All Dahl'ed Up: A Face Off Reccap

We welcome in a world of pure imagination as SyFy’s Face Off presents “What a Dahl” an episode devoted to the unseen characters of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We are all familiar and have probably had our lives touched by this man at one point or another; it is through his works we learn about greed and selfishness and also about innocence and dreams.  Roald Dahl opened us to a world of whimsy and magic however, there was also mention of great fears and horrors of other worlds.  By now, almost everyone has seen or heard of the Oompa Loompa, those bright orange men that help Wonka with his magical factory and it is mentioned that these helpful, self-tanner afflicted beings, were a main food source for many ferocious creatures such as the Hornswogglers, Snozzwangers, Vermicious Knids, and Whangdoodles.  This week’s spotlight challenge is to create one of these never before seen characters to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  In a loving and thoughtful approach to the creator’s memory the guest judge is his daughter Lucy Dahl.  This challenge poses something wonderful and at the same time nerve racking, you have all the whimsy of pure imagination with the complication of no source materials.  Essentially you are the product and victim of your own imagination. 

Speaking of victims, no one had a harder time this week in the lab than Chloe.  Poor Chloe sets out to make a kind of flytrap design to her Vermicious Knid but has trouble at first settling on a shape of the head, either on the vertical or the horizontal.  I wish I could say that making a simple arrangement choice was the end of her woes, sadly it was not.  Due to the lack of time management, the cowl mold was unable to be cleaned properly causing her to need an express polymold, if that were to have come together perhaps she would have stood a chance.  Sadly, luck was not with Chloe in the lab as the polymers’ didn’t gel at all causing a stringy goopy mess and no cowl.  With no other option Chloe is forced to try to hide her actor in a pile of moss and fabric.  Now normally I would be sympathetic, however this is not the first mold problem she’s encountered, nor is it the first time she’s tried to hide unfinished product with fabric.  In my opinion, the sea horse dragon was proof that this completion was slightly out of her league.

Chloe is not the only one struggling through the challenge as Niko as well has a hard time working with his full body suit mold.  Seeing as it weighs 300 pounds he is desperate for Rashad’s help in trying to crack open the lynch pin of his design.  Thankfully, he had more luck than Chloe and is able to have his suit molded but he runs into a maze of seam work that inhibits him from really punching up the creature with the intended paint job.

Daren and George seem to stumble ever so slightly on the idea of really what figures into the universe of Dahl.  George fears that his killer bunny may be going to small and decides to include an open mouth chest piece of sharp teeth.  Daren struggles with whimsy itself, he is a horror man and in that tradition the silly and outlandish seems to be lost in translation.  Finding some inspiration in a horned lizard, by day tow, Daren’s whimsy reservations are no more.

On the other side of the room however, Dahl’s world seems to be bringing out the whacky and the vicious in Rashad, Tyler, and Graham.  Between duels colored monsters, elephant trunks and wormy fingers, it’s clear these guys are not afraid to get silly.  The truly seem to be bringing to life this fantastic world right in front of us, and it looks like a sweet treat.

As they head into last looks, it’s Niko and Chloe who are in dire panic to try to pull it together.  Niko fear’s his precious body suit has transformed from T-Rex to turkey.  Chloe tries desperately for somewhat of a finished paint job, who do you think you are girl?  Corinne?

Here are my notes:

Chloe:  You say you were inspired by a Venus flytrap… Clearly you meant a cabbage that has been embedded with tooth picks.

Daran:  I love the concept but it doesn’t scream Dahl to me.  I can see Seuss in the outfit and Henson in the design of the creature, neither looks bad but it doesn’t look Dahl.

George:  This week, the Easter bunny is going to kick your ass.  There is something about this huge pink muscly looking hopper that makes me happy and nervous… Oh yeah it’s the gaping hole full of teeth in its chest!

Graham:  This was so very special, I loved the bloody oompa loompa skulls and the berry bait that was included but what sold it for me, was the eyes sticking through the safari hat.  Truly amazing job this week!

Niko:  This looks like a birthday party mascot that would get severely beaten by older kids if you didn’t watch out.

Rashaad:  The paint job and design of this duel colored creature was amazing to see.  There were clearly tireless hours put into the sculpt and it totally paid off… Beautiful piece!

Tyler:  This thing scared both me and my son who stumbled out during the final reveal.  The only thing I could keep saying was kill it with fire!  Oh my god I will never look at worms the same way again.  Bleh!

So in the end Tyler clenches a much deserved victory, although Graham was really close and I would love to see these two go head to head.  In the wake of joy a bit of sadness that Chloe must be sent home, that does it this season for girls in the competition but, not to worry for she has resolved to keep trying in the make-up world… Try a tad harder… Just sayin.

