlock Holmes: The Bloodsucker - I thought this was pretty good. The veining and painting were good, and the edges seemed clean. The nose was different. I suppose Safe is appropriate, though I think I liked it better than the Vampire lady.

Stevie, Don Quixote: Monster of La Mancha - This one was excellent. Lovely scale sculpting, great masking of nose to be flat, wonderful paint job. And a great built-in way to hide edges. Very top notch. The judges loved it, too. Top Look.

(Oh, and tell your model to go shave, dammit. "I’m gluing a facial appliance on, why are you showing up with stubble?)

Kevon, King Arthur and His Undead Knights - He made an undead Merlin. Good concept, good use of model choice to accentuate the look, using a skinny woman so he could make a frail and withered man. The face, though, has issues. What’s with the nose being missing? Safe.

Brittany, Great Expectations of a Serial Killer - Going old age make up and burn make up was a big risk, but I don’t think the concept itself was the killer. Rather, the execution was just poor all around. When Mr. Westmore tore it to ribbons in the sculpt faze, you knew she was in trouble. Her fixes were better, but still not right. The left cheek is off, the wrinkles in the forehead are not aligned right and stiff, the burn doesn’t read as a burn, and the paint job is missing. All in all, there’s really nothing to recommend this result. Bottom Look.

Meg, The Scarlett Letter: A Puritan Poltergeist - This was a colossal mistake. And she recognized as she was going along places where things weren’t going right, but didn’t know how to fix them with the time she had. The color choice could be explained by poltergeist - it’s odd, but sometimes that can work. But the sculpt doesn’t read clear what is happening, and then the texture issues didn’t fit at all. And Glen pointed out what is the point of sculpting the face when it just follows the lines of the model’s face? There’s no added folding or intentional texture, then it’s a waste of time and effort. I think looking at the make up, there are shapes along the cheeks, band then the rest of the jaw is plain. Maybe you can hide the edges easier if you move them down, but the rest of the problems made that inconsequential. Bottom Look for sure.

Ricky, The Exorcism of Monte Cristo - Good technique to take pictures of himself for reference on the expression. He definitely captured angry. There’s lot of additional wrinkling which I assume is demon. Overall it’s not bad, but I can see how it falls short of the top looks. Safe.

Jason, The Scarlett Letter: Puritan Poltergeist - Yikes. Okay, it is definitely creepy, but like the judges said, it doesn’t read demonic or ghostly, it reads alien. It lost the human element, and the flowing lines and nose look make it look plantlike. It could work for a different challenge, but for this one it just doesn’t fit. It’s a Bottom Look, but not quite the disaster the other two are. There appears to be good application, just a misdirect on the sculpt and paint job.

Nora, Gulliver’s Travels in the Underworld - It’s not bad, demonic and still pretty. Definitely some good elements, but not quite the standard by the Top Looks. Safe.

(I will also point out this is the same model that was made up to look like a Drag Queen Geisha. Here she looks feminine. Shows how make up accents change things, though the facial appliance contributes here I think.)

Libby, The Exorcism of Monte Cristo - I’m intrigued by this one, mostly becuase the blend lines around the midline of the face are so clean. The drag sculpt at the eyebrow is somewhat confusing, but the rot look of the paint is good. She says she can see edges, which I guess is part of the reason why it wasn’t Top Looks. Still, a pretty good result. Safe.

Scott, Don Quixote: Monster of La Mancha - Another stellar job. He actually layed out his sculpt using different colored clay for the different sections, which made even the sculpt read pretty well. Nice asymmetries to convey different faces mashed together. Ever part of the sculpt looks natural. Good choices with color differences to sell different skins. It reads perfectly. And another built in good way to hide edge lines. Definitely Top Look.

Ben, King Arthur and His Undead Knights - What can I say, I guess I don’t like the undead choices made. This one is a mess. The withered face, the skin texture, the crown. Apparently there are spikes from his head under the metal crown - do one or the other, both is overkill. It’s not good, but I suppose is just a bit better than the three thrown in bottom. I’d have made it four, or at least heard more comments about this one. Safe.

Jordan, Gulliver’s Travels in the Underworld - I like it. Scrapping the cowl was good. The colors are bold, maybe a bit much, but the sculpt is good and the paint has good shadows and is clean. Very close to Top in my opinion. Safe.

Jasmine, Sherlock Holmes: Bloodsucker - I’m not as sold on this one as the judges. I don’t care as much for the eyebrows and stylized look. The paint is vibrant. They said it had really cleean application, which was part of the challenge. I think it was only safe, but they gave it Top Look.

