Podcast interview with Eric Fox of ‘Face Off’

Here are both parts of my recent podcast chat with Eric Fox of Season4 of “Face Off.” He gave updates on what he has been doing since the show — or some updates anyway, as some big things are coming he can’t talk about just yet. But I can tell you he does give a definitive answer on whether he’ll be coming back to “Face Off.” And, he gives some advice to an aspiring makeup artists out there.


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‘Face Off’ recap: And the winner is…

Even before Tuesday night’s finale on “Face Off,” seeing the previews that the final challenge involved ballet, I went in thinking it would be Laura who won. I love Roy and Tate, but those big brutes creating makeups for “Swan Lake?”

Or, as Roy said more succinctly, “Oh, crap. Ballet.”

Hmmm… that challenge sure seems geared to Laura’s wheelhouse of elegant, beautifully painted makeups. But was I right or did one of the boys show they could pull it off and take home the top prize? Well read on…

Like on previous season finales, former contestants came back to help out with the final creations, although only six returned for the finale, split between the veterans and the newbies. Then the finalists had to choose their teams: Tate chose Alana and Lyma, Laura chose Miranda and Eddie, and Roy picked Scott and Frank.

Each team had to create the maiden in mid-transformation to swan and the evil sorcerer, with four days and two assistants. Laura’s theme for her makeup was the Italian Renaissance. (Boy, there’s a match made in heaven.) Roy chose the Ming Dynasty, and Tate chose the Industrial Revolution, which could give his makeups a harder edge to balance the girly concept of ballet.

Yep, that could work. But can the horror guy keep the makeup beautiful and not go too far into horror?  Uh… yeah. See below.

Meanwhile Roy still seemed to be psyched out about the fact that it was a ballet makeup, and not having any ideas for concepts. Even after Frank chimed in to get the team started with some ideas about incorporating alchemy, he was struggling to lead his team. Then he had problems with cracks in the molds, putting him behind more.

Tate seemed to be a little more tense than usual, and while he maintained his patience, he commented that Lyma needed to stop thinking for herself and follow his delegation more.  He gave his team very specific directions, but his team faced another disaster when the inside of one of his molds was full of holes. Tate scrambled to try to save his maiden mold as there was no time to redo it, and as a consequence, he was unable to finish his sorcerer mold that day.

Tate was not a happy camper.

Meanwhile, Laura made sure she gave Miranda a strict timeline of three hours to finish her cowl sculpt. Very good idea, Laura. But it had some serious seam issues causing a loss of about an hour to correct. But Team Laura seemed to be running pretty smoothly. And Laura, crafty veteran that she is, covered some of the seams with a beautiful multiple-row pearl choker that covered the whole neck. Smart way to cover those glitches, and cool in its own right.

Then Roy’s team seemed to start pulling it together and getting a lot done. Not too surprising given the position he found himself in last week, but he managed to hold it together and pull things out.

Likewise, Tate’s team came together, or at least seemed to from the edit of the show, and we didn’t see any temper tantrums from Tate. But who are we kidding… can you really imagine him or Roy or Laura going diva at this point? Rhetorical question.

Now, Tate wasn’t completely out of the woods yet, as he still has almost all his painting to do during final looks. So that was not good. And Roy was still trying to put on feathers… Yet the veterans came through and got all their work done and were ready to go. All that Tate was still sweating was whether or not the latex crown would stay intact throughout the dancers’ performances.

The dancers in makeup put on a breathtaking performance for a full audience, including the former contestants: Scott and Frank wore hats like Roy’s to pay homage to their team leader. There were no major makeup mishaps noted during the performance, but hard telling what may have been knocked loose her messed up during the performance before the judges moved in to take a closer look.

Judge Glenn Hetrick loved how Roy’s couple worked together but noted that the transition between feathers and skin on his swan maiden could’ve been a little smoother.  Neville Page felt Roy had created his own iconic look, and “that’s one of the greatest things you can ask for in character design.”

Tate’s maiden had a stunning beauty makeup that made the judges gush, with all three expressing that they felt it was the best swan of the group, particularly Ve Neill. Page lauded his bold choices that created “exceptionally strong characters” and “unique silhouettes.” But Hetrick felt his sorcerer makeup needed to reflect a bit more of the architecture of the Industrial Revolution.