See for yourself

Face Off Get's Animated!

This week Face Off sent us a big Konichiwa from the land of the rising son.  The remaining contestants hop on a plane and fly off to Japan, how exciting!  So, because we all know how much we as a society like watching people’s vacation footage, the first 10 minutes of the episode was dedicated to showing a shocked group walking through the bustling streets of Tokyo pointing at every “weird” thing they can find.  Oh my god another culture!  Oh my god they have different stuff here!  Oh my god, wait… there’s Hello Kitty…  Okay yea, I’m bitter because I want to go to Japan, I’ll admit it.

After I watch them get to live some of my dream, but I’m not bitter, the group is lead to a tranquil temple setting that is right out of a story book.  Being greeted by a performance of taiko drums they make their way to judge Mackenzie and special guest judge Kazuhiro Tsuji.  Mr. Tsuji is an industry leader as far as special effects goes and is known for his work on Planet of the Apes, Looper and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  He has been long since regarded as an industry standard and a credit to his craft… That’s why he’s on season 6 right?  So what’s on the menu for the foundation challenge?  Oni!  No we aren’t having a sushi lunch; we are making traditional Japanese demon spirits.  Known for their bright colors and use of hard angles, horns, many eyes, teeth and just all around disproportioned features the Oni have long since been regarded with both fear and wonder by the Japanese.  The challenge is to create an Oni in a matter of 4 hours that embodies the ideas of an Oni mask.

What comes of the challenge?  Well first I have to say it’s becoming painfully obvious that Daren hates the human eye.  He never wants his actor’s eyes to show in any way, and he takes the liberty once again of trying to hide them with a total of 4 eyes and an unpleasant sad mouth over biting with sever pointy teeth.  Corrine turns in another stunning paint job, however even more so I want to take a moment to complement her on her use of prosthetics to create the had angles in her demons face.  The horn coming from the chin as well gave a brilliant focal point in the facial construction.  The others seem to find their way around the mediocre, and in the end Daren clenches immunity in the win.

As for the spot light challenge, this week we dive into the amazingly bright and bold world of Anime!  Yes, my heart skipped a beat.  But, wait, there’s more… It must be a representation of self and they get to have help and advice from anime master Hidetka Tenjin when they sit down to lunch at the @home café in amazing Akihbara.  Okay, back up… they get to go to Japan, fine.  They get to do anime characters, cool.  But, you are going to send them to the famous Anime district to a cosplayer themed restaurant… I want to die.  My dreams are literally mocking my through a TV.  The kawaii waitresses, the beautiful fabrics, the adorkable bentos… I wanted to cry and barf rainbows of jealousy.

So now infused with plans to build their own images in anime and clay the team sets to work.  First major issue, Chloe and Corrine seem to be making the same freaking idea.  Okay, true in anime the girls all look very similar with the large eyes and strange proportions but goodness… Next is the “what in the world” is Graham making?  He wants to go with a half plant monster idea but maybe less would be best.  Then again Niko’s uninspired simple design makes me wonder if these people have ever seen an anime before in their lives.  Oh wait George’s riff on Dragon Ball Z totally lets me know he has.  George struggles with his chosen armor design, as Tyler builds a literal hair helmet… That looks surprisingly good on Rashad, who is channeling square soft.  All in all there isn’t too much sculpting drama going on in this episode, maybe they left Japan with a lot of Zen.

In last looks, it is George and Graham who are panicking to put together their master pieces and all I can say, is that as an anime fan, this is so not looking good at all!

Reveal stage:

Chloe:  I’m sorry I thought this was an anime competition, what she created could be considered reminiscent of perhaps a cheap themed sex doll.  She clearly does not have the talent to stay but, for some god awful reason keeps slipping through the cracks.  Speaking of cracks, you can see every seam in that face, the eyes look ugly and awkward.  The nose is almost pinched out of nowhere and the hair is ridiculous.  If you are going to do the wild hair that an anime girl requires, then take the time to do it right or do not do it at all.    Even her props look cheap, just somewhat altogether like she gave up, which makes me question why she is still in the competition at all.

Corrine:  Where Chloe absolutely failed, Corrine puts up a cohesive beautiful character.  She is smooth, bright and reminiscent of the kawaii personality of an anime girl character.  The hair is bright and ratted high but smooth on the outside, the eyes are reflective and the lashes give her depth.  The enlarged bosom and tight fit to the waist gives an amazing nod to the unreal quality of anime (that I do not embrace but admit that it’s there).  Even her accessories give her a playful element that embraces and embodies the joy of the medium.  Yeah!

