Don’t tell me I’m the only one watching this series.
I think the veterans are at a serious advantage with the experience they have with the crazy deadlines and twists thrown at them by the FaceOff team, And what is with making all the newcomers share one tiny bedroom at the house?
I think the losing makeup had a cool design (I liked the idea of the mouth being at the neckline) but it was poorly executed, especially around the eyes.
Curses! I came in here to start this thread! 
Yeah, usually the first five episodes are kind of rushed, due to the number of people and the time constraints - I liked the 90 minute episode, though.
I agree - if it had been properly “mechanized”, the mouth opening via the movements of the throat would have been totally cool. It was a good idea, just executed poorly.
Personally, I think the head on the OTHER troll, done by…um… whatshisname returning vet - was much worse.
I really liked the concepts behind the witch, on both teams.
Now, what completely pisses me off is, first… All the pre-show reveals of the upcoming characters in the opening-credits reels! Dammit, people, don’t you know we watch this show to be surprised at their inventiveness? And IN THE OPENING DAMN CREDITS, you’re showing a good dozen creations, AND their creators standing next to them. It completely blows my anticipation of the themes and their designs.
And I’m really…
… reallly…
…really…
sick of all the goddamn dramatic pauses, and the 15-seconds of recaps going in and out of commercials. Just show us more show, dammit!
But I really love this show :).
There has got to be a significant amount of unused footage (e.g., showing the creative processes and technical abilities of some really talented people) that could be put to good use, rather than the constant recaps and recaps of recaps. I really like “Face Off,” but the producers/editors have always padded it waaaay too much with unnecessariousness.
I really can’t watch any show live anymore for that very reason… 15 seconds of “COMING UP!” and then 4 minutes of commercials and then another 15 seconds that repeats the 15 seconds before the commercial. Holy cow!
Anyway, it’s good to see Glenn continue his trend of looking more and more bizarre with every passing season.
D’oh! I hate when they change the title of a show and Tivo misses it. Thanks for the heads-up!
Love the show… hate the editing.
I agree that the veterans have a huge advantage, not the least of which is knowing the exact level of expertise/standard of product the judges will accept. I think the veterans troll was the worst, though. Really, the proportions were totally off. It was just… BAD. And I think all three of those guys are super talented. Chalk it up to nervousness, I guess.
Future Frankenstein and Bride
I loved the winning look. The bride’s umbrella was cool! And the eliminated contestant admitted she wasn’t that into the competition. So Buh-by!
Apparently there’s no thread on this yet.
Season 5 is here, with a new exciting twist (isn’t there always?) This season: Newcomers versus Veterans. That’s right, they brought back 8 contestants from previous seasons to compete again this year against the 8 new contestants.
The veterans include some really talented folks who just missed out in the finale, including RJ from season 2 (made the Burtonesque Bellhop), Roy and Laura from season 3 (Roy has the cowboy hat and was superb fabricator, Laura is the blonde who did really well all season and just got eeked out by Nicole’s return from the dead). Only one returning contestant from last season, Eric Z (bearded guy). He won his way back on the Face Off: Redemption web series. Also returning, Alana (the self-hazardous redhead) and Miranda from season 2, both of whom suffered from a lack of experience and confidence, as well as two contestants from season 1. I didn’t watch season 1, but they include Tate, who apparently did very well, and the controversial Frank, who didn’t take the competition seriously and acted like a giant ass.
So the newcomers have a definite disadvantage, because some of those vets are heavy hitters. Laura, Roy, and RJ all stand out to me as tough competition. I will say looking at the audition samples displayed in the contestant introductions, some of those products were some of the best samples I have seen, and definitely look up to snuff. We will see how it plays in the time constraints and format of this show, where the vets know the ropes and experience with the specifics of the time allowed and workload, etc.
The first week’s challenge was a team challenge, vets vs rookies, to create a set of characters in a “hyper stylized fantasy world”, whatever that means. They were given 5 character types: Ogre, Troll, Faun, Pixie, Witch, then told to create a consistent look and theme. My first question was to try to differentiate between an Ogre and a Troll. Both to me are large, ugly, scary monsters.
Anyway, each team came up with a concept and then divided into smaller groups to tackle their creatures. The rookies came up with a Tribal Council concept, and made each creature the representative to the council. The vets created the concept of the Witch enslaving the other creatures and using them as her eyes, so each of those creatures had extra eyes and she didn’t have any.