But oh man, Laura’s makeups were beautiful and immaculately detailed as always. That evil sorcerer… evil but oh-so-elegant. The judges felt the maiden could use some more feathers on her head because it was a bit “helmet-y,” but otherwise loved it. And you knew Hetrick would just soil himself at that Italian Renaissance makeup, noting the “savage grace” of the designs and that when her dancers took the spotlight, it was the highlight of the dance performance. But let’s face it, he’s loved Laura all season.

After the judges took a closer look, I was thinking it was down to Tate and Laura, as Roy’s was rock solid, but not quite reaching the “wow factor” of the other two. But I was still leaning towards Laura: Her two makeups were equally mind-blowing, whereas Tate’s sorcerer was just a little too weak. More “derelict” than sorcerer, according to Hetrick.

So the makeup artists had make-upped, the dancers had danced, the judges had judged and all that was left was announcing the winner. And the winner of Season 5 of “Face Off” is…. cut to commercial. Finally, at the finale, I remember that they’re gonna cut to commercial right before they announce the winner.  Just in time to forget that again before the next season rolls around in January.

But anyway… the true winner is, without any further ado, without any further dragging this out in anticipation so that you’re just saying would you please tell us already instead of just rambling on and delaying the moment just give it to us already girl stop playing games…

Laura.

But don’t feel too bad for Tate, who is directing his first feature film as we speak (including his pal Norman Reedus), and even Roy didn’t seem too disappointed at the loss. “Sometimes you have to eat your cake without icing, but it’s still cake.”

Indeed.

Judging from the previews for the next season, it looks like not only is “Face Off” going bigger, but they’re going international and doing a little traveling. It’s sorta like “America’s Next Top Model” without the douchey drama, and with way cooler contestants, host, and judges.

Eat your heart out, Tyra.

See y’all for the next season of Syfy’s “Face Off,” which debuts in January 2014.

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‘Face Off’ recap: And then there were three

Face Off” finally whittled the competition down Tuesday night to three finalists who will compete for the final win and grand prize next week. Four veterans did their take on exotic birds and “Fantasies of Flight” in a real clash of the titans of makeup artists to determine who would continue in the competition. But one had to go home, just short of their shot at the grand prize they sacrificed so much to fight for.

After last week’s controversial ending, with no one going home despite a very unfinished makeup from Miranda, Laney’s voluntary departure ended up being the only artist going home for the week, clearly saving Miranda. The crazy thing is, Miranda has done so well all season, but as things progressed the last few weeks, she seemed to sort of psych herself out. Perhaps being so close to the prize got her in the wrong headspace, but she suddenly started having a terrible time making decisions and getting her work done.

Even after last week’s fiasco — which even she admitted her model did as much work on as she did — Miranda started off the spotlight challenge again spending too much time sculpting her head piece.

As bystanders and armchair makeup artists, none of us fully understand the pressure these contestants go through, and I always try to be kind, but I found myself wanting to have a Cher moment from the movie “Moonstruck…” I just wanted to smack her and say “Snap out of it!”

I don’t mean that in a mean way. Really. But even as a fan, it’s frustrating to see somebody blowing their chance. Miranda’s human and silvery-cheeked hornbill hybrid was a lot more sparse in design than the other three contestants from the get-go, so she already set herself up at a disadvantage for judging.

Tate chose the Egyptian vulture. Golly, that’s a big surprise… the horror guy taking a vulture. Tate has spent the whole season being Mr. Cool, helping other people while pulling off these huge elaborate concepts and makeups without getting stressed or losing his composure.  And he never seemed to be pressed for time except when a hand injury put him a little behind.

But tonight we got to see Tate a little more stressed out. He decided not only to do a huge elaborate sculpture but to integrate the feathers into it individually, in the mold itself. I know that’s not a good description but you’ll be able to see in the photos what I mean. It was an unreal amount of work, and this is the first time we’ve seen him show any doubt or waiver at all in his decision-making in the work room.

“You can go big, but you have to finish your work or the judges will send you home,” he said.

(Well, unless another contestant voluntarily leaves that same week.)

