On this week’s “Face Off,” the remaining makeup artists jumped right into the main event, creating subterranean creatures inspired by different “sets” in tunnels. Before the hour was over, one of the veterans found himself in the bottom three due to a technical error, causing fans great dismay that one of their favorites might go home. And a controversial front-runner seemed to be emerging, although it prompted much debate among viewers. Which shouldn’t be so surprising with so many great makeups coming out of the workroom each week.
Concept artist and sculptor Jordu Schell (“Avatar,” “Hellboy”) guest judged this week, and this was the first individual challenge for the artists, so for better or worse, the newbies had to stand on their own. But it was a veteran who found himself in big trouble.
Roy had been taken to task many times when he was on the show before for trying to go too big for the time allowed and his elaborate fabrications. The first three episodes in this season, he focused on makeup, turning in some great looks.
Well, he got a little itchy again this week, it seems. He decided he was going to do an octopus-like creature, and create a mold to anchor the tentacles… for the whole length of the torso. In one massive 500 pound mold.
As judge Ve Neill would say, “Oh, honey….”
Well, if you think that’s crazy, this is even crazier: His mold worked. And then he filled it with poly-foam. Or, as he discovered too late, rigid foam.
For the average armchair makeup artist, that doesn’t mean anything. But for professional special effects makeup artists and fans who have already seen the show, that’s a collective “Oh, shit!” you just heard. The rigid foam hardened almost immediately and couldn’t be removed, rendering the mold useless.
Roy still had a face piece but scrambled to put something else together. Something besides “a head on a robe” as he put it. Although a head on a robe might have been better. It was downright painful to watch him go through judging, knowing how substandard his final look was. And while the judges understood what happened, as Glenn Hetrick pointed out, they had to judge him on what was put in front of them. His only hope for salvation was if someone messed things up worse.
Someone up above was looking out for Roy it seems, or someone down below must have been out to get poor Adolpho. The first thing I thought when I saw his orange head was “Halloween mask,” which is exactly what the judges called it. When us amateurs can even see it, things aren’t going well for you.
Likewise, when elements of your makeup are likened to Fruity Pebbles cereal… you’re not having a good day. Scott’s makeup earned him the third bottom spot of the night.
Roy seemed to get the harshest criticisms, perhaps because he was the only veteran in the bottom, and the judges have such high expectations from him, possibly even more than some other veterans. Having said that, it goes a long way with judges when you know how bad it is, and taking yourself to task certainly doesn’t hurt. When Glenn told Roy he was not pleased with his work this week despite the understandable explanation with the mold disaster, Roy didn’t just accept the criticism, but joined in.
It’s hard to polish a turd. It really is.
“You said it,” said judge Neville Page, as Ve giggled. But watching Roy’s suffering was anything but funny, even on a second watch, knowing the outcome. It’s hard to watch someone have to present work they know isn’t remotely up to their standards when you know how much pride they take in doing good work and how damn talented they are.
But the judges saved him for another day, and Adolpho went home.
For the top looks, Miranda scored her third challenge win out of four weeks for her mole creature. The makeup was great with a nice subtle paint job, but many fans felt Frank’s toothy monster was better, sparking some cries of favoritism on the Facebook site. Still, others wanted to know why Tate had been overlooked again with his amazing and complex sea kelp, crustacean monster (one of the sets had an underwater theme.)
Call me crazy, but the fact that Tate didn’t even make top looks and seems to be getting overlooked smells a bit like the show trying to make him an underdog to keep some suspense going, when he is clearly one of — if not the — frontrunner as far as consistently knocking it out of the park. He always comes up with great designs and never bites off more than he can chew. And he makes it look effortless every week, or at least the editing does.
If you don’t think they practice some deception like this, just note how they always try to fool is in the cuts to commercials by making it look like the people who end up in the bottom are being complimented and vice versa. When I saw the episode promo where it looked like they were praising Eric, I knew he was going home that week, and he did. I am so on to you, Syfy.
So, anyway, if you are considering a betting pool at this point, I would hands down put Tate in the final three, with two of the following rounding it out: Miranda, Laura or Roy. Frank possibly if he starts doing work like this every week, but consistency is key also. And not putting rigid foam in your molds.
Ahem.
Some newcomers to watch though include Laney. It’s been apparent in the first group challenges she has the eye for interesting design and a great aesthetic, but with veterans backing her up previously, her technical abilities were still questionable. Her creepy look this week was pretty strong and it looks like she can execute. So far, anyway. And another interesting newcomer makeup was Lyma, who has taken her harsh airbrushing lesson to heart and toned it down to much better effect. Well done.
On Tuesday’s episode of “Face Off,” teams of three had to create a modern take on Frankenstein and his bride, with some super cool results. And a few misses, of course. But this time they mixed up the veterans and the newbies to even things out a bit, although one power team stood out above the rest.
This week the challenge tied to a promotion of the upcoming film, “I, Frankenstein.” The great thing this week, though, was the writer and producer of the movie — who also wrote and created the “Underworld” series — was the guest judge. Better yet, I discovered Kevin Grevioux was also the actor who played the very big, intimidating werewolf in the first film. And best of all, that’s really how his voice sounds.
Who knew? (Well, probably everyone but me, but it was news to me.)
Not surprisingly, the team that seemed to work best together was Team Estrogen, with Laura, Alana, and rookie Laney collaborating. They all seem to have a similar theme in their aesthetics… that sort of glamorous horror. And it served them well here with a “beautiful” bride — by horror standards, anyway — despite dealing with a mold crack.
“Keep calm and fill up that crack” should be the motto of every makeup artist.
