Tonight’s Episode (Airdate February 5th, 2013): Eye Candy

The artists must create a Candy-themed Creature Incorporating candy located throughout the lab. Will this be the week that another contestant breaks Anthony’s winning streak?

Foundation Challenge

At the Federal Bar, a 1920’s bar and former site of the first annual Beard and Mustache competition (Yes: it is a thing), McKenzie introduces the contestants to John Meyatt the President of the National Beard and Mustache Club and the National Beard Champion! John tells them that their Foundation Challenge is to hand-lay outrageous facial hair. But, the models are all women; and they must transform their models into bearded circus ladies! The winner receives immunity from elimination in the Spotlight Challenge. John offers some inside advice by telling the contestants that these beard and mustache competitions are a ‘cross between a male beauty pageant and a dog show.’ Fun!

Contestants are provided with all kinds of hair and racks of circus wardrobe / costumes. This should be a kick! The artists have two hours to complete their looks. Jenna finds a beautiful saloon dress and starts making her model into a leprechaun burlesque dancer. Eric Z says laying hair is all about the application, so he wants it to look very natural, while Eric F says he has no experience with laying hair so he is just going to put some glue on her face and start sticking hair into it. Alex wants to dye her lady’s beard pink. Wayne somehow keeps injuring his hand. Eric Z is concerned that his approach may be too conservative since everyone else is being so outrageous. Time’s up!

John likes the pink in Alex’s facial hair but thinks it could be cleaned-up and more symmetrical. John and McKenzie love Jenna’s burlesque leprechaun. Eric Z gets props for his realistic look and John says his lady looks very masculine and that the hair is laid very realistically. House’s mustache should have been a bit thicker under the nose. Overall Eric F gets called out for the color and blending of the hair. Alex also gets props for her color blending and curls on the beard and mustache. And the winner is Eric Z, who is now immune from elimination!

Spotlight Challenge

The artists enter the lab, which has been transformed into a fantasy replica of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. McKenzie explains that in films like Willy Wonka, characters that overindulge eventually merge with their preferred treats. This is the inspiration for their challenge: to create an original Candy creature or character, requiring that they incorporate some actual candy into their make-ups.

Models are chosen and everyone gets started by filling-up their bags with candy. Kris is into using candy corn and licorice as his inspiration. He calls his concept “Night of the Living Candy Kid.”

Colonel Candy will be Anthony’s creation, using a swirly lollipop design to create a colonial wig.

Eric Z wants to do a Candy Witch ala Hansel and Gretel.

Alam will make her costume for her unnamed character entirely out of the candy.

Eric F decides to take a “really gross” approach to his creature, making the “Incredible Melting Gummy Glutton.” His sketch looks like a fat blob made of hot lava.

House is making Sweet Tooth Susie with a mouth for a belly. He will make three sculpted pieces for his creature.

Autumn goes for the Gummy Bear, which will be “half eaten and undead.” It’s a cool concept, but she immediately has trouble with the face sculpt looking like a “pig cat.” She can’t seem to get the head to look like a bear head and blah blah blah. Man, this chick knows how to complain!

Meagan, who has a dance background, creates a Sugar Plum Fairy. The sketch looks like a fairly traditional ballerina and will draw from her beauty make-up expertise.

Wayne’s concept is a Sugar Rock Candy Troll, also quite original. The sketch looks Peter Pan-ish.

This week Jenna suffers a return of her hand numbness that threw her team into the bottom looks last week. Huge Bummer.

McKenzie arrives with her dad Michael to do the walk through.

Autumn complains about how her bear head looks like a cat and Westmore advises her to make the nostrils more hooked. Autumn laughs with relief for his advice.

Alex’s creation is a little ‘Pageant Girl’ with a knife, who ate too much rock candy and went crazy. Michael says to take advantage of the candy to add detail to the look.

House is advised to manage his time well for his sculpt, which has a two-sided grimacing face.

Jenna has made a sinister Tooth Fairy. Michael says that she should make the nose more pointed.

Michael likes the “nice flow” of Eric F’s sculpture. He asks what is he going to do with the mouth and Eric says the actor’s real arm will operate the movement of the tongue to add some action.

In the molding phase, Alam is using silicone so she won’t have to think about her paint job on application day.

Kris is incorporating red licorice into his chest sculpt to emulate ribs.

House is ahead of himself, having two of his body pieces sculpted.

Day two is another ten-hour day. Eric Z has a crazy idea to sculpt a Gingerbread House coming out of his character’s back. Wayne is working on his arms and feet with adding texture to come next. Anthony wants to work on his headpiece and get  it ready for foam. He wants to make sure it’s looking perfect. Alex admits that she wants to use silicone but does not have much experience applying it. Alam is working on applying candies to her costume.

Jenna is having a loss of grip strength and cannot get her mold apart. Suddenly, her mannequin’s core rips apart! That’s bad news that will compromise her foam sculpt.

It seems like the artists are taking no shortage of breaks to munch on the candy that’s transformed the lab into a sugar rush wonderland.

Anthony finishes his mold and spends the rest of day two getting all of the elements together for his costume. With less than an hour left, Eric F has only half of his body molded. The fat suit mold weighs 250 pounds! Kris is happy with his progress!

Application day! Eric Z is going to take his time with applications today since he has immunity. The models arrive for applications. House’s mouth belly appliance looks amazing. Alex’s silicone face appliances are not sticking to the model’s skin. Eric F is melting real Gummy Bear candies to cover his body sculpt. He is making a huge mess. Wayne dislikes the fact that the vibrant colors of the candy do not match his usual preferred color palette. Hmmm. Alex is in trouble with her makeup, when time is called.

During the one hour for last looks Eric’s actor is literally stuck to the floor of the lab!

The Reveal

Joining Glenn, Ve and Neville tonight is artist and Katy Perry costume-collaborator / art director Will Cotton!

House’s creation has a grinning, funhouse expression and nice colorful paint job, and rainbow gummy worms for hair; but the killer aspect is that chewing belly with the moving teeth! He refers to it grotesque and hilarious at the same time.

Autumn’s character steps out and you just have to wonder how she spent her time to come up with something so ghetto. The paint job is amateurish at best and the concept is a complete fail. She hates the pink fright wig that she added as well.

Jenna’s paint job is also very muddy and monochromatic. There isn’t much else to say about it and even Jenna hates it.

Eric Z wishes he’d had time to add more candy and had been more creative with his candy usage. I bet he does. His Gingerbread House Witch Guy looks okay, but not exceptional at all. Anyway, he’s immune so he is not sweating it too much.

Alex’s Pageant Girl looks like the Prom Queen has the plague, or at the very least a bad, blistering sunburn. I don’t see any candy incorporated into the make-up whatsoever. Alex admits wishes she had made different creative choices. Duh.

Kris, on the other hand, has incorporated candy all throughout his creature’s face and body to create a Gummy Worm-Dreadlocked Urban Warrior, of sorts. His is one of the most successful looks so far.

Meagan also did great job with her Sugar Plum fairy creature. The pink and blue paint job perfectly suits the character and the texture of the sculpt really does look like spun sugar. Wow, gorgeous!

Anthony’s design is super playful and looks more like a character that might have stepped out of the pages of a children’s book than the others so far. All of his details in the concept are perfectly executed. Love it.

Wayne’s creature looks like one of the demons from last week’s challenge only with rock candy stuck randomly on the body and face. It looks nothing like his original sketch. Meh.

Alam’s creature has a full-on anime look with those big dead eyes. Nice.

Eric F’s Melted Gummy Bear blob looks way better than expected and the articulated tongue makes it successful. It’s pretty creepy. Eric is so proud!

On closer looks, Autumn gets called-out for her rough execution and visible seams everywhere. Jenna gets criticized for her mask-like face. Nobody likes Alex’s bad silicone facial application. The judges all seem to like Eric F’s monster.

Judgment Time

Will says there is some incredible work here! Eric Z, Meagan, Wayne, Eric F and . .  . Anthony are safe. This means Anthony does not win tonight, which is surprising only because I thought his was the stand-out best of the bunch. I guess you really can’t win them all.

Remaining contestants are the best and worst of the night. Here’s how they stacked up.

Alam steps forward to talk about her Princess of the Candy World. Asian animation was her inspiration, as seen in the lifeless eyes. Glenn remarks that the approach to the face gives it a quality that merges with the aesthetic of the challenge. Ve calls it “very sweet.” Neville loves the cohesion and Will calls it a great piece.

Jenna explains that her character tries to get the children to eat more candy so that their teeth will rot and she can have them. Ve points out that despite the rock candy crown, there is no candy anywhere in the make up. Will says that the character is missing the “effective lure.”

Alex explains that hers’ is a character that ate too much candy at the pageant and, thus, became the candy, so that it is what we see coming out of her skin — which is not clear at all. Ve just shakes her head. Neville criticizes the poor make up application. Glenn wonders what she did with her time. Ve also criticizes the fact that the silicone was not even properly laid down.

Kris is next with his Knight of Halloween, where the candy comes alive. Instead of kids eating candy, he eats the kids. Will loves it and says the way the candy corn grows out of his face is particularly effective. Ve loves the candy corn fingernails and teeth. Neville acknowledges the amount of work that went into the creation and cites the used red licorice on the chest as being very effective.

House talks about how the concept of his creature’s belly, which it would keep feeding with candy, was his first idea. Ve says it looks literally like a belly dancer! Neville says that conceptually it is a great piece but criticizes the body paint a bit. Will says it is the best depiction of gluttony he has seen that night and that he is blown away.

Autumn’s “Gummy Bear Gone Sour” prompts Glenn to say that (obviously) most of what she tried to do did not work out. Ve says he looks more like a cat than a bear, and Neville notes the lack of transition between a piece of rubber and skin.

Top Looks

Glenn adores the lifeless doll face of Alam’s piece combined with the candy on the costume. Will says hers’ is the only piece that he would want to include in one of his paintings. Kris’s creature works from far away as a demon but also has all of the notes of the candy. The judges think it is the most well-done of the night. Will loves that House created a totally new character that he will probably never forget.

Bottom Looks

Glenn has the most to say about all of the bottom looks. He says they could go on all day about the problems with Alex’s creature. He also admits that Jenna is making mistakes week after week (and Ve says she doesn’t make smart decisions, apart from the problems she is having with her hands) and, finally, Glenn says that if Autumn can’t execute a Gummy Bear sculpture, what else has she got? Because, Glenn.

Tonight’s winner is Kris for his use of candy, great textures and overall concept and execution. Finally, he has stopped Anthony’s winning streak!

Of the three ladies with the bottom looks, the contestant going home is Alex. The other two should be thanking god that Alex sucked more than them, because all three of them were wildly disappointing this week. Next week, just ten contestants left!

The episode recaps of SyFy’s Face Off Season 4 were originally written for the website, Redesign Revolution. As that site has gone offline, this article has been added into the historical archive of the Worley Gig for all of our readers to enjoy.

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