Tonight’s Episode (Airdate February 26th, 2013) : Howl at the Moon
Tonight on Face Off, the eight remaining artists will be faced with two monstrous challenges! Coming off of last week’s elimination, everyone is sad that Alam – who was so normal and easy to get along with – had to be the one to go. Anthony and Meagan voice concerns about their status in the bottom last week, as they know they are now under close scrutiny. In other news, Eric F is rocking a lovely new spiky Mohawk hairstyle! Punk Rock!
Foundation Challenge
As the contestants approach a country house with an attached barn, McKenzie announces she has brought them out here for tonight’s Foundation Challenge, which will be to create one of the most popular creatures ever: a Zombie. Producer Gale Anne Hurd (The Walking Dead) is the guest judge for the zombie challenge; which, appropriate. Her advice for the group is to think of how your particular zombie died, inspiring ideas to create a convincing make up. Appropriately, the models are locked up in the barn, from which they burst forth just like in that iconic scene on Hershel’s farm from The Walking Dead, season two. Everyone loves this feeling of being in the middle of the zombie apocalypse!
But there are so any zombies…too many to have just one model for each contestant, so working in teams of two they will create a horde of flesh eating zombies, applying make up to as many actors as possible. Zombie Horde!
Teams are:
Eric F and Wayne
House and Eric Z
Kris and Autumn (Kris is so not happy about this)
Anthony and Meagan
Teams will work in the farm house using the bare essentials only, and only one team member will get immunity. They have two and one half hours to work.
Anthony’s strategy for him and Meagan is to get as many faces built up as possible so that in the last hour they can just add the paint. Meagan says they have worked it out to “eight minutes per zombie.” Anthony says his objective is that they just need to look “gross and bloody.”
House admits to having done “hundreds and hundreds” of zombie make-ups, so he is ‘in the zone’ with this challenge.
Kris decides to use a lot of airbrush and splatter effects, which don’t take much time, as opposed to Autumn, who is using a brush for her applications.
Wayne is just lining up the models and using a sponge to make them as bloody as possible.
Eric Z is kicking them out and keeping up with his partner House.
Taking a clue from Wayne, Meagan does a sort of assembly line paint job.
Autumn accuses Kris of not being a team player because he won’t help her find a sponge.
Five minutes is called and Meagan is just splattering her zombies with blood, as is Eric F. “Time is up, put your blood down,” shouts McKenzie! Everybody hoots and hollers. Zombies, Woo!
McKenzie asks each artist to choose one or two zombies that he or she is proud of and to point out what they did to make them look zombiefied. House shows off two of his zombies that accent fresh bites on one lady’s arm and the sharp bone structure on another model’s face. His partner Eric Z did some severed arm accents. Gale Anne says they did a great job.
Autumn explains that Kris did more airbrushing while she hand-painted, so her color palette has more green and purple hues to her zombies. Kris explains he has more bruising on his models and used more purple colors. Gale Anne notes that they didn’t do much work on the backs of their models, which is a problem.
Wayne points out one of his favorite zombies, which has a tooth embedded in his neck from a fresh bite, while Eric F’s selected models get kudos from Gale Anne for their uniformity.
Meagan likes the build-up work she did using cotton on two zombies faces, which accents deep bite wounds. Anthony also points out a silicone build up and bite wound, which he is proud of. Gale Anne again cites the unifying aesthetic that makes all of the zombies look like they are in the same TV show or film. She also likes that they did not skip the details on the backs of their zombies.
McKenzie calls this the most difficult Foundation Challenge they have had on the show so far. How does Gale think everyone did? Great! She was really impressed. She especially likes Eric Z and House for their good work, and Meagan and Anthony for creating a single aesthetic.
The top team is Anthony and Meagan for their attention to detail including prosthetics and clothing…and the winner is Meagan, which must surprise the crap out of her after being in the bottom consistently. Gale really gives her some much-needed praise on her team leadership and says she is ready to come do make up on The Walking Dead any time! As reward for her win, Meagan will have immunity in the Spotlight Challenge.
Spotlight Challenge
Outside in the moonlight, McKenzie spins a tale of the full moon’s power to summon werewolves, which are featured in all kinds of movies. But, Earth isn’t the only planet that has a moon, as we see when several monitors display planets such as Saturn and Neptune which also have at least one moon. The challenge is to create a werewolf creature from another planet in our solar system.
Again, the artists will be working in randomly selected teams of two. Those teams and their selected creature themes are as follows:
House and Meagan, who choose Mars
Eric Z and Autumn, who select Jupiter (And again, Eric Z is profoundly distressed at having to work with Autumn, whom everyone seems to regard as bossy)
Eric F and Anthony will work with Saturn
Wayne and Kris like the idea of creating a werewolf from Neptune
The teams are left outside to draw on lunar inspiration for their sketches in the Design Phase. Anthony says that with the jagged and dry surface of Saturn, they will incorporate the surface rock formations into their design, making the skin very jagged and utilizing the color palette of Saturn. Also, their werewolf character will walk backward. Why? Who knows.