Laura had a cockatoo for her bird of choice. She wanted to give it some character so she decided to make it an aged version of the bird. She’s another one that usually stays very cool and collected and is known for staying composed and getting an insane amount of work done in very short time frames. But as she was doing her feathers, she realized they were taking a lot more time than she anticipated, so she was starting to worry about running out of time as well.

Laura is kind of the one that flies under the radar as far as the final TV edit. She doesn’t get into a lot of drama, or a lot of fuss… she just hunkers down and gets her work done and does the most immaculate paint jobs. She has been one of the most consistent contestants all season, and it carried her to the finals her last time around on the show.

What I’m trying to say is, if it seems like I don’t give her a lot of coverage, it’s because every week is just “Laura did another great makeup.” I’m having a hard time thinking of creative ways to rephrase it. Screw up every now and then, would you, girl? Just a little bit so there’s something to comment on, but not enough to get eliminated.

Speaking of which, was there anyone watching the show whose heart didn’t just sink when Roy dropped and broke the back part of his mold? He had suffered one other technical disaster early in the season, and barely escaped elimination. But that was when there were a ton of rookies still in the field, and plenty of people that could do worse than him.

Now, maybe I’m biased because I’m an old fart compared to most, which is to say, I’m the same age as Roy. But that moment was what defines the makeup artists that make it, and the makeup artist that don’t.

As soon as that mold fell, Roy felt his chances of going to the finale were shattered along with the bottom of that mold. “I may as well go home and pack my bags right now,” he said. And it did look hopeless. But instead of freaking out, or crying, or running to someone else to tell him what to do, Roy just took a few moments and collected himself.

And then he decided he was going to make this motherfucker work.

So he put a support on it with wood and Tate helped him flip it over to assess the damages. And instead of giving up, Roy jumped in to salvage what he could and patch it the best he could.

Having said all that, I definitely disagreed with his choice of the camouflage pants. He felt that some kind of a human and bird hybrid would be in the military serving some kind of surveillance function, I believe. I’m really not sure what the story was, but the camouflage pants were just weird. I have to confess I was shocked that no one in the judging panel nor Michael Westmore said anything about those camouflage pants. At least nothing was said in the final edit for TV.

After watching all the crap Roy went through, though, watching Miranda continue to fret over whether or not she could get all of her work done was starting to work my last nerve. She had basically a headpiece and some feathers on the arms. Everyone else did full body makeups except, well, Roy had a half-body makeup with those silly camouflage pants. But he had a full set of wings, not just a few feathers on top of his model’s arms.

When they went to final looks, and they showed Miranda asking her model to paint some of his hands, that was it for me. I believe I actually said to the TV something to the effect of “Are you seriously [BLEEP] kidding me?”

The judges critiques this week seemed much less harsh than last week. But they did have little things to pick out on almost all the makeups. On Roy’s, they hated the black squiggly lines around the eyes. Which did look kind of funny, but they didn’t seem to mind the pants so hey, they know better than me. On Laura’s they loved her aged makeup and another very nice paint job, but they did point out that the body seemed kinda bulky, which was sort of my critique of it. Maybe I’m just so used to Laura’s makeups being really elegant even when the subject matter is dark, so I was wishing it had a sleeker body. On Miranda’s they pointed out the very monotone paint job on the headpiece, but Glenn Hetrick did touch on the point that it was a “bad time to be phoning it in and ending up in the safe zone. I mean, the challenge is so much bigger than that.”

Pretty much the only criticism they came up with on Tate was that perhaps, perhaps, the paint job was a little muddy from a distance. So it was no surprise that Tate was crowned the winner of this challenge, and the first finalist.

Next, the judges announced that Laura would be the second finalist, leaving Roy and Miranda vying for the final spot.

To be honest, without a complete screw-up by Roy this week, it’s doubtful that Miranda could’ve overcome the disaster of the prior week. And because Roy held it together, and still salvaged a very nice makeup, he earned the third spot in the finale. This will be his first time making it to the finals, unlike Laura and Tate on their previous seasons.

So that means Miranda went home and certainly condolences are in order, but congratulations as well for making it so far. When Miranda was on the show before, she went home very early… In fact, I think she might’ve been the first to go home? But anyway, she went very far this season and did some really beautiful makeups. So live and learn and keep going. Have some faith in yourself and you’ll get there!

