Previously on Face Off – The Gauntlet! Only in a way better format than last year! Kaleb went home and we’re trucking along breaking my heart week after week seeing artists I love go home. Thus is the world of a recapper!
We open with the designers walking up to a really tiny castle (it’s basically the size of a McMansion in any suburb).
Dear sweet camera guy, no amount of forced perspective is going to fix this…
I live in Potomac (of Real Housewives of Potomac fame – don’t worry, I live in a comically tiny unassuming house) and every other house on my street is bigger and more garish than this architectural oddity, but sure, let’s all pretend to be impressed (now if it had a moat, I would get excited). The castle door opens and a bunch of female models in fantasy outfits line up. This week’s spotlight challenge is to take an evil sorceress and turn her into her true monstrous persona not masked with beauty by magic.
Designers pick, assignments are:
Rob – The Dragon Queen
Yvonne – Corpse Conjurer
Melissa – The Wiccan of the Woods
Anna – Shadow Enchantress
Robert – Sea Witch
Mel – Temptress of the Flame
Walter – Emerald Empress
The designers sit around the castle grounds to sketch, god forbid they be allowed inside the fancy ‘castle’ (YOU HEATHENS CANNOT HAVE NICE THINGS!). Everyone awkwardly kneels in the dirt and chats to the camera about their designs. Fun.
Back to the workroom, everyone gets started and the Westmore’s arrive for their walkthrough. As they make their rounds I have to say this is the first week I’m actually excited about every design, I think we finally hit the point where even the weakest remaining contestants are still a level of ‘solid consistent worker’ so there (hopefully) won’t be any major flops on the runway. Aw I love that point every season, where it’s finally about aesthetics and conceptual design and not so much about basic technical skills. Phew. (Also I feel like everyone stepped it up and is doing more work start to finish- there are a LOT more prosthetics and appliances than we’ve seen the last few solo weeks). Did the judges give them a pep-talk to push it more? Whatever, we all benefit either way.
Yvonne teaches Mel a technique of melting vacu-form plastic with a heat gun. It’s REALLY FUCKING COOL and despite a steep learning curve Mel figures out how to make it work in her design (without a panic attack or meltdown, hallelujah!)
End of day 1, no drama everyone is happy with their designs.
Start of day 2. Mel helps Yvonne with human anatomy. Rob helps Walter with his overall design. I say it every season but I love the selflessness of this show, everyone seems to help everyone else come up with the best possible design and to me, that means everyone wins (A whole cast with kickass portfolios by the finale? Hell yes.) My cranky old lady heart is in a puddle. Aw.
End of day 2. It seems crazy labor intensive, I’m exhausted just watching them.
Day 3. Mel uses latex and coffee grounds to make charred flesh. Megan the model speaks for all of us.
Never change Megan.
Last looks comes and goes, EVERYONE seems panicked and I have a feeling a lot of finishing details didn’t make the cut. With that it’s time for the runway.
Slight note – in the comments there’s a theme that everyone is bummed there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for beauty makeups this season. I kind of feel like this challenge was a missed opportunity to have 2 models – one with beauty makeup and one with monster makeup. Yeah I’m yelling at my TV, don’t act like you can’t hear me producers!
Rob is up first with a Dragon Queen. Technically I like the sculpt, and the paint job looks complete. That said I have some conceptual issues – the only thing dragon is the horns, the rest reads more goblin. I especially don’t like the shape of the nose and the ears. I also think it’s odd he stuck with human flesh tones which contrast with the fantasy element of the horns – I wish he either made horns that felt more like growths on a human form, or that he had made the face more fantastical (most likely with a paint job with more reds or greens). The back is much better, I love the spine and the feel of scales that could also be moles – I wish he had carried some of that over to the face. Overall I feel like it’s technically competent, but needed more of a unifying thread.
Yvonne’s piece is unusual – I HATE how it reads from a distance since it feels campy and cliché, but up close it’s really stunning. I especially love the teeth – it feels like CGI-style achieved in a practical effect and that always impresses me. That said I think the paint job needed a little more detailing (it looks like a bad pinterest contouring job with too much bronze and white, and I think it needed a little more blending and maybe some more gray or purple to balance it? I can’t quite put my finger on it). I want to see the neck piece up close, I’m not fully getting spine from it (I wish it had the pointed spikes that a spine has, but she had access to a skeleton and I don’t right now so maybe it’s more anatomically correct than I realize). My other big complaint is the hairline, it messes with the proportion of the model’s head and makes the top of the skull feel oversized. Still, I think it’s a really original concept and she nailed it, which is cool to see.
Anna’s design feels a little generic and derivative – I assume in part since it went after 2 really creative and unexpected designs. I’m getting some of the bone structure of Malificent (and maybe Hades from Disney’s Hercules) with a muddy cowl that feels like it lacks definition or purpose. Parts of the sculpt are a little ragged which unfortunately the paint job highlights, especially around the lips. Also there’s really hyper contoured cheek bones, but it’s paired with a REALLY wide and round jaw, which feels disproportionate and unnatural. Also, why no eyebrows? I think if this was a cartoon, it would work better, but in real life it just feels… uninspired and a little sloppy. Again to be clear – this is not BAD, we are at the level on this show where everything is pretty damn good, but it feels comparatively weaker than the competition both in concept and execution.
