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Face Off - MONSTER HIGH
MONSTER HIGH, YOU GUYS, MONSTER HIGH ON FACEOFF.
I kind of wish this challenge had happened during a regular season, so we could have seen like, 12 or 14 looks, but whatever. Also, this post is long AF, and I have far more opinions than usual. :D
The Challenge: Take a Monster High doll and create a realistic make-up, such as Mattel might use in a live-action Monster High film, should such a thing ever come into being. (There have been rumors of this for years).
I felt that the dolls available for choosing were a little random, as they included most of the main ghouls, but then not Frankie, and they added Skelita and Venus. I can only imagine that there was some kind of give and take between Mattel (the characters they wanted to promote) and SyFy (the characters they thought would make the most interesting makeups). I might have chosen Frankie over Cleo, but maybe they wanted to give the artists a challenge?
Anyway, then, just because, the regular judges were replaced with a focus group made up of adult MH super fans. WHY WAS I NOT INVITED TO BE IN THIS GROUP?
I was a little disappointed that the regular judges didn't get to weigh in on these looks (though I'm sure they got to see them) because they would have ripped a few of them apart, and the focus group only picked top looks and hardly said anything bad.
Here's the focus group:
On the one hand, they might have used kids for this. On the other hand, adults who see the theoretical live-action MH movie are going to be the ones complaining about it on the internet afterwards, so.
P.S. SyFy's pictures of these looks are really crappy... But I will scavenge the internets for better ones, because I love you.
Top Looks
Ben and Evan, Skelita:
This look is amazing. I wasn't sure (neither were they) how they were going to convey skeleton on a real person, but they did this really neat overlay of bone pieces on her arms, legs, and throat that they then shaded, which was really successful. I would have liked a little more sugar skull face painting, but overall this is a faithful representation of Skelita in real person form, and it deserved to be on top.
Aha! Tumblr has come through for us. See her hand/arm details?
And here's a nice close up of her face and neck:
I wonder if they ran out of time to do more Dia de los Muertos makeup on her face?
It's weird, however, that they show her posing with the signature Skelita doll, when this look is obviously based on her Monster Scaritage doll:
Tyler and Emily, Draculaura:
This one I don't think is based on any particular doll, though her hair is very similar to Sweet 1600. They definitely Googled her to look at her different outfits, which was wise. This is another faithful representation,down to the bat purse, heart shaped hair decor, and lacy Victorian-esque dress. They also did a great job with her skin tone, keeping it pink but making it look realistic and not flat or weird. Then they added those pink things, which look like they're part of the dress, but are actually sprouting out of her collarbone (as though she's turning into a bat). It's not a thing that's been done with Laura before, but it's kind of bringing their own flair to the look and trying to show that they can do makeup, because Draculaura has pointy ears and fangs but is otherwise human. Plus, Laura and big collars are a thing, so it works.
Here's a better shot of her face:
The fangs are great!Especially once you compare them to Venus'. (BTW, I am not here for the blue accents on Laura, but that's the way Mattel is going, so at least it's accurate.)
And here is a gif showing her balloon accessorywhich they made and SyFy then decided not to put in any pictures:
Cig and George, Lagoona:
This was the winning look, which is funny, because Cig and George were initially like, "WTF do we do with this challenge, what even are these dolls, they have to be pretty, oh no". I see this as the high fashion version of Lagoona, because it looks less like the doll brought to life and more like some Disney designer dolls I've seen that play off the classic look, but make it their own. Maybe they won because they took it further than anyone else? I mean, I like it, but I kind of think Skelita is better in terms of the challenge. Anyway, the fins are perfect, and I love what Cig did with her hair.
They also practiced their beauty make-up skills... on each other:
This turned out to be a good idead, because their Lagoona's face was lovely:
They added those gills on her neck, and the scale detail, but kept her fin-ears and freckles. I'm telling you, high concept Lagoona. Please also note that there is a plastic surfer riding the wave of her hair, which is perfect:
The show didn't technically identify bottom looks this week, so I have ranked the remaining four according to my personal opinion, from next best to absolute worst.
Melissa and Keaghlan, Cleo:
This was a hard character, because Cleo is even more human than Draculaura, being literally just a person with bandages, so they struggled about what to do for her to showcase their talents. Melissa and Keaghlan initially made a full face prosthetic for this look:
But wisely decided to scrap it before final looks. I personally think this one looked the most like the doll (though that's mostly because of the hair), but they did fabricate all her collar and belt pieces. Additionally, they made the mummy wrappings part of her skin (much like new!Cleo has them molded into her plastic) and added cool hieroglyphics to them:
So overall I doubt they would have been on the bottom.
P.S. The model has Cleo's attitude DOWN:
Adam & Logan, Abbey:
May I just say, their attitude seriously pissed me off. Abbey has two really defining features: a wicked under bite, and glitter skinthe bane of my redressing experience. Logan, for some reason, fixated on Yetis being simian and having simian noses, despite the fact that Abbey has no such thing, and would. not. let. it. GO. Logan, you are not here to make a realistic yeti, you are here to make a faithful adaptation of this doll, which you did not even do, because where is her under bite? Where are her fangs? Not here, I can tell you that:
And why does she have pink eyes? Also, her skin is not blue enough, nor is it glittery. Plus, they failed to capture her hair correctly, which almost every other team did so well. It usually has big blocks of pink and blue in mostly white hair, and what they went with looks a lot like Rochelle's hair instead.