So that’s it, we’re down to the final three and the finale of “Face Off” is next Tuesday night on Syfy. Check out the gallery for some behind the scenes photos and all the finished looks this week.

‘Face Off’ recap: A barrel of laughs

Tuesday night’s episode of “Face Off” provided a little comic relief, as contestants got to create a scary — but funny — makeup for the spotlight challenge. With only six makeup artists left, competition is getting fierce, and only two rookies started this episode. So was it a veteran or a rookie that went home Tuesday night?

You don’t really think I’m gonna tell you that right at the beginning, now do you?

But before we got to the spotlight challenge, the six remaining had to create a Grim Reaper makeup look for guest judge, production designer Patrick Tatopoulos. Tate and Laura had the top looks, although Eddie had a really interesting original reaper makeup as well. But it was Laura who came out on top again, creating a makeup with pre-made prosthetic pieces that looked seamless and custom. And for her efforts, she won immunity.

So then contestants moved on to the spotlight challenge, where they had to create a scary but funny ghost look inspired by the Laugh Factory, which is supposed to be haunted. Judge Ve Neill, the artist behind the classic “Beetlejuice” makeup, told them she wanted something “creepy and scary, but make him bitchin’ and fun guys.”

Some contestants had an easier time with this challenge than others. Laura struggled a little bit with trying to figure out how to work funny and scary together. Eddie was really struggling with developing a story for his character and ended up starting over from scratch at one point.

Tate, on the other hand, was having no trouble at all. Probably because the horror people usually have a sick sense of humor. Tate created a scalped cowboy character, Bone Cap Bill, complete with skeletal hobby horse.

“He might be the host of the children’s television show in the netherworld.”

Be glad this guy became a makeup artist and didn’t open a day care center. Just sayin’.

Actually, I have to kinda take that back. Because Tate demonstrated another common characteristic among hardcore horror fans that most people don’t realize… they’re big teddy bears. Once again, he saw Laney struggling with her wig to get an electroshock effect for her rock ‘n roll ghost, and the guy just couldn’t help himself… he had to help.

It’s who he is. And why fans love him so much, besides his obvious talent.

For the record, Laney reported on her twitter that she returned the favor by helping Tate with his hair for the judging process. And I mean his hair, not his makeup model’s hair. Do you suppose she’s also the one that painted his fingernails black?

Anyway, Roy absolutely had no trouble whatsoever coming up with the concept for this task.

After being in the bottom two last week, he let it be known at the beginning of the episode that he was coming out with guns a-blazing, and going back to his old method of big fabrication and big looks: Roy had been taken to task by judges for trying to do too much fabrication and not enough makeup in the past, and was tired of toeing the line.

Hell, yes.

Face Off - Season 5

Roy and his creation this week on “Face Off.”

And boy, did he deliver. Roy created a Vaudeville-inspired makeup that looked like one small person sitting on the shoulders of another. And the second character was hidden until the model opened the trench coat, like a pervy exhibitionist.

And that’s when things got crazy. Something happened that has never happened before on “Face Off.”

Judge Glenn Hetrick has gone completely bipolar on us as of this episode. The notoriously blunt  judge has actually been pretty tame all season, or at least tame for him, given some of the extremely harsh criticisms he’s dished out in the past. Well, tonight we saw him back in his old form of brutal critiques, but we also saw him… laughing.

Yes, you read that right. He not only smiled, he laughed. Out loud. I didn’t even know Hetrick could LOL. But I swear to you, it really happened, and I have the DVR proof.

I don’t know about you, but I say if anyone makes Hetrick laugh, the show is over for the season. That person just wins. Remember Roy, if you don’t take the whole thing, you are the contestant that made the Man of Iron LOL. No one can take that away from you.

Despite struggling a little bit, Laura did another great makeup on her mad scientist (I should just write that in all my recaps in advance) and found herself in the top looks as usual. For reasons mentioned above, I think it’s pretty obvious that Roy was the other top look of the night. Tate and Miranda were safe. So that means that Eddie and Laney, both the rookies, were up for elimination.