Daren:  Now he has immunity, what does he do with it?!  Blows your mind, that’s what!  He has gone with a fish man creation complete with koi swimming around the characters head.  The district realism in the initial face blew me away, I felt like I was really looking at a fish.  The only not I had was at first I wanted more color in the face, however I think it would have detracted from the detailed scale and paint jobs on the swimming koi.  All in all it was truly amazing, I’m thinking that when he’s on… he’s on, but Daren needs to find consistency.

George:  This was an armored nightmare attempt at a Dragon Ball Z knock off.  There’s no other way to put that, I mean you can see all the strokes of paint and cracks where he needed more time.  Not good this week, not good at all.

Graham:  This is a hot mess straight out of FLCL and not in a good way.  There really isn’t a lot good going on but, I do give credit for a great fabrication of the goggles on this mad scientist, half plant nightmare.  Graham has an amazing talent for the weird, but on this challenge he needed to reign it in just a little bit.

Niko:  Niko went safe, small and kind of really boring.  It had really tall wacky hair, and high cheek bones… yeah I just made an “eh” noise and shrugged my shoulders… I’m sorry.

Rashad:  It’s like cloud fucked a clown and stole the gun blade.  Yes I went there.  The extreme colors of red and yellow in the hair makes it so bizarre that you almost miss the angular face and weird accessories.  Good enough to pass dude.

Tyler:  Oh my little bundle of energy with plastic hair.  This way middle of the road at best.  The hockey glasses that look almost cut out of paper seem to detract a bit from the awful hair, but we all get there eventually.  It makes me sad.  Still he does look like an anime character brought to life, even if he has 4 arms.

As for the judge’s selections, this is one of those episodes where I can see where the judges are coming from but I still think its crap.  They decide that as far as top looks are concerned it’s all about Daren and Corrine.  Not to surprise there, both creatures were beautiful makeups.  What really did upset me was that Chloe escaped the bottom.  Every week she exposes her jugular in just how untalented she really is and it’s like the judges just do not see it.  Instead they pick George’s rough armor and George’s hot house hodgepodge as the bottom two.

Now both were justifiably bad, however I think Chloe’s fuck doll was worse.  Still the judges decide it is Graham who will be cut from tonight’s challenge.  A disappointed Graham seems to want to collapse until he is told he is going to be this season’s “save.”  Thank god for the new rules right?!  Good for you Graham, we will see you next week in what appears to be a mad scientist challenge… wait that doesn’t bode well for little Graham.   


The Gallery

         

Creepy Cryptids

Since it is Wednsday we rejoin our weekly review of the ever stagnant season 6 of Face Off on SYFY, aren’t we the lucky ones?  So this week we trip in on a foundation challenge, why there isn’t one every week is really confusing but, maybe they sneak one in when they don’t feel the making of the spotlight creatures won’t take a whole hour. 

This challenge takes our creators to a large open field where there a few rustic army camp looking structure and special guest Howard Berger.  Mr. Berger is an award winning makeup artist known for his work on such films as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Breaking Bad.  After some gushing and oohs and awes Mr. Berger unleashes the contestants, in groups of two, onto an army of orcs.  The challenge is for each pair to produce a leader orc and 9 other supporting orcs.  That’s right folks we are making an orc production line!

What is produced by the challenge varies from bright hair to electric green with the “orcs” looking more like disgruntled trolls and dark elves.  The highlight of the challenge was Corinne’s sponge paint application.  Once again, girl can paint!  It is her knowledge of the color wheel that grants her the win and immunity from the spot light challenge.

Here this week to introduce the spot light challenge is special guest judge Doug Jones.  Mr. Jones is a creature/ character actor in such films as Hellboy and Pan’s Labyrinth.   This was awesome to see, every special guest judge tends to be behind the scenes which gives great insight to the creative and building process, however this week having an Actor gives our creators an insight to what is the living being behind their creations.  Mr. Jones explains the need to have it be truly organic in feel and as much as he is an actor for these creatures, if he cannot feel the creature… he’s just a man in a suit.

This week’s challenge: Cryptids, the fabulous creatures of Urban legends around the world.  From the Jersey Devil to the Bunyip, these crazy characters have haunted us from all corners of the world… and yet they are so open to interpretation that the idea’s seem to spiral forth in modeling clay.