Tops were Stevie, Scott, and Jasmine. They awarded the Win to Scott. Well deserved.

Bottoms were Brittany, Meg, and Jason. They decided Brittany was going home. I’m not sure I understand why. Yes, she had a mess, but Meg’s was also a mess, and Brittany could be credited with trying a difficult concept, whereas Meg’s just kinda falls apart on all elements. I looked at their records, and Meg had a Win and 2 Lows, whereas Brittany had a High and this Low. Does a Win trump a High enough to overcome a previous Low? :shrug: I’m happy Meg is still there, but I’m befuddled on the analysis that got that result.

18

Been watching but have been behind by several days and tough to get here to respond.

I’m not sure why they couldn’t have shown the celebration and then done the usual loss at the end of the 100th? Did they not want the 100th to have a contestant leave? That was confusing because it was like watching the end of the previous show before the first show. Not bad but I’m not sure why they didn’t do that last episode.

Overall, I agree with what Irishman said below about this week’s episode.

I liked the new idea of the Focus challenge and want to see one later in the season when there are fewer contestants so we get more information on their thinking. I get that they need fourteen contestants but half of them always end up being “just there” until mid season, which feels strange.

I also think that we need more of the judge’s reasons or deliberations on a few more. I know they have to do this for the drama, but I would rather have non top and bottom looks mentioned in the judge’s looks so we hear more about what made the rest safe. I say that because I don’t remember which one, but I thought a few of the applications weren’t very clean. However, in this week’s case, the bottom ones were obvious.

I didn’t like the Arthurian ones, either. I liked the ideas but I didn’t think the execution were were great. Part of the problem is that I didn’t like Kevon’s responses to events in the first couple of episodes, so I’m probably harsher on him than I should be. Along with that, I, too, looked up previous results to see that Brittany had gotten high and two safes, compared to Jason’s two safes and two bottoms and wondered why he wasn’t gone. Couple that with a win for Meg, and again nothing for Jason, and it seems as if Meg and Brittany had more potential than Jason. At least, that’s my take on it lacking any more discussion.

I think I’m also tough on them because I’m not sure I liked the idea of the mash up. To me, one or two of them were cool ideas. Knowing the market is now flooded with them makes all of them less interesting to me. That’s nit picky of me and not their fault, I know.

We still enjoy the show and watch it as soon as we can each week!

vislor

19

I’m assuming the judges flipped a coin and Brittany lost. Jason’s face was wrong for the challenge but Meg and Brittany had two of the least technically adept makeups I’ve seen on the show. As the judges said, one looked goopy and formless and the other looked like concrete. I don’t know how you’d make the decision.

I am a bit puzzled as to why burn/old age would be any harder than just one or the other.

Did anyone else get the impression that there was some behind the scenes help getting the models costumed? The artists spent all their time on the faces, yet we got what looked like the full deal – all the models were garbed appropriately.

I’m also wondering if there was some ulterior motive for this “focus” challenge – maybe SciFy wanted to cut down on the number of shooting days, or reserve a day for a longer challenge later on. Anyway, the challenge did its job – I think we now have a short list of likely winners for this season.

20

I don’t know. It was weird to not have that then.

My take is that Jason had a reasonably clean make up this time, it just wasn’t a good design fit. Whereas the other two were bad applications of concepts that matched their task. If his had been bad texture or bad edges as well, he would likely have been gone.

I suppose a coin toss would be a reasonable method.

Both are technically challenging designs, either of which will take time to execute well. Putting two time consuming sculpts into a shorter project schedule means more work in less time. That’s why it’s harder. Plus you have to have some blend line, affecting both.

The last few seasons have definitely had a lot of behind the scenes help. First, numerous times they race to get their molds cleaned out just by the buzzer so they can return the next morning to find completed prosthetics on their stands. Someone’s running the molds overnight. And someone is crafting up the bulk of the outfits to meet their design specs. Occasionally they’re cutting cloth or if they’re fabbing armor or something they’re doing the work, but many times they spec out something and an outfit appears. Like a couple seasons ago when they did the Greek Myth high school students, those outfits were mostly provided.

Possible. It’s also possible they’re trying to be creative to shake things up, to be as different as possible to counter the burnout some of us have had in previous seasons. And this was a way to say “focus on a good quality face application, don’t do cowls and body armor and don’t worry so much about arms and hands and feet.” Because they often get so distracted by the other stuff that the edge lines and paint job get a bit sloppy. This was specifically to say “we want this part to see how well you can do it”.