And this is where it got a little ugly. To be honest, it wasn’t just Hetrick that went in for the kill, but the other judges, as well. They really took Eddie to task for his baseball-inspired ghost, which was very stylized and had a bat stuck to the back of his indented head.

The judges kept referring to it as an asparagus head. Unless it’s a vegetable challenge, that’s not a good thing. Then Hetrick took him to task when he couldn’t answer where he drew his inspiration from.

“That’s a problem when you can’t tell me that. You see what I’m saying? It’s not funny, it’s not telling the story, and it doesn’t feel at all like a ghost.” Then during deliberations, he hammered on him again. “I really don’t like it. I’ve had enough of back stories that try to make sense out of something that does not fit in with what we asked them to do. You would never be able to pull that off on set.”

Please Glenn, speak your mind. Yikes.

Then he went to work on Laney, who didn’t have one of her best days as far as critiques. While the color of her electrocuted rock guitarist was very monotone and gray, the criticisms thrown at her seemed much harsher than expected.

“It does not tell me the story and how she’s a ghost,” said Hetrick. “I don’t understand why her skull looks like that. You used these very confusing forms to create your head sculpture and it does not make me laugh. It just makes me… confused.”

And Neville Page piled more on.

“I’m pleased with how ambitious you are, but I’m disappointed that you did not satisfy the challenge,” Page told her, then continued in the deliberations with harsh critique. “She’s got to stop infusing every piece with her personality. It has got to be standalone.”

But when push comes to shove, the bottom line is that not only did Laney’s look come out better, but she’s had many top finishes where Eddie has really struggled most the season until the last episode or two. And so, Eddie was sent home this week, while Roy was crowned the winner for edging out Laura in the humor department. Actually, there was a lot more than edging out… that was freakin’ hilarious.

That leaves Laney as the only rookie still standing, and four veterans left. From here on out it’s going to be epic, folks, a real clash of the titans. Laura and Miranda have tons of wins and mad painting skills, but Roy’s and Tate’s makeups are consistent and have huge, insanely-creative ideas that they execute well. Laney has had a lot of top looks, so you can’t count out the rookie.

But for the finale, it can only be three, so we still have to cut two more, painful as that is going to be.

Tune in Tuesday nights to Syfy to catch the latest episode of “Face Off” and check out the video: You’ll see Roy modeling his little man piece. [Insert your own dirty joke here. ]

‘Face Off’ recap: The Seven Deadly Sins

While “Face Off” has been known for the way contestants help each other, some tensions started to manifest themselves on Tuesday night’s episode, as we’re getting down to the nitty-gritty here: This episode started with only five veterans and two rookies left, and one contestant told another he had to “grow some balls” and stop helping everyone.

And you might be a little surprised at who said that, although as far as who the comment was made to, not so much.

With only seven contestants left, the spotlight challenge in this episode was based on the seven deadly sins. With St. Brendan Catholic Church as their inspiration, each makeup artist not only had to create a look for their particular sin but had to incorporate a specific color for each one.

Judge Glenn Hetrick challenged them to “bring it to life while trying to avoid the obvious.”

Frank, who had Gluttony, decided to go with a fat suit. If that seems like it’s sort of disregarding Hetrick’s recommendation, Frank felt that if he made it completely over the top, it would still be okay. Unfortunately, there were a few issues even with taking it over the top. The belly and torso piece looked good, but the face was odd in that it just had this huge hanging chin, but the rest of the face was not sculpted or filled out in any way. Sure, it was supposed to be over the top, but that particular aspect screamed “this is a prosthetic fat chin!”

Note, this is not a critique of the judges, but my critique based on looking at the face of a fat person in the mirror every day. Dude, I so could’ve helped you with this if I’d been there.

Tate amped up his storytelling abilities, creating an elaborate concept using the crown he saw in the church to symbolize the eye of God sitting atop a spiral staircase with a snake coiling upward. Yeah, I know it sounds weird when I try to describe it, but it worked in execution.

Speaking of execution… once again, Tate showed he’s able to pull off a huge amount of work in such a short time, and fortunately did not have to deal with any workroom accidents like last week. However, Tate continues to help out other people which is a good thing to a certain extent, and they do have to help each other with big things like opening up large molds where they all have to depend on each other for help. But this week, Miranda was having a hard time with a piece of equipment and not knowing how to change the nozzle on the power washer, which created some tension in the workroom.