In the lab there are cohesion, conflict and panic running rampant from all four corners of the room.  First let us check in on our immunity winner Corinne. Corinne has hooked up with Matt and the two have picked “The Jersey Devil.”  There is already a train crashing in on them as Matt panics.  It finally dawns on Matt that his partner has immunity; if they end up in bottom look then you can guess who is taking the long walk?  Add this to his inability to create animal like faces, and he becomes a quivering goo pile.  Think Tess a few episodes back and you can understand that it’s kind of annoying to watch.  He isn’t the only whiner though, Cat has taken up the whine as she buts heads with Daren the Diva.  Seriously, if he were a Broadway play, he’d be a one man show.  Cat sulks away under Daren’s uninspired ideas and is demoted quickly to glue holder.

The emotional rollercoaster keeps chugging along as Tyler and Chloe work hard on the Mapinguari, a creature that encompasses two features that the judges have always hated, fun fur and “baked – in mouths.”  The other major flaw is that there hasn’t been a “photographed sighting” of this thing.  So in the end you are working with items that are despised to create something no one has ever seen.  I’d be pretty stressed too.  However, I’d rather have inspiration problems than the mold problems George and Niko almost had.  Thankfully with four people to pry it all apart the twosome put it all together with literally seconds to spare.  In all of this the only group not stressing out is Grahm and Rashad.  I’d keep my eye on Rashad, the kid has got some talent.

After and angry last look the models head for presentation and judging:

Daren and Cat:  So the whiner and diva attempt to present El Chupacabra.  What ensues is a sad looking, emaciated, spinney Chihuahua.  My frenchie, with tear stain looks happier than this poor thing.  The chest and caul are poorly blended, much to Cat’s dismay.  Still she whines on about not finding her own voice.

Corinne and Matt: Ah, the Jersey Devil, minus the “kangaroo” and well anything really inspired at all.  What we got was a grey, splotchy, mediocre effort with homemade wings that were made from ugly drapes… Should have gone bigger!

Niko and George:  With the craziness that this mold required the Puerto Rican power couple’s Vodaynoy (a fish/frog monster) should have inspired a little more color.  Now, I really liked the sculpt of the face and chest plate however the brightness of the paint and the sculpt of the flipper seemed to just throw me off.

Rashad and Grahm:  Of all the creatures, this one clearly had the most going on and with good reason.  Your typical bunyip consists of so many parts that it’s easy to over load a makeup and find yourself with a 5000lb. creature that looks overworked and over loaded.  The beauty of this makeup was that even though there was so much going on, scales, horns, feathers and tusks, it had a true sense of being a real creature.  The painting was excellent and the scale and feather work gave it a real organic origin that the guest judge felt a real connection to.

Chloe and Tyler:  Starting with two strikes against them (fun fur and a stomach mouth) Chloe and Tyler’s Mapinguari takes the runway with a force.  First off the actor’s ability to roll the stomach and get that effect with the stomach mouth was amazing.  The color and cohesion of the fur pieces left the judges over whelmed, but in a good way.  Truly this is the best case scenario of two people working together to bring forth one creature.

In the end, it is Tyler who walks away with another win for his creep-tastic sculpt while Matt takes the fall for the less than inspiring Jersey Devil.  So long Matt, I’ll miss your hair.

Here there be dragons... kinda

Sorry I’m so late everyone, and by everyone I mean the people that drift in and out, I’m finally getting a chance to sit down and get this review out.   So I, like all small children had a dream, my dream was to make monsters.  I wanted, with every little beat of my heart to design those little things that seem to go bump in the night so loudly that you hide under your blanket and pray for day light.  Naturally, I became a book keeping mom.  That’s close right?!  So when Syfi put forth the series Face Off I was giddy, and then I watched it… To date it has been a total hit and miss for me, there are nights where I want to cry, it’s so beautiful, but most night I want to scream “What the fuck are you thinking?!”  Tuesday night was no exception.

                                                                                                                                     

We open with the prospect of the season’s first individual challenge.  I’m actually really excited that we are moving out of team challenges; it allows each person’s work to flourish or fail.  This week we are doing dragons.  Normally the “ren faire” geek in me would squeal with unbridled passion; however I have never truly been too much of a dragon fan.  True, they are huge scaled beasts of perpetual scaled, and fiery awesome in theory, that theory does not translate well as a monster makeup.  As a CGI or maybe an animation you don’t worry about things like weight or physics, in a limitless world everything is possible in the makeup game, you just have to make it look like anything is possible (without ya know, breaking the laws of gravity, physics, nature in general).   The twist on these dragons is that they breathe other things besides fire like Ice, slime, acid, sand blah blah blah the explanation of the challenge never really thrills me.  What I did like however is that they used “Point Doom” to give out the challenge.  Now this is a famous spot for a few movie shots but the one that made my heart go pitter-pat is that it is the scene backdrop of the last scene of the original Planet of the Apes film.  Here are my props to you Face Off for your use of epic location!

