Face Off: Mad Science
Face Off goes for the jugular with medical horror this week, but not everyone gets the concept.
We’re getting down to crunch time on Face Off, those last few weeks where the remaining artists are at the top of their game, and any mistake can get you sent home. And while there’ve been some great designs this season, it does feel like the overall talent level is down a bit from the last couple of seasons. I don’t think a design like Rashaad’s patchwork face would have made the cut in some other seasons. Which isn’t to say I think Rashaad isn’t talented, but that particular design would have been at the very bottom. Still, it’s getting harder week by week, especially now that Graham used up the judges’ one free pass.
There was zero mold drama this week. None! Weird. Michael Westmore gave spot on advice as per usual. The fourth face would make things too busy. The patchwork skin parts do need to be different shades. Let’s take a moment to appreciate the production crew transforming the lab into a mad scientist lair like that.
George threw out his back in the middle of creating his design, and it really slowed him down. I don’t have herniated discs, but I’ve suffered from back spasms and I know that totally immobilizing, piercing pain in your back that makes you cry out involuntarily. Pretty impressed he toughed it out (I read like the first four Harry Potter books flat on my back on the couch for three days the first time it happened to me).
Bottom looks: we’ve already discussed Rashaad’s weak design this week. He wasn’t feeling the horror theme and couldn’t really come up with anything related to his trepanning drill. It just looked like some stuff glued onto her face. Corinne’s leeches were just underwhelming. Right from the start it seemed like a really weak, insufficient design, and she didn’t even really execute it that well. The nose has rough edges, and the most distinctive piece was the leather strap through the mouth, which was just part of the costume.
For middle looks we had George’s split chest, which was kind of uninspired, but the sickly green paint and a good sell job by the model made it work. Plus, we can George some slack for blowing out his back. Graham’s electrified zombie was awesome, I’d have made it a top look above either of the actual top looks. Creepy face, subdermal lights, and flashing light string all added up to a very cool zombie. Niko’s torn fetus was interesting. That face was freaky, but felt weirdly unrealistic to me. The fetus part just felt a bit blah and didn’t really capture the giant hand drill Niko was supposed to be inspired by. Ve thought it was in poor taste, much worse than, say, making a patchwork face, fusing two people together, or styling your hair so it sticks straight out behind your head. Tyler’s double-faced creature, a man with a parasitic twin pumped full of embalming fluid, was a lot more interesting to me than Daran’s version of the same general concept.
Maybe it’s just because Daran keeps rubbing me the wrong way (cattily suggesting Tyler was copying him). His design was certainly excellent, pulling off a concept we’ve seen before but in a way that almost disguised the presence of the model’s face in the center of the double face. Chloe’s black and white Frankenstein monster was a cool idea that she did a great job on, although I felt it could have used a bit more dark shading on the face. Maybe that’s what Ve was alluding to when she was talking about adding browns to counteract how blue the black looks. If Chloe had had time to finish her stitching that would added a lot too. On top of all that, Chloe had the best dress, that classic 40s style number with the sheer panel, and in close-ups you realize the polka dots are skulls? Freaking awesome.
Posted by 