Face Off S2-9: Dinoplasty

SyFy’s Face Off is the competition to go for special effects makeup madness. We now have 5 artists all vying for the money, car, makeup and the title of Face Off Champion.

If you’re not interested in spoilers, then you should re-sculpt and try again!

No one in the house expected Beki to go home. Even Sue was surprised she got the boot, until she realizes that everyone thought it should have been her instead.

The artists meet up with McKenzie who tells them that the next challenge is the finals and they only have 3 spots left. The artists’ didn’t see that one coming, but a double elimination it is.

McKenzie tells the group that they will be taken to a mystery location where they must pick one of the options given. They will have some time to take photos of them and sketch their design.

The artists are taken to the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. They all read a note which tells them to create a dinosaur/human hybrid which should embrace the scale and scope of the creatures. They are also told that fabricated elements are strongly encouraged.

Rayce loves dinosaurs. In fact, when he was 5 or 6 years old, his favorite things to draw were dinosaurs…and He-Man. What Rayce? You don’t have any love for She-Ra?

Sue’s going for a tiny, furry rock and roll inspired dinosaur. She likes all of the colors and feels it seems just like her.

RJ’s wondering how to do something that doesn’t resemble other work he’s done during the challenges. He’s already made 2 other human/lizard hybrid creatures and this one can easily resemble one or the other. To try to stay away from that, he chooses the velociraptor.

RJ turns his velociraptor into a veloci”rapper”. Get it? Yeah, yeah, yeah…it’s really bad. He’s thinking something right out of the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and that gets a little worse.

Ian’s doing a variation of a triceratops in The Island of Dr. Moreau. Rayce tells him that he’ll need a better backstory or he might be in trouble during judging.

Sue notices that normally happy-go-lucky RJ isn’t too happy and he’s pretty frustrated with his design. RJ just thinks that every sculpt he does looks like one of his past creations, so he scraps everything and will have to start again the next day.

brings Cleve and Constance Hall from Monster Man to check out the artists work and give them some advice. They are expert fabricators and are going for the punk/vampire who dyes his hair look.

Ian: Since he’s doing the triceratops, Ian wants to use a foam piece to melt into the horn shape. Constance warns him that the piece will melt quickly, so he should watch out.

RJ: He’s fabricating the head out of latex and poly foam and he tells them he’s going to use “barge” as the glue. Cleve advises him to turn his can upside down and leave it there because it will separate. When he’s ready to use it, shake the hell out of it and it will work a lot better.

Matt: He’s planning on creating armor into fossils which will be made out of poly foam and make the costume out of cotton fabric. Cleve thinks it’s a little nuts because it has to be done by the end of the day.

Rayce: He asks Constance how she would texture the tail and she suggests cutting the scales and piece it around.

Sue: They really like her dinosaur because of all of its piercings.

Around this time the audience is reminded about the background of two artists. Matt…remember him? He owns his own company.

Rayce also reminds us that he has the least amount of experience of the whole group. Wait…I swear that Jerry, Beki and Tara had convinced me that Matt and Sue had the least experience out of everyone in the entire competition. Hmm, they were wrong? I guess so, since Rayce is a tattoo artist from Idaho. I wish I could think ill of him, but like Sue and Ian (who both just graduated from special effects school) and Matt (who is self trained), I can’t crap on him because he doesn’t have the same background and experience as everyone else. Good work is good work.

Sorry for bringing up Beki after she’s just left us and I’m even sorrier for reminding anyone about the craptastic load of underwhelming that was Jerry.

McKenzie brings in Glen to do his interrogate and sneer. He’s concerned that RJ is going the too playful route and is not sure it’s going to work. He thinks Matt’s sculpt looks really cool, but the paint on the armor and body must be spot on to make the whole thing work.

Glen thinks Ian’s profile is way further along than anyone else’s and he’s impressed by the clear direction the artist is going in.

Glen doesn’t think Rayce’s dinosaur’s the best work he’s seen. To Glen, the pressure seems to be getting to Rayce and that’s causing him to second guess himself.

Glen really loves that Sue is trying to do things with the entire body. He likes that she’s the only one that picked the dinosaur for their color.

Rayce is having issues with the latex cover for his tail. It’s sticking to the mold and doesn’t look like the work on the head.

Matt’s got all of his pieces, but is now concerned about what it will look like when he puts it all together.