 

So off we go with our inspirations of crazy scaled goodness, most of the creatures looking like human lizard hybrids on paper (muy disappointing).  This crop of monster masters really seem to not be getting that the first day needs to be a firm step into the molding room.  It’s only week three right?

 

So right away there is a major blunder/sin/boo boo what have you, with Tess brilliantly sculpting only half the face for her quilled disaster.  Now she gets to play catch up with the other side and try to make it seamless, good lick with that.   Chloe seems to be very unconfident this week, where is my sculptor from the first week?  This week she has a mold debacle and only has a head.  Nicko’s chest breaks apart as he attempts to remove it, safe to say everyone’s got molding issues this week.  Everyone Tyler who as he puts last touches out decides “hey I’ve got time, I’ll just sculpt the best wing profile ever in the history of this show… no biggie.”  The models enter to be dressed and Chloe is scrambling to paint as Tess freaks out about her broken leg pieces.  These two should never work together unless it’s being filmed for biggest whiners. 

 

Chloe decides to cover half her makeup in rags and doesn’t paint any of the back then drapes fabric all over the model.  It’s a sea horse in a dress really.  I have never been so disappointed in someone with beautiful hair in my life.  Let’s just entitle the whole episode “How Chloe fails”, or even better “Sand Blasted Sea Horses Caught in a Net of Ugly Green Chiffon…” the first on is probably best…

 

Tyler’s looks amazing, if you define amazing as a frozen turkey buzzard.  Literally, it looks like a lizard mated with a buzzard on a glacier and the baby spits ice.  The wing span and construct was pretty cool though.  I think he looked to the skessis for inspiration.

 

Tess turned in a purple, quilled Halloween project from a high school larper.  You can see where the face was applied, there is no caul, the model’s hair is sticking out of the back of this oddly built feather headband.  I don’t even want to begin to understand where it was going.

 

Tanner turned in an angry red frog, with big chunks of rock coming out of odd angles.  What got to me was that the bright yellow eyes were lop sided.  It was a cool build, decently painted, and presented effectively, but that run away eye killed it.

 

Rashad’s tarred beast seems to take up the stage.  No really, shits big.  I was impressed that he built up the individual scales.  I think that it shows his versatility to work in differing mediums and gives him a chance to display all his skills.  He makes up for his lack of experience with his ability to learn and utilize many differing processes.  Then he goes and gives it the worst under-bite in history…  Good job bud… *Face palm*

 

Niko is a no go, picture a naked mole rat screwed a porcupine and they had a terracotta pot colored baby.  That’s all you can really say.  There was effort in the sculpt, but for the over work the rest just resisted coming together at all.

 

Matt, I have no words.  It was a cone head with scales.  That’s all.

 

Grahm I was completely against, I can admit that.  In my defense he presented the idea that he was going to build a slime-dog-lizard-bull-blegh, whatever that meant.  I kept yelling “Man bear pig!”  What he presented was horrifyingly awesome.  The slime, the puss sacks, the green sick color… oh look it’s lunch time J.

 

George, who should have gone home last week!  Dear, sweet George gave us a red and black view of hell this week.  He wanted to embrace a hell, and fire, but I don’t know if it’s just me but all it did was ring in as demon.  Awesome looking demon, and in some cultures they may be the same, but a dragon that was not.

 

Daran’s acid spitting thing shall be filed under reasons to never wear fur pants.  The concept was there but the execution clearly was lacking.  I would have gone more into bone details, the bottom jaw just looks unfinished.  Try better next week man!

 

Daniel’s slime sea creature, because nothing about that had anything to do with a dragon, just made life un-comfy with too much bright yellow and time spent on sculpting what looked like fur-feather scales.  To clash completely he dressed her in a tacky floral kimono with no base in any realm of dragon.  This saddened me because the drawings had huge fins added to the face that would totally help. 

 

Corinne’s monster/ dragon disaster looked like it was a punk rock character from the show Dinosaurs, and if you don’t know that show look into it on Net Flicks.  The Mohawk of spiked weirdness sitting atop an oddly shaped head just hurts…

 

Cat had my vote this week; I’m a sucker for ice and sex.  She brought forth a beautifully ice sickled dragon slice of sex appeal.  Then I looked closer, the blending will bleed your eyes.  So wrong… The coat was amazing though, so you know there’s that.

 

In the end Tyler clenches a win with his amazing winged profile and Daniel is sent packing for his lock of anything remotely dragon, and poor taste in kimonos.  I sure hope the idea of getting worse before it gets better ends its stride with this episode.    


Gallery of the dragon flops