Another team that had molding issues was Miranda, Samantha, and Eddie. Miranda wasn’t quite so calm when there were problems with the nose getting stuck in one mold, and was less than thrilled about working with two rookies on her team, but kept her cool with her teammates. But they did get called to task for the obvious “Borg” references by Grevioux, and I thought the bride was sort of reminiscent of an old Bob Fosse number. But not in a good way.
Tate, Lyma, and RJ didn’t get angry with each other despite artistic differences but definitely didn’t work together well. Naturally, newbies want to project confidence and stand up for their work, but when you’re working with someone as insanely talented as Tate, you need to be listening to his advice. When he tells you aren’t painting correctly, you ain’t painting correctly, sister.
But Lyma insisted on doing her very unrealistic airbrush painting. To his credit, Tate was as calm and direct as he could be, especially when she started painting on his Frankenstein cowl.
“Let’s stop that, please. I mean, I love you girl, but I think we got different philosophies about paint.” And when she returned to her own bride cowl, he chimed in a bit later to let her know she was painting too dark, which she immediately brushed off. “My eyes work, it’s dark… it’s black.”
And then he dropped it and let her hear it from the judges later, namely Ve Neill. Sometimes you just have to let people hang themselves and focus on yourself, even in a team effort. Wise decision.
Rookies Scott and Adolfo butted heads, but veteran Roy held the team together, with another strong look, although Glenn Hetrick was pretty tough on them, criticizing Roy’s Frankenstein for being “top heavy,” although it looked pretty good to everyone else. He’s tough, that one.
For top looks tonight, the judges decided only one team qualified: Laura, Alana, and Laney. And since Alana sculpted the bride’s face they loved so much, she was the overall winner.
Samantha made the bottom three for the “bulbous” design of her team’s bride head cowl that “didn’t make any sense, according to Hetrick. Also for not painting the hands correctly or finishing the tubing going into them.
Veteran Eric found himself in the bottom because of the eye sculpting that made him look “bewildered” per Hetrick, and not finishing his part of applying rivets to the forehead.
And Lyma made the bottom for not listening to Tate and doing that off-strip, Vegas-show airbrush job. “Are you primarily a body painter?” asked Neill. “It s very evident in this makeup. It doesn’t look organic, it looks blown on.”
In the end, Samantha had too many mistakes and had to pack up her makeup kit. So far the veterans are still there, but how long will they last? And who do you think will be the first to fall?
Every reality TV contest has to up the ante from season to season, and Syfy’s “Face Off” added a twist to the special effects makeup contest by bringing back eight former contestants to face off (pun intended) with eight newbies this season. In the premiere Tuesday, they even divided them up into two teams of vets vs rookies, which just wasn’t fair.
But hey, someone’s head has to roll, right?
The series kickoff introduced the newbies at a masked reception party, and the eight souls had a big surprise when McKenzie Westmore asked the other eight cast members to come out: The eight vets had been mingling in the crowd with masks on.
As you can imagine, the newbies were less than enthused.
The vets jumped out right away with the first challenge to pick one of the reception guests and create a makeup to go with their costumes. Three looks stood out above the others: Laura Tyler’s Underworld Queen, Roy Wooley’s incredible caricature makeup, and Tate Steinsiek’s Evil Princess makeup. While all were amazing, Tate won the challenge, although I thought Roy’s character, who looked like he was an animated sketch, was stunningly original.
But one thing was clear even on this first challenge for immunity… this season’s competition is going to be fierce. And epic.
So they went on to the big challenge were the contestants were split up into two teams: Vets vs rookies. Each team of eight had to create five classic fantasy characters: the ogre, the witch, the troll, the faun and the pixie, with all belonging in the same fantasy world.
Both the ogre characters took more than one team member, and both with seriously ugly results. The bad kind of ugly, unfortunately. Proportions were off on both team’s creations, putting both sets of artists on the potential chopping block. But with a huge win for the vets overall (surprise, surprise) the vets ogre team was safe. That left Eddie Holecko and Steve Tolin with their feet to the fire. But one other rookie team member — Adolfo Barreto Rivera — found himself in hot water when he had many technical problems with cracking molds and was barely able to even get his prosthetics in place before the last hour. So he only had one hour to try to do all his painting.
To his credit, Adolfo knew he hadn’t done his best work. The same couldn’t be said for the other two artists, and Tolin, in particular, who rated it a 7.5 out of 10 when asked. To say judge Glenn Hetrick didn’t agree… well, you could feel the collective cringe in the room when Tolin gave him that answer.
“I find it hard to get behind any decision you made with this makeup, at all,” said Glenn, in typically blunt fashion. And ultimately, Tolin, who had sculpted the head of the ogre, was sent home.
On the good side, Alana Schiro and Miranda Jory’s pixie collaboration was gorgeously sinister and technically sound, earning them the top look and Miranda the win for the day. Another standout this week came from a rookie team: Laney Parkhurst and Rick Prince’s faun was a top look and contender for the win, which means these two rookies may be ones to watch, despite Rick’s less than stunning performance on the immunity challenge. But they held their own in week one against the vets, so keep an eye on them.
Tate’s baby-eating troll and Laney and Rick’s faun.
Face Off airs Tuesday nights on Syfy. Check back for weekly recaps and photos from each episode.
Tuesday’s episode of “Face Off” on Syfy was a bit… surprising. Contestants picked some abstract art and were surprised to find it was details of various bugs. Judges were surprised to have to disqualify the true winner for this week’s challenge. And we were all surprised that one of the front runners — perhaps the frontrunner — found himself in the bottom looks this week. Check out my full recap at Examiner.com, and here are some great photos, as well as the morphs video.
On Tuesday’s episode of “Face Off,” one entry actually made judge Glenn Hetrick smile. The world as we know it shall never be the same. For a full recap, check out my article on Examiner.com. Below are some images of the final makeups from the episode:
