Face Off - Hell Freezes Over

Previously on Face Off the artists got to live out one of my geek-dreams and go to Comic-Con. They were then challenged to create an original superhero. No easy feat, and to be fair, none of them did very well. Anthony won over the more deserved Freaky, while Alam skated by as safe and not-as-good-as-his-brother Wolverine went home.

A few of the artists spend the morning talking about how, at this point, they all just want to see someone win besides Anthony. Well, that’s completely possible, just step up your game and be better!

They are taken to some place in the desert where it’s hellishly hot (ha, you like the word play?)  to meet Mac for their next challenge. There are pitchforks with strange names on them. Mac tells them that the words on each pitchfork are the names of a different demon from different cultures. They will be paired together to make their selected demon. They are pretty excited to get to create the dark creepy characters that they all get a hard on for. Teams are randomly selected. I have to question sometimes if the teams are legitimately random. It’s kind of early in the season for them to have true enemies yet, though so maybe. Apparently though, Meagan is NOT an Autumn fan (join the club!) and is pleading to not be paired up with her. We’ll see how it goes.   Teams are as follows:

Boring Kris and Zygote-Abraxas (Egyptian)

Alam and Anthony-Deumus (Hindu)

House and Meagan-Azi Dahaka (Persian)

Alex and Autumn-Pazuzu (Babylonian)

Katie and Jenna (team red hair)-Eurynome (Greek)

Freaky and Wayne-Chort (Russian)

Some of the artists seem to actually know what the demons are about. The names look like gibberish to me, but I did a little googling to help give a frame of reference of where they come from at least. There’s detailed note on the back of their cards. I feel like maybe they should get some reference pictures, but then again, those might influence their designs too much. They’re all kind of pissed that they have to sit outside in the hot desert and sketch.

Freaky and Wayne are attempting to have animatronics eyes for their character. This could go awesome or be a huge disappointment. The success rate is pretty split on when they try to use any kind of electronics in their pieces on this show. But if anyone could figure it out, it would be Freaky.

So far the sketches all seem to be pretty awesome. Anthony and Alam are trying to go more beauty than dark because that’s the direction everyone seems to be going, but it’s looking kind of exactly like Kali the man eating Goddess. Not Hugh Laurie is surprisingly dominate in their pairing. That’s the kinda partner I’d put with Meagan as well, someone to keep her in check.

Autumn tells Alex how she’s an amazing sculpture. Sculptress?  Is there a gender rule about being able to sculpt clay? Your thought for the day!

It looks terrible so far. Granted, it’s in an early stage, but that’s not a good base. Alex says she’s gonna let her go with it. Yeah, she’s gonna let her hang herself so when they’re in the bottom Autumn takes the hit.

Mac walks in, but doesn’t have Daddy Warbucks with her to give the artists their mentoring. She mentions that many times directors will come to the art department with script changes that change the entire direction of their pieces, and that’s what’s happening today. The artists are freaking out. Just be glad it’s day one guys, this could’ve come on day 2. The change bomb is that hell has frozen over. So instead of being fiery demons, they’re frozen. I find this both cool and dumb. I didn’t see a lot of them going in a strict “hell” theme. So it’s not that they’re changing from fire to ice, it’s just adding some icy elements. Alam better not made some glass shards again.

Day 2. I can’t really tell the red-headed girls apart. They’re sort of the same size, shape and have the same dark eye makeup. It’s confusing. Jenna has been worried because her tumor causes her fingers to be numb almost all the time, so she can’t get a good feel on how hard she’s pushing on the clay because she can’t feel it. She’s worried it will hurt her partner in the long run. I respect that. She’s not worried it will send her home, but her partner.

Daddy Warbucks arrives with Mac. Daddy offers some small tips to each team. They seem to be relatively good tips, things that a random third brain will help a situation. Daddy warns not to waste too much time with the electronics; don’t let the rest of the piece suffer for one element. Freaky touts that this is his specialty. No talk about who he’s worried about or confident in. Jenna has more pain in her hand and she physically can’t do the things she wants. That has to be so frustrating. She says it’s like she’s getting an electrical shock.

Everyone seems to be pretty far behind on what they wanted to accomplish going into day 3. I don’t ever remember so many people casting molds the day of application.

Day of application. I’m always curious about how much of the costume do they actually hand make, or are there pieces already put together they can pick from. With an hour left to go before last looks, Freaky’s piece has no paint on it, and neither does a lot of other people. At last looks, Alex isn’t nearly as confident as Autumn is about their pieces. Ooo man, these paint jobs are pretty gnarly. And what does Freaky do? He breaks the mechanism to make the eyes blink., so all that hard work was for naught. It’s not looking good.

Mac says hey, in a slinky green one-shouldered look. It’s not my favorite, but I would still wear it.

Again! No guest judge! What gives?! Did they blow all their guest judge money on Gimli?

Autumn and Alex-I just look at it with a scrunched up face. It’s not as horrible as I thought, but it’s also not of the same caliber as the other artists on the show. And she was in charge of the sculpt.  Autumn is in love.

House and Meagan-Bad! The paint job is a disaster, and the snake coming out of the hand looks like garbage. It’s sloppy and loose. This is a fail. The model isn’t really selling it either which doesn’t help.

Freaky and Wayne- It blends into the background, which is an issue for my viewing pleasure. The face is creepy and distorted, which is cool looking. The model is a girl which always makes me laugh for some reason. I never picture in my head that the creepy nasty creations have pretty girl models underneath. Maybe I’m sexist in some way…

Jenna and Katie- It’s not very good. The face is pretty bad, but maybe it’s supposed to look that gnarled. I don’t like the weird extended arms to make him a “walker”. I also don’t like that term because walkers are zombies from The Walking Dead and you better be ready to shoot that SOB in the face! I like and hate that they put a Greek ivy headpiece/crown thing on it. The girls know it’s crap.

Boring Kris and Zygote- It’s not bad. The chest piece is pretty awesome. The face feels a little strange to me, but maybe it’s the contacts. And I’m not a fan of the old lady wig they put on him.  But I think it’ll be in the top.

Anthony and Alam- More blending into the background. From far away I wasn’t really a fan, but up close, they did some amazing detail. And it looks clean and well executed. Those feet look very well made. Overall, I don’t really get a demon look, but that kind of was their point. They wanted beauty and she is much prettier than any of the other pieces.

The judges go up for a closer look. They can tell there was no real teamwork on Autumn and Alex’s piece. Battlefield is saying it looks more haggard than he though originally. Autumn sees them spending a lot of time and she says to Alex, “They’re spending a lot of time looking at my wrinkles.” Alex says, “What do you think they’re saying?” Autumn chimes in and says:

Nice guess. They like Freaky’s piece better close up than far away. Battlefield says that this is the first time on this show that someone has done “that” pointing at it. I don’t know what that means. They call Zygote’s goat looking from the top half of the face up.

Teams Meagan/House and Boring/Zygote are claimed to be safe. Hmm…I’m not so sure on this one. I can’t even really call what they’re gonna do on this one.

Anthony and Alam first. They’re in the top. They appreciate the marrying of the demonic theme and the culture theme. Neville congratulates them on their ability to edit and scale back when they need to.

Autumn and Alex (all the A named people first). I just realized how much it looks like their pieces is wearing d diaper.  Ve asks how they feel the piece turned out and Autumn says, “I think he’s just adorable.” Is that really the word you want when describing a demon? Ve says she disagrees and this her face.

They say the face sculpt is rough and looks like it was sculpt with a spoon. Neville says with the wings out it looks like he’s broken and damaged. The only thing they changed with the big twist news was the color pallet. Battlefield says from far away it’s ok, but up close, there’s no way he could put a camera on it.

Wayne and Freaky’s turn. They admit that the animatronics didn’t work, and Neville tells them they have to be so careful with that, but he loves the silhouette. They all love the great detail put into the horns and individual prosthetic pieces. Hearing this, Autumn mumbles, “I must be fucking blind…” because her pieces suck but she thinks they’re amazing, and better than theirs. Battlefield is a fan of extending the head up over the model’s body and letting them see out of the mouth instead of the eyes, it’s something he would have done as well. He scolds them for leaving no time to paint.

Team red-hair describes that their demon is supposed to be covered in sores. They both describe their piece as a hot mess and mention Jenna’s disability with her hand. Battlefield appreciates that they agree that the piece sucks. He says coloring was a big issue. Ve says she doesn’t see any sores at all. “You can fix a bad mold with a good paint job”. Overall, just not good from any of the judges. They weren’t particularly mean, I think because they can appreciate that Jenna’s hand is screwed up.

It’s feeling like someone from Team Red Hair is going home. When describing Autumn’s face sculpt, Battlefield Earth gives us this gem, “When you walk up to that thing, it punches you in the face with how bad it sucks.” Such a loving person.

Winning team is…

Anthony and Alam. Another win for my boy! The one winner is, of course, Anthony. He’s unstoppable. He has one, literally every challenge so far. Granted, we’ve skipped two foundation challenges, but still. Dude is on a roll! I’m glad that at least Freaky has stayed in the top. He and Anthony will definitely make it to the end together.

Loser is…

Poor girl! They do point out that her leg extension and back sculpt were awful as well. Jenna feels terrible and cries for her. They weren’t wrong, but I do feel bad for her. It’s always sad to see someone go home when there’s someone else you hate more that gets to stay over them. I’m looking at you Autumn.