Face Off Season 9

Cafe Society
41

I don’t have too many specific comments on last week’s show, except that it highlighted one of the things that as always perplexed me – it’s that many of the contestants seem to be able to whip up a more convincing and compelling design in a two hour challenge than they can when given three full days. Maybe this is because we usually only get fleeting glimpses of the foundation challenge results (and usually the best ones), but I think there’s something else going on as well.

In last week’s show, I liked almost all of the foundation challenges better than the corresponding showcase challenge version. The foundation challenge is time-constrained so everything is done with make-up and very simple prosthetics. As a result, the characters retain quite a bit of facial mobility. In the showcase challenge, it’s always “let’s mold a cowl and mask” which usually results in a character that’s stiff and can barely show any facial expressions. This week’s competition was no exception – Ben’s top look was the only one that looked like it could possibly emote – the others looked like Halloween masks. And the artists spend so much time on the technical aspects of the molding and casting that they barely have any more time than they did on the foundation challenge to do the actual painting.

42

Well, they hardly have time for any pre-painting, so they have 5 hours to do the full application, and catch up on any fab that isn’t done. That often cuts their actual paint time, and they have more to do and a higher level of expectation.

43

It seems that none of them has seen or read the play that they were doing the makeup for.
The Queen Mab was ok, but the other “top look” was not. It was very easy to tell that she’d never done makeup on dark skin (or as she called it “ethnic”) before. The bottom two really were the worst, but the ones in the middle weren’t good or even ok, they just weren’t as bad as the bottom two.

44

Finagle: I agree. I don’t know if we aren’t shown something or what. Are they told to use a prosthetic as much as they can? I don’t understand why they generally cover up their models, especially when told to do a beauty make up. Why not use the beauty of the model as the base? Or minimal use of them, as with the Foundation challenges? It does seem as if they get prosthetic happy!

45

Yeah, this is a pretty bad week. I think they only had 2 tops and 2 bottoms because they couldn’t find a third Top look.

Okay, the challenge: take a Shakespearean female character and make up a man into that feminine form.

Now I started thinking about how Shakespeare had actors on stage, so maybe look at stage instead of TV/movie, but they called it a Focus Challenge, which means it’s all about the face. So we’re back to high detail.

Also, I definitely would have needed the cheat sheets of information for some of the characters. The few Shakespeare plays I read I don’t recall enough detail on the characters to feel I could make a good fit without some review.

Also, one general comment, I’m not sure what specifically it takes to make a face look feminine vs masculine, but if I were an artist working on human faces, I think I would study that specifically. Not even for make up challenges, but just drawing people, I would think one should know how to make a woman’s face and a man’s face. Most of these folks were lost. Maybe that should be a course at make up schools.

Kevon, Joan La Pucelle (Joan of Arc): Wow. First, the sculpt doesn’t look good - it doesn’t even look plastic, it looks like it’s carved of wood. Then there’s the at horrible choice around the lip. Add to it the form fails to look feminine. I disagree with Neville there. Anyway, not a Bottom look only because there are plenty worse. Safe.

Stevie, Hyppolyta: As mentioned, this is probably the most successful in straight human form terms of converting male to female. The face reads like a woman. However, the color is wrong for that actor - the tone does not match the arms and chest at all. Way too red, a bit too dark. I would hope a painter could match colors better. Also, I can see edge lines. Maybe I’m getting trained on what to look for, I don’t know, but the edges are visible around the chin. Still, from the list of what was on offer tonight, it is one of the best ones. Top Look.

Ben, Titania: A dude in a dress. The chin is very hard to deal with on this actor. Some softening around the brow and nose bridge, but still fairly masculine. Safe, because not a complete disaster of application.

Scott, Cleopatra: Not a Cleopatra to inspire lust and get Julius Caesar and Mark Antony worked up. Mismatch in texture and tone from appliance to face. Is it feminine? Safe, but only because the curve is so low this time.

Nora, Sycorax: This one they chose not to air the judge’s comments, so can’t tell what they thought. To me, Nora buried the challenge behind the witch makeup, so might be feminish, but mostly just ugly. Good application, more androgynous than feminine. Safe.

Meg, Queen Mab: This was the obvious top look. First, Meg took the risk on her character because of the fairy aspect, she was able to stretch not only making feminine, but making exotic. It gave room for appliance to help hide forms. Maybe it made it easier in some aspects because she didn’t have to focus on human beauty as much? Anyway, she did a great job finding the female form, and the beauty part really works. I can see something rough around the chin, but honestly it appears this week it was the duel of the make up problems. Everybody seemed to have something go wrong, not stick, edge mess up, something. Anyway, she got the female form, and gave a creative character with good beauty make up. Top Look.

Evan, Hecate: Bad drag queen make up. Missed on the form, added veining that was nonsensical. I can see the adjustment of the brow and how that helps, but the cheeks and jaw didn’t get enough treatment. Pretty bad. Bottom Look.

