When they showed up for the Foundation challenge, everyone had a different stylish box. I was thinking they had to do something inspired by the box. Then we found out it was the thing in the box that mattered. Turned out to be teeth.
I didn’t see how metallic teeth suggested lizard skin, but do think Roy had a great idea for applying scales. A lot of those looked really good.
I was worried for Scott. He got “cartoon teeth”. The guest judge explicitly said two things about the challenge. 1)She wants to see some element of the human in the makeup. 2) Don’t do cartoony. Yet Scott’s teeth are cartoon, so he comes up with a Suessish character.
I really liked Tate’s gross cowboy.
Next came the Spotlight Challenge, remaking a classic Halloween costume into a modern interpretation. Don’t you hate it when you’re the one stuck with the one creature you didn’t want? Poor Miranda stuck with skeleton. Then wasting so much time unable to come up with a concept and how to approach the negative space that a skeleton requires. Yet she managed to come up with a good concept and some brilliant execution with her sculpts. Then she’s unsure about how it all looked.
I’m glad Roy didn’t sit on his immunity, and pushed himself on the challenge. That’s the right attitude. “I’ve got immunity, let’s see what I can do with this challenge to impress the judges, because if I fail in overdoing it, I’m okay.” I did notice he had a female model but the devil looked decidely masculine to me. Also, I noticed the delicate feet and heels didn’t fit the rest of the head and body. And to me, the fake arms didn’t quite look right, but that allowed him to use the real arms for the wings. Also, something about the color scheme was too dark to make it pop, so I agree there with Glenn. But it was good work.
Finally Tate got some cred. This was a good concept and execution.
I’m totally astonished that the judges liked Laney’s clown. I thought the sculpt was odd, the paint job awful, and the cotton candy hair was a fail. I was sure she was going to be the one to keep Scott from going home. Instead, the judges loved it. 
At least this time Eddie’s wasn’t a total mess. His face sculpt was pretty good. The body was a bit of a miss, as it was hard to pick out what it was supposed to be - a bag of straw with crow skeletons in it.
I thought Scott’s was pretty bad. The stretched skin puckers was an interesting concept but a bad execution. The bulbous skull didn’t make sense. I was thinking he’d be sent home, as this was his third Low in a row, whereas Lyma has had two High looks and only one Low. Her vampire did have problems. She had a lot of detail in the face sculpt, but it didn’t really make sense, and neither did the chest part. And then the boney protruberances that had no anatomical reason - (Yes they did, to look scary). I think ultimately what sunk her was her lack of recognition at how bad it was. Still, I would have sent Scott home and gave her another round.
This time Alana did have some issues in her sculpt. The face application was reminiscent of some of her worst efforts from her previous season, with the amorphous Suess character in particular, but also the deformed Alice in Wonderland white rabbit. (Did I mention Scott’s bulbous clown skull?) She was given advice by Michael Westmore but didn’t take it. LISTEN TO THE EXPERT!
From what we’ve seen so far, I expect Scott and then Eddie to be the next two out. Scott has just not been doing good work, and Eddie has struggled with his skills. I would be hard pressed to vote off any of the others if either of those is an option, just on the rest of their performance records. Someone would have to pull an RJ and totally bollux the whole challenge to get sent home before, in particular, Scott. IMO.
Finally, I’m curious about the motivations of some of the veterans on coming back. I can see why Miranda and Alana wanted to do it. Both of them lacked skills and confidence, and both have shown remarkable improvement. I can see why Frank had something to prove, that he’s not an ass and that he takes it seriously now. I can see why Roy wanted another go. He got the judges thinking he was all about big constructions and not focusing on the paintjobs, and he got eliminated in a tight round right before finals. He certainly had a shot at winning, so coming back is a way to demonstrate he’s more than the fabrication guy, he’s well-rounded makeup artist with all the skills. And he’s succeeding in that.
I’m less sure on the reasons that RJ and Laura came back for another round. RJ had a really good run and ended up in the finals. Arguably a couple of his were better than the ones that were given the win. He had a very iconic character in the Burtonesque bellhop. There was little room for him to do better, and a lot of room for him to do worse.
Same thing for Laura. She was superb all season, with good sculpts and great paintjobs, and she was in the finals and just missed the win on probably one of the tightest finals competitions on the show. If she goes on to win this, then it will have been worth the effort, but honestly this is a tight competition and she could easily get eliminated before the finals.
If I’m calling the finals based on current standings and my impression of the judges’ opinions, I would think the final three will be Roy, Miranda, and Laura. Tate has a pretty good shot at it. Laney has a similar record to Tate, even though I didn’t care for this win of hers. Either of them could be a contender. Frank is doing okay but not throwing out the really inspired makeups that those three are giving. If Alana can avoid errors like last night, she’s been doing some very good work as well. But she’s going to have to step it back up like her first three rounds if she wants to make the finals.