Meagan says that since she has immunity she is going to let House take the lead. The concept for their creature is an astronaut that was bitten by a Lycan and transformed into a crazy werewolf. Seriously, their sketch looks like a beast in a clown suit.
Autumn wants her and Eric F’s character to be in the process of morphing into a werewolf, and their sketch is rather traditional, with the beast shown walking upright. She wants to incorporate shapes, silhouettes and protrusions coming out of the back.
Kris and Wayne’s concept for the Neptune beast is a creature that stays in the darkness until it is time to feed, when it emerges into the moonlight and transforms into a massive beast. Everyone seems very confident and psyched about their concepts!
On Day One of the alien werewolf challenge, Eric F and Autumn decide to divide the responsibility evenly. She will sculpt the face and he will sculpt the chest.
Kris and Wayne want to do a full body suit which they estimate will use 200 pounds of clay – heavy! Kris will work on the back and Wayne on the front.
Anthony and Eric F have a ‘solid game-plan’ for tackling their ambitious concept. Where have we heard this before?
Meagan is blocking out the arms and chest for House while he starts sculpting the face and the head of their creature. He says that while he will not be doing a long, doglike snout, he still feels that it will come together.
Eric Z feels that Autumn’s sculpture is looking ‘a little rough,’ and a lot like a pig’s face, which, his observation is not far off. Eric takes over and completely re-sculpts the face, which offends Autumn.
McKenzie and Michael Westmore arrive for their walk through. House and Meagan talk about using dry skin texture and red coloring, and a sparse sculpt except for a Mohawk running across its head. Michael suggests they pre-paint the skin and add some spotting.
Since Saturn has a strong wind, Eric and Anthony will incorporate a set of wings on their creature’s back, which does give it a nice silhouette. Westmore says to make sure the model is aware of what the wings can do.
Wayne and Kris’s creature is so tall the creature’s head will sit on top of the model’s head, making the model’s head the creature’s neck. They are putting the hair on sparsely. Westmore suggests that, for time-management purposes, one should paint while the other lays the hair.
Autumn and Eric’s creature will have the internal structure of rock due to Jupiter’s gravity. Westmore points out the odd details of the face, and Autumn throws Eric under the bus for his re-sculpt. Eric decides to keep his mouth shut about his difficulty with Autumn. When he steps outside to “take a breath,” Autumn accuses him of giving up on her.
On Day Two, Eric Z is already dreading the drama with Autumn.
A head, teeth and claws are still needed on Anthony and Eric’s werewolf in the ten hours they have to work today. Eric will block out the arms and then they can start molding. Although they have a game plan, Anthony says it is always a rush to finish. Eric starts to take control so he can get the creature done.
House feels like he is in a world of trouble as chest, arms and hands still remain to be sculpted and molded. He says he is doing “seven different projects all at once.” Meagan is doing the hair and taking longer than House would like. He feels like he is in over his head.
Kris and Wayne’s full suit sculpt looks fantastic! Really impressive!
Day Three, Applications Day, has everyone scrambling, as usual, during their four hours in the lab and one hour for last looks.
Wayne’s ready to fill the creature’s head will polyfoam and Kris works on the hands.
Anthony and Eric have pieces to finish that should have been done by now. But as long as they can get everything painted and assembled they can apply it at last looks. Eric laughs that he doesn’t care if they have to “duct tape it on!”
Autumn is painting and pre-painting everything and Eric joins her so they can get their creature covered.
House puts the wolf head on his model and says he will glue it down in last looks. It’s at this point he realizes that he’s made a bad mistake and the head does not fit the model snugly. As he tries to apply triage on the piece, time is called.
Last Looks gives the artists one hour to finish everything. Wayne has to finish the paint job, let it dry and then add hair. Anthony is stressed out. He starts working on getting the model’s face covered. He dislikes the big red wig they are using but is still proud that all of the pieces made it onto the model.
House has to glue the wolf face to his model and sort of gives it up to a higher power to have it all work out.
Eric Z says that his and Autumn’s character came together “in a sense,” but has no idea how the quality of the creature will be judged. And…that’s time!
The Reveal
Glenn, Ve and Neville say hello to the contestants and McKenzie explains that the challenge was to create a werewolf creature that might exist on another planet in our solar system. Let’s see what the teams came up with!
House and Meagan’s werewolf from Mars looks like a giant, bright red, hairy biker-beast with a pronounced snout. House thinks the face ended up looking okay and says that to him, there is something beautiful about the creature.
The wings, chest and arms on Eric and Anthony’s Saturn creature are impressive. Even though the head sculpt is somewhat lacking in details, the mouth looks toothy and vicious. Anthony hopes the judges will see where they were coming from with this concept.
Autumn and Eric Z were never able to get the pig snout details smoothed out of their creature’s face and now I think it’s going to be their downfall. Eric says it looks “like a Chihuahua that has been shaved by a child.” He says that it is, obviously, a piece that Autumn had her hands on.
Kris and Wayne’s ice-blue creature from Neptune at first looks likes a llama, but when the camera zooms in you can see the fine wolf details on the head. They are excited and love what they did.