Back at the House

RJ now thinks that he’s going home. On his birthday! He tells everyone he’s making a “velocirapper”…get it…anyone….Bueller? Bueller? He doesn’t think anyone gets it, but they do. They just don’t think it’s funny.

Rayce also thinks he’s in trouble. He’s sucked all day and thinks his latex is going to bring him down. Now he has to pull something out of his butt to stay safe.

Did you know that application day is RJ’s birthday? Of course you did.

Sue, once again, has put her model to work finishing off her dino-skateboard. RJ doesn’t like the texture on his tail, but it’s too late to fix anything.

Matt airbrushes the headpiece before he applies it, so the paint job will pop better.

Ian puts a fat suit on his model, only for the model to look about ready to give birth. He then adds shoulder pads that gives it the Alexis Carrington vibe that all dinosaurs wore circa 1985. Not pleased with the look, he takes it off and lets it be.

Sue: the look is totally her. She loves the color, the brightness and the swagger.

RJ: he’s scared that he’s going to get eliminated on his birthday. Did you guys know it’s RJ’s birthday today? OK, just filling you in.

Matt: his look is intimidating and has the presence of a T-Rex.

Ian: he thinks his look is really cool.

Rayce: he thinks everyone else’s is good and his is a step under. He’s never been so nervous.

RJ: Ve thinks that he could have done a little bit more with the paint job to break it up. That doesn’t detract from his character being successful. Patrick thinks the character has a real raptor vibe. Glen likes the lips with the teeth further inside.

Matt: Ve loves the chest piece and likes the dinosaur exo-skeletal look. Patrick wished Matt had pushed the sculpture on the face a little further. Glen wished he hadn’t put the breastplate on. It would have read as a dinosaur/human hybrid better. He also thinks there’s a lot going on and that might have caused him to overextend himself.

Ian: Ve likes the hybrid, but didn’t think there was enough paint on it. Patrick thinks the sculpt is really good and likes the area around the mouth with the wrinkles. Glen thinks he should have done some simple build up under the wardrobe, but he succeeded.

Rayce: Patrick says that the silhouette was very successful. Glen thinks that the look is impressive, wicked and Rayce made some accurate decisions. Ve asks how he made the tail. Upon hearing ductape, she laughs impressed and now she has to take back not liking blue makeup since this one is cool.

Sue: Patrick thinks she created a cool character. Glen says it was really wise of her to pick a colorful dinosaur, though it’s a little too colorful and vibrant for him. Ve snaps that he’s not a girl, so he just doesn’t get it. She thinks the character is cute and the color scheme is beautiful and whimsical. Patrick says though he’s not girl, he still likes it and the whole thing works.

Matt: Ve likes the character, but it really didn’t look like a dinosaur. Patrick thinks he should have shrunk the horn proportionately. Glen still thinks it’s a good makeup.

Ian: Glen thinks he might have been the most successful putting the dinosaur on the person. Ve likes the hard sections on the face. Patrick says that the character had a dinosaur face and hands and everything else was totally human.

Rayce: Glen thinks it was a super strong idea. Patrick is impressed with the way the mouth moved. Glen thinks Rayce used the model’s features to his best advantage. Ve really didn’t like the wardrobe.

Sue: Ve thinks she really did a great job with the colors, which worked well together. Glen doesn’t like the colors, the girl power or the skateboard. Ve disagrees so much she hits him with her notes.

RJ: Patrick sees the raptor in the face. Glen likes the line from the head to the tail. Ve likes the raptor/rapper thing.

The winner of this challenge is Rayce. In second place is Ian and the last person to make the finals is RJ. Anyone surprised? Nope, me either. I liked everyone left, so it’s very hard to begrudge anyone their spot, but despite all of her crying and whiny demeanor, Sue was robbed a spot. Glen hated her look and because of that, there was no way she was going to make the finals. A part of me also thinks that the final three was chosen a couple of episodes ago and now the conspiracy theorist in me wonders if that's why Beki was given the boot, even though she's a stronger artist than Ian or Sue. If she was on her game, she could have easily stepped up and displaced one of the final three. Hmm...or maybe I'm just a little insane. Hmmm, could be....

Next week…the final 3 compete! Yay for the finals and Boo that this season is over so quickly. It’s only been 10 weeks long with 2 double eliminations, so stop being so stingy SyFy. Give us a full season already!