We open with the designers in some sort of factory that’s printing. Newspapers are being printed. The connection to this week’s challenge is they will be looking at obituaries for inspiration – but the twist is they have to make whimsical ghosts that reflect how they died (like Beetlejuice and the vastly underrated Stardust). I feel like a mock graveyard would have made more sense for this, you know, like the tombstones at the haunted mansion? GET IT TOGETHER PRODUCERS, this was a reach. (was this supposed to be a different challenge? Like black white and red all over but then they couldn’t get enough body paint? WE WILL NEVER KNOW)
Would this have just been Copywrite infringement?
We’re back to the designers working solo this week, which is great for figuring out who is using the same tricks over and over again, so let’s do this. The obituaries are appropriately cheesy and short, they’re a little arbitrary since they’re so open to interpretation so I won’t bother listing who was assigned what, the only relevant thing is gender is predetermined in all the names so I assume that limits model selection. Below are the general descriptions of each character:
There are some comically bad concepts happening right off the bat (somehow there are designs that are both too literal and WAY TOO WEIRD interpretations of the characters. – Walter had a character who died juggling and he decided to make a clown who was juggling bowling balls. WHAT IS THAT WALTER?!?!?!)
The Westmore’s arrive for a walkthrough. Mel is doing a full body prosthetic, Michael supports it but warns it’ll be time-consuming. He shows Yvonne that adding a smile instead of a frown makes her piece more whimsical. Heh, cute. Michael calls out Walter on the dumbness of bowling balls and suggests he use knives instead. Walter doesn’t want to do such a minimal look. Dude, you’re in charge, you can get creative with where the knife is, or how it affects the anatomy. Or split the difference and do bowling pins. Or make him juggle tasers or Chinese throwing stars. SO MANY OPSIONS. Sigh. Whatever, he starts over, keeps the horrible clown idea but switches to knives. WHAT IS IT WITH CLOWNS ON THIS SHOW. Could we just have one season without a terrifying clown?
Mel’s giant prosthetic of a front-butt is nightmarishly huge but everyone seems to be helping her with it. Because these people are awesome. Just had to point that out. No additional drama to report there.
This episode feels a little slow. I assume it’s because there’s no drama of working on teams, no one is having anything horrible happen and everyone is a little tired since we’re on week 6. Or maybe I’m just tired. Anyway to liven things up we get a random shot of Robert and either Walter or Rob (pretty sure it’s Walter?) playing with the mannequins. Thanks fellas, I needed that.
The closest thing we’re getting to a montage
This episode IS technique heavy which I appreciate but am loathe to recap since I don’t want to explain it wrong. There’s a lot of cool sculpting and molding.
Apparently it’s a 1 day challenge which I didn’t realize since it’s day 2 and the models arrive. Wow that went fast. I guess that explains why a lot of the ideas seem so half-baked, with that little time you just need to grab the first idea and run with it. I’m still going to bitch over the lameness of some of these ideas, but you know, I’ll bitch with love.
Last looks. Everyone seems to be struggling and overthinking the concept of whimsical. I really don’t understand the issue, I know they have no reference materials but I have to assume they’ve all seen Beetlejuice. YOU WERE GIVEN A REFERENCE POINT. Whatever, let’s go.
Yvonne’s model died in a handyman accident. I really like the sculpt of the face, I think it actually works really well. While I DETEST gore I do feel like she could have added a tiny bit of shredded skin or blood around the hole in the face, having the drill bit just stuck on feels weird to me. I also hate the paintjob, it’s cartoony but there’s no logic behind it. Why would you turn orange when you die? I understand traditional ghostly colors of whites and blues, but… orange? Also why have a comically oversized drill bit and normal sized drill? Whatever, i’m nitpicking, in general it is cute so I’m fine with it.
Johnny’s piece feels a little too subtle, especially from a distance where it just looks like a pink unicorn. I understand the pink, it’s a little sunburn-y but still cute and dead, so logically I get it. But it’s a little matte and one-dimensional. The hoofprints are WAY too subtle and could have used a little more definition and I also would have added some dirt or mud since she was supposed to be laying on the ground when she was trampled. The porcupine quills are oddly placed and don’t really work for me either. Also she lost an eyebrow in the stampede which… that’s not a thing that happens. That doesn’t even make sense. WHAT IS GOING ON. And her hair is perfect which annoys me. SHE WAS TRAMPLED. Anyway, it is technically competent, I just question a lot of the logic in some of the choices.
Kaleb’s fish is phenomenal, I cannot say enough good things about it. It’s got a great paint job, I love the use of feathers to give it movement, the eyes wor, the teeth work, it’s funny. I don’t love the weird model ears turned into gills bit, but otherwise, stellar. It’s even got a great texture. That said, once I got past the fish and looked at the model it was like… meh. The model is solidly painted blue. Again I get it’s in the theme of dying in the water, but it’s weird and not ghostly, it’s cartoony and needed more depth to have any affect. The wig piece in the fish’s teeth is a cute effect but the wig iw a weird unnatural color, especially in contrast with the blue skin. Also other than the wig in the teeth, there is no interaction between the model’s face and the fish, it could have used a cut or something since the 2 elements of the design aren’t really integrated. It is really cute and memorable though so I’ll give him credit there. Memorable cures a lot of sins in my book.