Ricky, Ophelia: We have a loser. I mean, disaster from top to bottom. Every decision is wrong. Admittedly he had a challenge with his model being the most masculine man ever - looks like J. J. Watt. And how much of the application not sticking down was his fault? Still, male, bad choice with the texture, bad choice with the picking and scabs, and general lack of ability to apply beauty make up. Nothing redeeming here at all. Bottom Look and worst of the bunch.

Jordan, Lady McBeth: Here’s the thing, if I were forced to give a third Top look, this would be it. The character does come off feminine. There are some adhesive issues the judges noticed, the nose is off a tad, and it looks a bit plastic, it still reads as a woman, and that’s the heart of the challenge that so many couldn’t attain. And the approach to make the edges not on the face is a great approach to making them harder to detect. I think it’s pretty good, but I guess some workmanship flaws. Though frankly I think it’s as good as Stevie’s. Oh well, Safe works.

Jasmine, Hermione: Well, how did the make up ruin the appliance? Somehow this result looks like The Rock in the brow and eyes. Ve said it was a good choice because his face is already so big, but it’s hard to get the feminine form in there. Still, Jasmine does drag queens for a living, so she was able to recover reasonably well with her normal skill set. Not dreadful. And I did like the tears, if you want permanent ones for stage. Safe.

Top Looks: Stevie and Meg, with Meg getting the win. That’s great news for her as it shifts her from being a three time loser to being someone finding her footing.

Bottom Looks: Ricky and Evan, but not really a contest, Ricky’s was the worst on all counts.

At this point, we can start looking at the records and stats.

Ben is still leading the pack with 2 Wins, 2 Tops, and 0 Bottoms.

Jasmine and Jordan both have 1 Win, 2 Tops, and 1 Bottom look.

Stevie is now closing in with 3 Tops and 1 Bottom.

Then we get to the ones chasing the bottom of the pack.

Scott has 1 Win and 1 Top look, 0 Bottom looks. He hasn’t totally failed anything, but he’s not raking in the excellence, either.

Nora has 2 Tops and 1 Bottom

Kevon and Evan both have 1 Top and 1 Bottom. Neither seem to do much superb but they keep from screwing up royally. But Evan has a Foundation Challenge win to bump him over Kevon.

The Wild Card is Meg: she has 2 Wins and 3 Bottom looks, plus a Foundation Challenge Win. Her first Win was early, followed directly by a string of Bottom looks but also the Foundation Win that surely helped her that week. But she had a Safe week and now a Win. Can she take the boost in confidence and parley that into success? Will she go back to the Bottom again? If she wants to pull a Nicole and pull out a Win, she’s going to need to have a string of knock outs.

At this point, it looks like it’s going to be between Ben, Jasmine, Jordan, and Stevie. Meg is such a dynamic performer it’s hard to call it for her making the finals. The others seem poised to get whittled away. But things can always change.

46

Here’s what I don’t understand about this week’s challenge… with Ve Neill standing right there talking about Mrs Doubtfire, not one contestant thought “Hey, if the woman was overweight, I’d have an excuse to pad out and cover up all the masculine features.”

You could maybe argue they thought fat was incompatible with beauty makeup, but most of them didn’t do beauty makeup either - unless maybe you’re a clown fetishist.

As said earlier, it seems to be evidence that people are not getting training in basic anatomy. They simply don’t understand what it is they’re trying to do. I’m thinking that the prize for this season shouldn’t be cash and a vacation… it should be a scholarship for a year of school. Even the winners in this challenge didn’t put out work that I’d call good.

47

I wonder if the much shorter time they had to work really mattered? Because this was probably the single worst set of makeups ever seen on Face Off. Even the top looks were fairly bad, and bunches of the safes were bad, and the bottoms were TERRIBLE.

48

There’s definitely a lot of self-taught people, or people entering from other fields. I wouldn’t necessarily expect a cake decorator, for example from a prior season, to know anatomy. This season we had a prosthetics maker [I.e. mold guy].

It’s definitely a knowledge they all need. One of the girls went out for a sculpt that required animal anatomy she didn’t know.

Now to future contestants and people in the fields in general - learn anatomy, aesthetics, and how to apply beauty makeup.

49

For what I thought was a great challenge when I heard it, I was a little disappointed/surprised that there were so many flops.

Meg was hands down the winner. I think she did a great job! Her character looked like a woman, and looked like the character from the play. Great use of source material.

Stevie’s Hyppolyta … well, I can see why this was in Top Looks compared to what else was on stage, but I agree that the color was bizarre. The finish/tone looks shiny and fake to me … but maybe that is okay given that she’s a quasi-mythical character (even though she’s played straight up human in the Shakespeare play).