The Judges move in for closer looks. Glenn says he can see the story in House and Meagan’s red wolf. Neville likes the direction of the body details, as does Ve. Unfortunately, when Eric F and Anthony’s model turns around they can see that the body piece has completely split and come apart the full length of the costume. They don’t like the feet at all. While they acknowledge that a lot of work went into the creature, they question whether it was work put to good use. Ve says the hair work is pretty crappy and calls out the use of what she refers to as a “Cousin It wig.”
Eric Z and Autumn’s creature’s head is referred to as “terrier-esque” by Neville. Glenn says it has a Fantastic Four vibe because the head’s rock-like texture reminds him of “The Thing.” Eric knows the work is bad and you can see him mentally gearing up to do battle.
Kris and Wayne’s blue wolf draws positive comments from Ve right away. Neville calls it interesting stuff and both he and Glenn like the muscle flow through the body and the neck of the beast. Glenn says that doing an entire suit in nineteen hours is impressive enough to make him forgive any minor flaws.
Judgment Time
The judges will speak to each team tonight. House and Meagan are first up on the chopping block. House explains their concept as an American astronaut on Mars that was bitten by a native lycanthrope species and is now in mid-transformation. He sculpted the head, chest and hands, the latex suit and painted everything. Meagan did the hair and the back. Glenn thinks it is a great concept. From the moment it walks out, he enthuses, you can get a feel for the back-story, which fulfills the requirements of the challenge. He is very happy with it. Ve likes that the creature can use her mouth, which some of the other creatures cannot. Neville thinks the degree of success comes from massing out the shoulders and keeping the head small, which are “classic and wolf-like” characteristics.
Eric F and Anthony explain that their werewolf is from Saturn, where there are 62 moons that have made him very “wolfed out.” Ve acknowledges the amount of work they did and gives them props for their accomplishments, but she thinks the head looks like a “big rubber Halloween mask,” which she’s not happy with. It could have been so much better. Neville says that having the character walk in reverse is a neat concept, but it just doesn’t work because there is no way he could perform on film. Glenn says that somewhere along the line they should have stopped and looked at the nightmarish proportions. The head is way too big.
Wayne and Kris start off by explaining that their planet, Neptune, is 218 degrees below Celsius, which is very cold. They kept the blue tones to camouflage the creature into the environment. Neville points out the spine detailing on the back, which he says is really cool. He also thinks that the work on the form is beautiful. Glenn appreciates the amazing amount of work. Ve reiterates the word ‘amazing’ for their cohesive make-up and the fact that they did a full suit.
Autumn and Eric Z are up next and you know this is going to be explosive. Autumn explains to Glenn that being from Jupiter, their wolf has a stone structure to withstand the planet’s gravitational pull. Glenn calls it a nightmare and asks how the work was divided. She explains that Eric did the chest while she blocked out the head, only to have Eric re-sculpt it, and her to re-sculpt it again. Oh boy, here we go.
Eric asks to interject that, while he did ‘triage’ sculpting on the face, he did not fully ‘re-sculpt’ it. Glenn says that the overall execution – with gaping holes on the arms and the bad shoes, which they did to even attempt to make blend into the legs – is a travesty. Ve criticizes the back sculpt and Eric again defends that it was not his idea. Neville says it sounds like they had a bad working relationship, but Autumn says she is “just figuring that out now.” Glenn calls it a match made in hell. They are like two little kids being yelled at by their parents.
The contestants slouch back to the make-up room so the judges can discuss top and bottom teams. House and Meagan had some good ideas that told a story right off and Glenn says they had a lot of brilliant decisions. Neville liked the head sculpture and felt it was the most plausible of all the creatures.
Wayne and Kris also get great reviews. Neville remarks on the beautiful sculpting all around, especially the back. Ve says that when their wolf turned around it was amazing and that it was “all there.” Glenn likes the patterns of the paint job that make it look very professional. He says it is truly impressive.
Bottom looks include Eric F and Anthony for their bad idea of reversing their creature, as it left him unable to perform. They also call Eric on continually taking on more than he can successfully execute week after week, just hoping to get away with it. On a positive note, they did like the creature’s wings.
Autumn and Eric are also on the bottom for a poor core concept that was completely ludicrous. They also bring up Autumn’s unsportsmanlike conduct and Eric’s reluctance to defend himself, which was unprofessional. Glenn says that if they were employed at his studio he would fire them both.
The contestants return and it’s revealed that the top team tonight is Wayne and Kris for their nice balance between werewolf and alien – well done! The winner tonight is Kris for the sculptural detail on the back, which was the judge’s favorite part. That makes two wins in a row for Kris!
Anthony and Eric F get a lucky break this week, as the bottom team is Eric Z and Autumn. Autumn is eliminated, since it was her concept and mostly her work, for which she took credit – although she refused to take ownership of the end result. Autumn struggled a lot in this season, but we saw her do some good work, such as the Insect Challenge from last week. She’s a strong lady and hopefully she’ll step up and play nice in future situations that require any team-work.
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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