Melissa was limited from the get-go, since no matter what she did her design was probably going to be reminiscent of Sally from the Nightmare Before Christmas. That said I wish she had incorporated stitching instead of pins, since the pins don’t read from a distance and the choice to make them comically oversized isn’t really doing a lot for the overall design. The blue paint is less monochromatic than other designers had so that’s good, and I like her veining in reaction to the pins, but overall it’s just a really superficial concept that lacks the twist or wryness I associate with whimsy. I feel like she missed a chance to sew a quilt to half her model’s face or do something with yarn. Again, it’s decently executed, I just hate the concept, and I accept this was a crazy time restricted week so she had to go with what she came up with. I’m still gonna pout.
I’m happy with Rob. I like his concept and it came out pretty good. However, if you’re gonna do the monochromatic greyscale, you have to NAIL it, and he didn’t get it perfect. You can see flesh tones through the tights, and in the corner of the models eyes. It’s just enough to diminish the overall effect for me. Anyway, I think he did a literal interpretation of the obituary, but adding the time and location twist to it really made it memorable and fun. THAT is how you do whimsical my friends, the devil is in the details.
Reminder, THIS is how you do Greyscale like a boss #anyexcuseforthispicture
Mel’s piece is bad. I love Mel but the front-butt is a really weird anatomical piece that doesn’t make sense. Her facial prosthetic has a wrinkle and the paint job is muddy and nonsensical. I don’t know how to explain it, like some of the details are great – I like the twisted flesh showing through the ski jacket tear, and the weird tiny lips, but they also don’t help the big picture and a lot of the choices just feel confused and rushed. She knows.
Robert’s look is… inoffensive? It just seems like a lot less compared to what his competition did, but this week i think forgettable will do better than bad. He stuck to human flesh tones and only added dark circles around the eyes. There’s some veining and electrical burns. There’s a rubber duckie and soap resting on the model’s chest. I’m not sure how I feel honestly. I like Robert, but he has issues every week, especially on teams, and this isn’t really doing anything to demonstrate to me that he’s much more than decent. It’s competent, but not crazy creative and not amazingly executed, it’s mediocre all over and I wanted it to be more.
I hate Walter’s clown. Hate it for so many reasons. I hate seeing another damn clown, it didn’t have to be a clown, but fine. The knives have a lot of issues and are weirdly placed in ways that don’t make sense. It tried too hard to avoid gore so it’s weirdly unlifelike to have all of those random pieces sticking out of the face. I hate the weird blacked out teeth. I hate to weird paint job where the face doesn’t match the neck. It’s a case of a lack of inspiration leading to a really halfhearted design.
Anna’s look is fine. The greenish-grey is one of the better functioning paint jobs, it’s cartoony but not overkill (heh.) It’s inoffensive but not memorable.
I feel like overall, these characters are all background characters, none of them would work on a lead. As I said repeatedly, I think the time restraints played a big part in this, as well as everyone’s inexplicable fear of whimsy, but it was a rough week. The designers all clearly know it was a rough week so I’ll try not to hammer too hard here.
The judges deliberate. Anna, Robert and Walter are safe. Time for the painful chat with the judges.
Mel explains her bodytwist concept and confesses she overstepped her capabilities. Glenn agrees and says she lost too much time on the body. Ve says the makeup looks like a kitten or dog and the whole thing is a flop. Neville says there’s no payoff for all that work. Mel looks like she’s screaming on the inside but takes it like a champ. Ugh. She’s such a perfectionist I’m shocked she didn’t explode, but hopefully it just means she’ll bounce back next week. She can’t go home for this, right? RIGHT?!!!!
Johnny’s up, Ve immediately asks about the disappearing eyebrow. Johnny says the porcupine stole it. Heh. Neville says the quills take away from the punchline of the stampede and it’s all weird with no focus. Glenn says it’s not ghostly or whimsical so it’s a huge miss. Johnny is aware of the problems and nods a lot.
Yvonne is up. Nevile says her character is creepy but also funny so it’s a success. He says there’s a sense of movement in the design that worked well. Neville likes the color (really?!?!) and the drill. Ve says he would work in Beetlejuice and is a success.
Rob is up. I swear his model has blue eyes and that’s killing me. Maybe they’re grey contacts but they feel like there’s color there. She needs black contacts maybe? I got nothing. Anyway, Glenn likes the story and thinks it’s successful to the challenge but he wishes the cut on the stomach was more dramatic. Ve likes the greyscale makeup. Neville says he should have gone bigger, but it was an excellent job that was only a little bit too subtle.
Kaleb is up, Ve says the fish on his head looks like an elf hat. She hates the blue paint job. Neville asks what kind of fish it is. Kaleb says it was based off an angler. Neville says he should have used the little angler buoy as part of the design, it would have been funny. Oh Neville you’re adorable. Glenn says it was a great concept but the execution fell apart.
The judges deliberate. The winner this week is… Yvonne. I wish the judges had more of an issue with the paint job but otherwise I’m fine with it.
The person going home this week is… Johnny. Is there going to be a judges save? Maybe? I liked Johnny. Let me hold my breath…. Nope, he says his goodbyes and is out the door.
Honestly, Johnny was growing on me, so I’m bummed to see him go as we whittle it down and start to actually get to know the remaining contestants. But so it goes, bye Johnny.
So what did you guys think? Did this episode feel anemic and slow to you? As always leave your thoughts in the comments, I’ll see you there.