There was the usual mix of good work and bad work from both teams. Both teams made one conceptual error with their Ogre character that really hurt: both envisioned their ogre as a giant, muscular beast, and wanted to make it “ape-like” in stature, i.e. knuckle walking with oversized arms. The conceptual art for both was good, it captured the oversized concept and the visual appeal of that stance. However, the problem is a practical problem that the models are constrained to be humans. By necessity, if you hunch over to walk on arms (even extended oversized arms), you are making yourself shorter. Thus the “hulking giant” ogres look smaller than the other creatures. :smack:
What was kinda surprising to me was just how dreadful the veteran’s ogre turned out. In particular, RJ has done some fantastic stuff, but this work was sub-par. The arm extensions didn’t work, were actually held goofy and turned oddly, they didn’t articulate right to look like elbows, and just basically sucked. Coupled with the shoulders not being made up large enough to support the arms, and a lack of costuming for the body, and it just looked pathetic. Fortunately for him, the newcomers’ ogre was even worse in some respects - the sculpt was weak, the paint was lousy.
The pleasant thing from this was the success of Miranda and Alana. They were paired and made their team’s Pixie. Well, they were top looks, and Miranda won the challenge. That is a sweet sort of redemption for her in particular, since she was so weak during her season and has had time to learn and grow and become more confident and capable, so now she was able to win a challenge. And Alana was the least experienced member of her team, managed to survive (and survive!) surprising late in the game given her ultimate weakness, and finally went out because she just didn’t have the quality of work or the ability to conceptualize. So seeing her win is nice. Shows her growth as well.
This week was round 2, and the competitors were given the challenge to create a future version of Frankenstein and Frankenstein’s Bride as a pair. They were randomly assigned teams of 3, and had to come up with a concept plus execution. The winners would have their creations perform at the Universal Studios Halloween festival thing.
Miranda had the misfortune of being paired with two newbies, while some of the teams had two veterans. At least now she has something of her own to provide.
The winning team was Laura, Alana, and Laney paired up with a concept where Frankenstein’s monster was created first, then he was reanimated from lightning and then he created his bride to be his power source. Their sculpts were pretty good, and the paint job really caught the judges’ eye, with the right balance of ugly and beautiful, the highlight to emphasize the face. One thing I didn’t so much like was their Frankenstein’s head was large, and then had brains piled up and oozing out the top of the skull. Maybe extra brains were crammed in? It didn’t look anatomical to me, but the judges liked their execution above all the others.
Roy, the master fabricator, and his team had a Frankenstein that was a hodgepodge of alien parts, and the head was supposed to have been severed and so reattached with pistons, and it had a robotic arm. They did a great job of making the head look slightly off-center by the reattachment, had sliding piston cylinders, and an articulatable arm. I really liked it, though the Bride didn’t come out as well.
Bottom looks fell on two newbies and Eric F. Eric, for failing to include an important part of the make up (the screw studs for the head cover) and for just the general sculpt of the face not appealing to the judges. What I admire was Eric admitted that the screws were his fault and didn’t try to downplay it or deflect it. He realized his mistake toward the end of last looks and when asked, he took responsibility.
Lyma is a body painter and she faced the problem common to body painters, not being able to transistion to realistic looking paint schemes. Her colors and patterns ruined the Bride of her team (I thought overall their sculpts were good and the team concept great).
But the loser was Sam, who was on Miranda’s team. Sam wasn’t thrilled and wasn’t really engaged with their teamwork, she didn’t have ideas but didn’t like Miranda’s concept, she didn’t really get active in the project, and then the task she did have to accomplish was a mess. The judges felt she was too Borg derivative and was lumpy and without inspiration and poorly applied. The latex cowl tore on application and then was sloppily repaired leaving the texture ruined.
More fun to come. I just wish we got fewer previews. I like being told what the challenge is when it’s revealed to the contestants, and not having the best judge’s comments revealed in the previews before seeing the episode. They work hard to beat out any real suspense or surprise.
Yay I Face off thread!!!
I will be a regular contributor =)
New episode last night, another fun one.
The Foundation Challenge was to create a new demon inspired by the Insidious movie. That movie features demons that take over a host, so they put the twist to turn the male model into a female demon.
There were various levels of success, from guy in a wig to RuPaul. One guy wanted to put horns on the face, jutty protrusions from the chin. Glenn commented that he saw the intent, but the guy managed to take a masculine face and make it “even more brutish”. Um, challenge fail. The winner was Roy, who came up with an ingenious idea to get rid of the masculine features. He vacuformed one of the female model facemolds, then painted the interior, giving a female face with a clear outer shell and interior color. It really popped, and it definitely addressed the female aspect. Cool. He won a copy of the movie Insidious and a couple tickets to the red carpet premiere of Insidious 2.