With Scott’s Cleopatra, I was wondering if he was trying to play up his character referencing the very famous depictions of Cleopatra in Egyptian art, which is very stylized. I actually think that if he had committed to this a little stronger, and was able to articulate it to the judges, it would be a good choice for a theatrical make up. (Frankly, this is why I think the contestants need me to be their consultant on how to interpret some of these challenges. :cool: )

Ophelia was awful, awful, awful. Although I do have a little sympathy for Ricky, because of all the characters, a teenage girl who is supposed to be beautiful was far and away the most difficult one in this challenge.

I think Evan missed a real opportunity to go more supernatural with Hecate, which could have been a way around making the character look like a terrible drag queen. Unlike Ophelia, Hecate has a lot of potential for creative interpretation.

50

Was anyone else bothered by how he kept pronouncing Hecate? I’m glad he wasn’t corrected but I did cringe a bit every time.

51

I completely agree. They were all AWFUL. They looked fake as heck, tones were uneven, and as said before, I don’t think you could emote at all out of any of the faces. I was really disappointed in this. I thought that, finally, lets see what professional artists can do, because if the drag queens on RuPaul can do such great work, the professional artists must be able to make a flawless presentation. Very disappointed.

52

YES.

53

He sounded like he wasn’t very comfortable with it. How do you say it?

54

I agree, he didn’t seem comfortable, which is why I was glad he wasn’t corrected.

I say it HEK-a-tee but have found that Shakespeare may have done He-cut.

55

That’s how I say it too, but I have to admit that may be purely from watching Buffy: The Vampire Slayer.

56

I put more of an a sound at the end (heck-ah-tay), but it’s definitely three syllables. Cite: all the godless pagans I’ve chanted with for the past 25+ years. :smiley:

57

That’s how I say it too (HEK-a-tee) but yeah, I think it’s possible he’s come across it the two syllable way, which I think is really dated. But ultimately I think he didn’t know – and I sat around thinking to myself “well, but wouldn’t you ASK someone else if they knew before saying it on TV a bunch of times?”

58

First thing I would have done is google it.

Hecate

Hecate or Hekate (/ˈhɛkətiː, ˈhɛkɪt/; Greek Ἑκάτη, Hekátē)

short e as in bed
a in about
long e as in bead

“heh kuh tee”

Also apparently “heh kit”. I’d definitely go with the first.

59

I was surprised by the number of application failures this week. Silicone appliances were ripping right and left, or actually melting on contact with the makeup. I don’t know if they were trying to make them too thin or what, but that contributed heavily to the less successful looks.

One challenge that the models were generally pretty manly men. These are guys that regularly get made up as hulking trolls or barbarian warriors. Making them feminine was a pretty hard job.

I am getting the feeling that this particular crop of contestants don’t have the technical chops that some of the previous classes have had. They’ve fallen down pretty hard on the focus challenges which you’d expect most of them to have aced. If you can’t do edges and beauty makeup, why are you even on the show?

BTW, calling most of these characters “from Shakespeare” seems an exaggeration. Queen Mab is only referenced in R&J; Sycorax doesn’t actually appear in The Tempest; Hecate and Hippolyta are bit characters at best. It’s tough to generate a character when you have no pre-existing concept of who or what they are. I would have made sure that Lady MacBeth’s hands were bloody, though.

60

Kids these days, they don’t know from Shakespeare…

I felt like the producers were offering the artists a bit of an out with the characters given them. As Finagle notes, and with the exception of Ophelia and Lady Macbeth, they’re not central characters from any Shakespeare play. What they are, though, again excepting Ophelia, are *gender-transgressive * characters. For Elizabethan values of androgyny, anyway. Hippolyta is an Amazon, thus strong, warlike and fierce; La Pucelle is a soldier and cross-dresser; Hermoine is pregnant; Mab, Titania, Sycorax and Hecate are all non-human, one is a ogress and one a witch. Lady Macbeth is a famously unfeminine woman who at one point asks the spirits to “unsex” her. I interpreted these characters as the producer’s way of giving the artists a bit of leeway about making them too feminine. Poor Ricky with Ophelia, though, was screwed. (Although I admired his cleverness in coming up with the skin-picking as a way to cover up the material failure. His execution sucked, though, and Ophelia is mimetically young, beautiful and waif-like. He really did get the short straw.) If they’d all just paid more attention in English class…

I definitely agreed with Meg’s win - her Mab was the only one I though who legitimately looked like a female. Stevie’s looked like a woman, yes, but that skin tone was horrible. She said she was trying to match the model’s skin tone, but that shiny orange-bronze didn’t look like an African-American - she looked like a Kardassian who’d gone overboard on the spray tan.

The rest of them didn’t even look like humans, much less women. All around, a bad showing.

The cake decorator actually won last season.

But Irishman is right - you really need to know some anatomy. If you want to win Face Off, I’d say from watching eight seasons, you need a solid grounding in human anatomy, really good paint skills, excellent time management, and - especially if you’re a guy - the ability to do a good beauty make-up.