Sexy Beasts pt1

In case you've never heard of Face Off I'll start off with a short introduction to the show. If you have, feel free to skip ahead to the review of the first episode.

When we hear the term makeup, most of us would not think past a handful of beauty products a woman might use on a daily basis and maybe a few extra for a special event. In the world of professional makeup artists however, their talents can range far beyond the application of simple beauty makeup. Think pointy ears and huge feet on elves and hobbits from fantasy movies like The Lord of the Rings, think beautiful otherworldly creatures from sci-fi features like Star Wars and Farscape and don't forget all the monsters and zombies from horror flicks.

Face Off is a reality show and competition where the skills being tested range from the beauty makeups we're all familiar with to body painting and even creation and application of prosthetics. Every week the contestants are tasked to conceptualise a character and execute their ideas given a model and as much clay, latex, foam, paint, hair and a host of other materials as they can make use of in the 3 days allotted. After they bring their visions to life, their work is judged by a panel of respected professionals in the field who've worked on characters we've probably all seen in popular movies but never stopped to think there was a makeup artist behind. Of course, as with all these shows, at the end of the episode one person wins the challenge and one goes home.

Episode 1

This week, for their spotlight challenge, the artists are tasked to revisit the popular fairy tale Beauty and the Beast in teams of two or three. They are presented with 'Belles' and their matching castles, each based in a different time period and culture. Their challenge is to create a 'Beast' character that would fit with their chosen Belle and castle. The guest judge for the challenge advises the artists to make their Beasts big and scary but still human and beautiful enough to make a plausible love interest in the end for Belle.

Middlers

Niko and Tess had the best look of the safe ones but they fell short just enough to deserve not making top two. The reptilian angle was a great choice to complement their desert castle and their wardrobe felt like it belonged in the same story as their Belle. Up close you can see that a lot of detail work that went into the sculpt of the face but there is a very obvious, awkward seam where the face meets the cowl. The paint job looked great but the lack of colour made the overall look less interesting than it could have been. The armour cheapened the look and drew attention away from the face with its size, they would have been better served by sculpting a chest piece or painting the model's chest in the same interesting design from his neck.

Corinne and Tanner also made a strong choice of an abominable snowman for their concept. Overall their beast looked good but not particularly interesting. The judges found a few technical shortcomings so I agree that they deserved to be in the middle.

I found Cat and Daniel's Beast to be very weak and would have accepted it as a bottom look. Their concept seemed to stray from the brief where their Beast appeared to be caught in a transition between human and beast, which I think was a poor choice considering the story. They did very few pieces, which should have left them plenty of time to do a detailed paint job but their model just looked like he was wearing a cheap mask. Also, cheap, flat wig.

Next post I'll talk about the top and bottom looks. What did you think of the looks that got waved through?