The Spotlight Challenge was to take a common Mother Goose nursery rhyme and develop a unique, whimsical character. My question: what makes something “whimsical”?
The choices were:
The Cat and the Fiddle
Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
The Man in the Moon
Little Miss Muffet
This Little Piggy (“the Five Toes”)
Humpty Dumpty
The Crooked Sixpence
The only one of those I didn’t recognize is “The Crooked Sixpence”, though apparently I’ve seen other references to it. It starts out
There was a crooked man,
who walked a crooked mile
This time the contestants got to choose their own partners. Interesting. But the added twist was this was a double elimination week. Ack!
A couple of them seemed to go a little dark. I’m not sure what “whimsical” means. Playful? Fun? They are Mother Goose characters…
Adolfo and Lyma, two newbies, paired up to take on Humpty Dumpty. They went female, and created a fractured egg character and put her in stockings. It actually turned out pretty stunning, and got top looks.
Roy picked RJ right away, and they got the Cat and the Fiddle, so they decided to morph the Cat into the Fiddle. They made a Dr Suessesque cat face and a fiddle shell body. I thought it was very good, with the cartoony feel capturing the whimsy element. I’m surprised the judges didn’t rate it higher.
Scott and Eddie did the Man in the Moon, and made it a woman. They had a rock-faced woman with cratered skin and textured arms, and she was carrying a serving tray of green cheese. The judges liked it, but noted the surface wasn’t really like the surface of the Moon.
Frank and Laura went with Little Miss Muffet, and opted to turn the Spider into the hero of the story, so they created a half-spider, half-man thing. The judges didn’t like the blending, and really didn’t like the paint job color choices. I didn’t care for the way the extra spider arms were added on to the human body.
Alana and Laney had This Little Piggy, so they created the Piggy mom that stayed at home and is the boss of the other piggies, and if they misbehave she eats them. They sculpted a pig face and pig-tit chest, and then crafted accessories out of bacon. Yummy. The judges really liked it. I thought the texture was rough in places, but the concept was devilishly evil.
Rick and Eric took on the Crooked Sixpence, and that one was a challenge to me. They had to look it up like I did to know what it was about. They took the concept of the Crooked Man, and so they devised a very Crooked, twisted up man. He’s deformed, with an arm wrenched up behind him, his face a warped, etc. The judges did not like this one at all. The felt the body sculpt was not anatomical even for twisting out of shape, and the face was not well done. They didn’t think it hit the whimsical element, or that the interpretation of crooked really worked. They sent both these two home.
I was trying to think what could have been done differently to save the concept. Looking up “crooked”, I get that it includes twisted, out of alignment, distorted, misshapen. I think their concept could have used a bit of a shake up, though. First off, go with less dramatically misassembled, and go for more bent or twisted but basically in correct positions. Then to add the whimsy, play on the double meaning of “crooked”, and try to conceptualize a crook of some sort. Maybe a low-rent loan shark, with a cheesy suit and dangly necklace? I don’t know, I’m not the artist type. But that is the concept I would have tried to envision. OH WAIT, I got it, Nixon! “I am not a crook, just crooked.”
The last team was Tate and Miranda. They took on Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater, and decided the wife locked in the pumpkin became warped into a pumpkinish creature. Very horror movie approach. They made her a pumpkin head with grown features rather than a jack-o-lantern carved face, and then put vines and stems around. This one really stood out in quality of work, with the colors, the look with the dress, and especially the forms in the sculpts. Miranda did the sculpting while Tate was trying to fab a pumpkin shell that ultimately didn’t work and they abandoned, probably for the better. In the end, the combination of sculpt and paint really worked, and this character took top looks, with Miranda picked as the winner. Awesome.
That’s 2 big wins for Miranda, a great comeback for her compared to her prior run. Alana also got called out for improved skills by Glenn.
Comparatively, RJ and Laura aren’t doing so well as might have been expected. Both of them were in the finals of their respective seasons, and arguably were the strongest in their seasons. To see each of them not in top looks feels like a let down from their quality of work.
I think the crooked man failure partly stems from a failure of imagine. You say you’re not sure how to do it right, and my thought is that the thing to make him a winner is not going to be the fact that he’s a crooked man. (For the same reason that the pig costume was so well-received - it’s not that they did a pig, it’s that they gave it a pink dress and big hair.)
So I’d have started off by looking more to the nursery rhyme, which happens to mention a cat and a mouse, not to mention the inanimate stile, sixpence and house. Not one of these elements was included. Stiles are a rural farming thing, sixpence might imply wealth, and the animals could be done as props, or the character could have been one of the animals.