Melissa made the Borg queen re-incarnated as a tree. It’s… Hrm. Ok throughout this episode Melissa kept talking about certain choices she was making – and that due to the time restrictions each choice she would ‘have to be good enough’ and I think she’s a victim of one too many compromises. She has a lot of cool elements, but none of them executed AMAZINGLY, they’re all just… ok. And I can’t help but think if she had just dropped one or 2 of those design elements and focused her energy on what remained, the overall impact would be so much better. As it is we have tree knots that feel soft and not thoroughly carved out. The wood texture really isn’t there, the ‘vines’ need more shaping and painting, and the overall paintjob is really rough and needed at least another hour to smooth out. It’s too many tricks thrown out at once, and none of them really demonstrated how talented Melissa actually is. So yeah, this is a rough one for me. Melissa thinks it looks great, other than the wardrobe (which admittedly is bad, but I do NOT think it was the only problem with the look).
Mel’s look is REALLY striking. It’s memorable and stylized but functional. That said, I think it’s really more of a ‘stage’ makeup than a ‘film’ makeup. The horns look amazing in profile, but head on feel a little odd in how they shape the side of the model’s head. I also with she had more time for the beauty makeup since it’s just contoured cheeks and I think it almost takes away from some of the personality she created through the burned flesh and horns, it’s weirdly a letdown. I also hate the transition from forehead piece to nose – it makes the nose feel really fake and… Michal Jackson-y? Again these are nitpicks, in general this is really cool, I just wish she had a little more time to hone in on the details. Also, this is another design with no eyebrows. Since when is that a trademark of evil queens and witches?
#BrowsonFleek
Robert’s design doesn’t entirely make sense to me. I almost wish he’d leaned in and made an entire fish face. Instead he bifurcated the face and made one side ‘fish’ and the other ‘fish-lite’ and it feels… incomplete? The fish side I LOVE the eyes and the little flipper, it’s a little cartoony but interesting, and I especially like the spikes. The teeth are weird (especially since fish don’t usually have human shaped teeth. Except for this little guy, you’re welcome).
Enjoy the nightmares!
Also the eel he made as a prop feels impotent, I wish he’d run a wire through it or something to better pose it, since having it flop around from a trident seems more depressing than intimidating.
Walter’s Emerald Empress has a lot of elements I like. I dig the jewels in the skin and I think the sculpt on the head and shoulder piece is really cool. That said my issues are: There is a LOT of exposed arm skin – that could be a case of wardrobe screwing him, but having all that skin with no emeralds in it feels weird and doesn’t make sense. On the face I don’t love the cracking, around the mouth. I think it made sense on the forehead and around the eyes, but with the lips it’s nonsensical since there are no emeralds there cracking the skin. I HATE the paint job – the emeralds are day-glow green, and the skin is chalk white, except for a literal triangle of skin from the nose to the mouth, which is pink/beige. I think he’ll be safe since it’s clearly an amazing sculpt that ran out of time to paint, but I wish I could have seen his actual vision executed.
The judges deliberate, Mel, Melissa and Walter are safe.
Yvonne is first – Glenn loves her design, especially the subtlety of her airbrushing skills. Neville thinks she pulled off something really difficult to achieve – combining the skeletal elements and a beauty makeup.
Robert explains his elaborate backstory for his character. I zone out, sorry Robert. Ve hates the mid-transition design of the face and wishes he’d done the whole face in the fish style (preach). Neville suggests he should have opted for a gill effect rather than a finn. (eh either way it was going to veer into ‘creature from the black lagoon’).
Anna is aware of all of the flaws in her design and is up front about it. Neville says the whole look is too cliché and asymmetrical. Glenn says the overall look feels confused. Ve says it all fell apart when she decided to cover her model’s ears since it messed up the proportions. Huh, good insight.
Rob is up, Glenn loves the details and restraint. Ve really likes the spine and only wishes the face was more feminine.
The judges deliberate and hit the nail on the head with Robert – they say he feels like the class clown of the show, he’s talented but goofing off to much and not showcasing all of his skills. Man that is exactly my issue, he’s not BAD, but his work could be BETTER if he focused, and that’s frustrating.
The winner this week is… Rob. Given the amount of work he did, I think that’s fair.
The person going home this week is… Anna. Yeah it’s the right call, she had a bad week, and I don’t think that takes away from any of the good stuff we’ve seen from her. That said I hope Robert got chastised by the judges for his lack of focus, I REALLY want to see him really nail something while he’s on the show and justify being more than just a goofy German.
So what did you all think? As always leave your thoughts in the comments, I’ll see you there!