leia131 | Face Off - The Gauntlet

So, Face Off did this kind of cool thing this week called The Gauntlet, but I'm not sure how that's going to jive with my recap style.

The way the Gauntlet worked is that there were three stages, each more difficult and weighted more heavily than the last, and the designers were ranked after each one. Whoever had the lowest ranking at the end was eliminated. I don't want this post to get ridiculously long, so I'm just going to show the top and bottom looks from each stage. I should also note that none of these challenges involved sculpting; they already had pre-made appliances to work with.

Stage 1: Create a character who has been overexposed to the elements

Winner: Nora (yay!)

The judges loved the colors, her attention to which parts of the anatomy would succumb to frostbite first, and how much she was able to accomplish in the very limited time she had.

Loser: Kevon

I can't remember everything the judges said about this, but I know they didn't like how the 'burst capillaries' looked more like spiders on his face. I agree, and I don't like his eye makeup either.

Here are the standings after Stage 1:

Please note that Jasmine is near-ish to the bottom, partially because she misinterpreted the challenge and had her makeup be exposure to poison, rather than the elements.

Stage 2: Do a paint job on an existing prosthetic application

Winner: Kevon (quite the turnaround from Stage 1)

I mean, the judges are not wrong, that is a killer paint job. The detail is fabulous.

Loser: Evan

Yeah, that's bad. He wanted a classic green witch, but she's too... minty for that. And her 'warts' look more like she has some kind of pox. It's also not very dynamic.

Leaderboard for Stage 2:

But then, because Stage 2 is weighted more heavily than Stage 1, here are the overall standings going into the final stage:

Not sure how 9th place plus 1st place put Kevon in first overall, even with the different weighting, as Nora was in 1st and then 5th, but whatever. She ended up tied for second, I'm pleased.

Stage 3: Create three makeups: a hero character and two background characters.

Winner: Evan (another drastic turnaround)

Evan's concept was that his main guy was a fallen angel, accompanied by his 'toady', who has kidnapped another angel in order to regain their places in heaven. The judges LOVED his main angel, and I'll admit that he's cool, but the girl angel has almost no makeup (as far as I can tell) and the judges (correctly) pointed out that the toady guy looks like he got lost on the way to a football game (what IS that stripe?) I don't think this deserved to be the top look of this round, but they never ask me.

Loser: Jasmine

Now, technically, they didn't say who had the lowest score in this round. But Jasmine, surprisingly, had the lowest score on the leaderboard after three rounds and went home. I was, quite frankly, shocked by this, because Jasmine has been so strong all this time, especially when it comes to painting. But her main angel was just too gold, and too monochromatic (the other two aren't great either) and I honestly wonder if being so low in the other two stages got in her head and shook her confidence. I don't think she deserved to home over this; nothing she did was THAT bad.

Leaderboard after all three stages:

Although I was sad about Jasmine, look who won! Nora had an excellent goblin trio for the final stage, again impressing Hattrick with how much work she was able to get done in such a short time. In fact, let's take a look at it:

I could totally see them in a movie.

Also, if you're interested in seeing all the looks from all the stages, SyFy has them in three galleries, here.

Next week is horsemen of the apocalypse. That should be... interesting.