Then, I think you have to use some imagination. What does the crooked man do besides walk? For example, what if he’s a wizard? What if he’s an alien and his human-suit is crooked because it needs repair? Or, as you mention, some kind of crook or shady guy?
But they were also eliminated because they didn’t execute terribly well, even with the failure of imagination.
Somehow I missed this thread last week, and I even looked for it!
Anyway, last night.
One of my biggest complaints with this show is that given the number of challenges that are based around horror themes, the contestants stick with the horror even on those few times when the challenge doesn’t demand it. I was overall disappointed by the lack of whimsy on some of these. You know who would have rocked this challenge? Alam from last season.
I agree that the Crooked Man was the worst, it was like they weren’t even sure what to do with it. I like your idea of having him be crooked, like a crook. It would be easy to add some whimsy to that, especially if you included the crooked cat and crooked mouse from the rhyme.
I was so disappointed by Laura, I usually love her work. I thought it was okay to give us the spider instead of Miss Muffet (Ve didn’t seem to agree), but only if the spider really worked. Its arms looked terrible.
The pumpkin eater was even more impressive, I thought, given that their start didn’t seem particularly strong on paper – or maybe it just seemed that way on the show. I really think it looked fantastic. The only reason I would have maybe gone with the piggy for top looks is that I wasn’t getting much whimsical from the pumpkin lady. It really just seemed scary, and maybe sad. I didn’t get an element of fun, like I did from the pig. But in terms of execution, the pumpkin is one of the best jobs I’ve seen on the show, ever.
I understood the things the judges were saying were so good about Humpty Dumpty, but to be honest, it didn’t look much like an EGG to me at all. If I was a judge, I would have kept the Cat and the Fiddle in top looks, and sent Humpty away as safe. It’s hard to compare, they were such different styles, and they both LOOKED good, it’s just that the Cat seemed to illustrate the challenge better.
One thing that surprised me about all of them, except the Lady in the Moon, is that the challenge included the word “modern” – I was expecting a lot of people to run with that. The Lady in the Moon was the only team that made an express effort to show that she was modern by incorporating the elements of the moon landing technologies. I thought this was a great idea, but when I looked at the overall result, it simply didn’t seem that visually striking to me.
Wow, Miranda is kicking some serious butt this season. I only vaguely recall her from her previous season, but I guess she has just made huge progress since then. Subterranean creatures! I liked how they had the different rooms for inspiration, that looked like a creepy enough situation to freak me out.
Poor Roy! He’s always been one of my favorites, I just like his style. But as he said, “You can’t polish a turd” and that’s what his look was.
But as for the winning looks, I think I preferred Laura’s, as it had more personality and story.
He definitely was clinging for life in this episode.
I couldn’t help thinking that this might be a case where less would be more, though. For example, had he stuck his head on the robed/clothed bodies used by some of the other competitors, he’d be much safer. Those clunky arms did him no favors.
I’m still rooting for him, though. I had been hoping he’d win the first time around, so I’m glad to see him get a second try.
I can’t believe there aren’t more replies. Why aren’t you watching this?
Irishman probably hasn’t seen the new one yet.
I’m watching:) I like Roy too, I felt bad for him this last episode, but I agree he should have nixed the tentacle arms. Miranda and Tate are really putting together some amazing things!
This is a constant in every similar contest type show. When I first tried Face Off, I had to groan - “Oh no, not that crappy format again.” They could make a two hour documentary each week on the wonders those people are creating and I’d watch it. As it is, I can only watch using the DVR and fast-forward.
I’m a big Top Chef fan but they do same thing and it drives me crazy - 15 minutes of watching the contestants cook - 30 minutes of repeats of trivial dramatic moments, drum rolls and chefs standing at attention in front of the judges. It all makes me think the actual activities are so boring that they can’t even find 45 decent minutes to show us. Or maybe they know we get bored and wonder off if they don’t tease us constantly.
I’m with you. I watch Face Off at all because the production of the costumes is so interesting. I’m not sure I want a 2-hour format, but it’s definitely true that only about half the footage they show is what interests me most.
At least Face Off minimizes some of the other weaknesses of similar shows. I swear, some reality shows are like being stuck in a car with kids on a long trip. “Mom, he’s staring at me.” “She started it!” “Nuh uh!” “Meanie!”
I’d like to see Roy clean that mold out and shoot it with the right foam - the detail he carved into it needs to be seen - if only to see if what he was headed for was going to work.
If memory serves - he won several things his season to be beaten in the end - that does not fare well for miranda and will work in his favor - I hope.