While Tate was more than happy to help her try to open her mold for her head sculpt, there were problems with it sticking and it was starting to crack, so he had recommended to her to take the power washer to loosen it up a little bit. Well, poor Miranda was struggling with it and water was spraying everywhere, and she ran in and asked Frank to come help her. Frank kind of snapped at her this week as he was busy doing some gluing on his own design. As Miranda got more frantic, she started to get flustered and upset and finally went to Tate and asked him to help her.

True to form, Tate stopped what he was doing and went and showed her how to change the nozzle on the power washer, but it was kinda clear he was getting a little frustrated and worried about completing his own work. And to be fair, that’s a little different kinda help than asking for help opening up a mold which they all have to do.

Now, he got the job done, as always. But as the contestants were back at the house after a day’s work, Roy started giving Tate some advice about being wary of getting himself eliminated because of helping people too much.

“Miranda’s got four wins. Us guys have one. It’s a competition. Outside of here we can be friends, but in here, we’re competitors and there’s $100,000 on the line,” Roy told him.

“I’ve got to figure how to say no,” responded Tate.

“Grow some balls.”

Ouch. If that seems harsh, well… I don’t know…

Laney had Greed and was creating a makeup designed to look like a woman with dripping candles. She was trying to fashion them out of PVC, but Tate gave her the idea of using “friendly plastic” — little beads that you drop into the water and when you heat up the water turns into liquid plastics can shape.

Tate also helped Frank by being his outline for his mold. And the whole power washer thing. Good sportsmanship, or going a bit overboard? You decide.

Contestants were struggling with various technical issues: Miranda was dealing with “second skin” on her cowl piece, Roy was having problems with edges, Tate’s piece had broken into multiple parts requiring extra work, and Laura was struggling with so much painting to do.

Tate went into final looks, the last hour of preparation, with less than half of his painting job done. Roy found himself without the time to put in the stitches he wanted to on his Pride character and had to paint them on.

 For judging, Laura presented Wrath, with her character ripping her own face off in anger. Eddie had Envy and did a strange design incorporating the actual church for their inspiration into it. I still don’t get it, but Eddie’s, Laura’s and Laney’s makeups were safe this week.

Miranda’s blue Lust had devil-like horns, which reminded me of some of the tarot card representations of The Devil card, also known as “Lust.” Apparently, the judges weren’t familiar with that artwork and criticized it for not being sexy enough as a representation of last. Weren’t these the people telling them not to go for the obvious?

They loved Tate’s not-so-obvious interpretation of sloth, where his character was constrained by the snake coiled around it and that spiral staircase leading to the crown. On the other end of the spectrum, they weren’t too happy this week with Roy’s or Frank’s makeups. I’ve already elaborated on some issues with Frank’s makeup, but Roy’s was really rough this week and the judges took him to task for it.

So that meant that two veterans were in the bottom this week. I know Roy’s makeup was a bit rough, but they really hammered on meeting the criteria of the challenge, which makes the decision to keep any safe a little bit questionable.

I still don’t get it.

But anyway, I’m not a judge, except the armchair variety. For the top two looks, Moran does Lust was another beautiful sculpt, but the judges felt it didn’t have enough T&A, to put it bluntly. They felt that Tate followed the challenge directives more closely and gave him the win for this week.

And then there was the bottom. While both makeups had problems, it didn’t exactly take a genius to figure out who was going to get the ax this week not only did Franks make up come off a little more fake looking, the Roy is one of the front-runners of the season, and that means it’s gonna take a lot to get him booted off. So despite coming on strong here in the last few episodes, it was Frank that was sent home this week.

In tweeting along with the episode, one of the cruelest twist to this illumination is that this show aired on the anniversary of his father’s death. I mean, how much worse can it get? #BadTiming

Now that leaves us four veterans and two rookies as we march toward the final three for the finale. who do you think will be the next to go? Can the rookies keep going, or are they about to drop off as the last that trends are the big winners so far this season: Miranda, Tate, Roy, and Laura. Only Laney and Eddie remain for the rookies.

Face Off” airs Tuesday nights on Syfy.