Also, I want to hate that they spent so much time making this bag with Shiver in it instead of making their Abbey better, but it's too cute for me to be mad:
Niko and Cat, Clawdeen:
Oh dear. She looks a bit like a member of Jersey Shore, and a bit like a sad drag queen (this is not meant to be an insult to drag queens, because they would look much better than this, but also because Clawdeen is not one). Problem one is the hair; has Clawdeen ever had teased up hair like that? Spoiler, no, she has not. She usually has her hair down, with color streaks in it, just like on the doll they have her posing with. Problem two is their weird decision to put her wolf ears over the model's actual ears, instead of on top of her head like the doll and a real wolf would have them. Mr. Westmore warned them to make the ears extra big so that you'd be able to see them through all the hair, but they didn't make them big enough. Problem 3 is the fur they basically just stuck in her bracelets, making it look like she took off a jacket and it got caught there, rather than like it's growing out of her.
Problem 4 is that there's just something off about the face:
I'm not sure if it's the round shape of the hair against the sharp angles in her face, or the GIANT eyebrows, or the nose sculpture that I'm not quite sure what they were going for with, but she looks masculine somehow, which is giving me the drag queen vibe (with the big hair and the fur wrap and the fishnets). I hate to say that she's not pretty enough, but, well...
It looks a little better from the side, where at least you can see the ears:
Gage and Rachael, Venus:
Looking at this from here, it looks ok. Maybe a little bit too much like the doll, honestly, not pushed far enough, but solid.
And then you see the close-up:
AH! Look, I know they're called Monster High, but they're still cute, you know? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO VENUS? Look back up there at that doll, and know that her teeth DO NOT look like that. They're not crooked, and they just barely peek out of her mouth, like so:
On top of the teeth, which are honestly enough for this to be the losing look, the eyebrows are wonky and the green color is terrible. It's literally flat green, with no shading, because they ran out of time to finish painting her. At least they got her hair right.
I had such high hopes for this look, once I saw what they were doing with her hair, and after watching Gage lovingly craft a (also terrifying) Chewlian, but then those teeth happened. Yikes.
I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL.
It also looks a bit like the vines at her neck are strangling her. But who's even looking at those in the (literal) face of those teeth?
Bottom line: Gage and Rachael should be glad that this wasn't an elimination week.
I kind of wish this challenge had happened during a regular season, so we could have seen like, 12 or 14 looks, but whatever. Also, this post is long AF, and I have far more opinions than usual. :D
The Challenge: Take a Monster High doll and create a realistic make-up, such as Mattel might use in a live-action Monster High film, should such a thing ever come into being. (There have been rumors of this for years).
I felt that the dolls available for choosing were a little random, as they included most of the main ghouls, but then not Frankie, and they added Skelita and Venus. I can only imagine that there was some kind of give and take between Mattel (the characters they wanted to promote) and SyFy (the characters they thought would make the most interesting makeups). I might have chosen Frankie over Cleo, but maybe they wanted to give the artists a challenge?
Anyway, then, just because, the regular judges were replaced with a focus group made up of adult MH super fans. WHY WAS I NOT INVITED TO BE IN THIS GROUP?
I was a little disappointed that the regular judges didn't get to weigh in on these looks (though I'm sure they got to see them) because they would have ripped a few of them apart, and the focus group only picked top looks and hardly said anything bad.
Here's the focus group:
On the one hand, they might have used kids for this. On the other hand, adults who see the theoretical live-action MH movie are going to be the ones complaining about it on the internet afterwards, so.
P.S. SyFy's pictures of these looks are really crappy... But I will scavenge the internets for better ones, because I love you.
Top Looks
Ben and Evan, Skelita:
This look is amazing. I wasn't sure (neither were they) how they were going to convey skeleton on a real person, but they did this really neat overlay of bone pieces on her arms, legs, and throat that they then shaded, which was really successful. I would have liked a little more sugar skull face painting, but overall this is a faithful representation of Skelita in real person form, and it deserved to be on top.
Aha! Tumblr has come through for us. See her hand/arm details?
And here's a nice close up of her face and neck:
I wonder if they ran out of time to do more Dia de los Muertos makeup on her face?
It's weird, however, that they show her posing with the signature Skelita doll, when this look is obviously based on her Monster Scaritage doll:
Tyler and Emily, Draculaura:
This one I don't think is based on any particular doll, though her hair is very similar to Sweet 1600. They definitely Googled her to look at her different outfits, which was wise. This is another faithful representation,down to the bat purse, heart shaped hair decor, and lacy Victorian-esque dress. They also did a great job with her skin tone, keeping it pink but making it look realistic and not flat or weird. Then they added those pink things, which look like they're part of the dress, but are actually sprouting out of her collarbone (as though she's turning into a bat). It's not a thing that's been done with Laura before, but it's kind of bringing their own flair to the look and trying to show that they can do makeup, because Draculaura has pointy ears and fangs but is otherwise human. Plus, Laura and big collars are a thing, so it works.
Here's a better shot of her face:
The fangs are great!
And here is a gif showing her balloon accessory
Cig and George, Lagoona:
This was the winning look, which is funny, because Cig and George were initially like, "WTF do we do with this challenge, what even are these dolls, they have to be pretty, oh no". I see this as the high fashion version of Lagoona, because it looks less like the doll brought to life and more like some Disney designer dolls I've seen that play off the classic look, but make it their own. Maybe they won because they took it further than anyone else? I mean, I like it, but I kind of think Skelita is better in terms of the challenge. Anyway, the fins are perfect, and I love what Cig did with her hair.
They also practiced their beauty make-up skills... on each other:
This turned out to be a good idead, because their Lagoona's face was lovely:
They added those gills on her neck, and the scale detail, but kept her fin-ears and freckles. I'm telling you, high concept Lagoona. Please also note that there is a plastic surfer riding the wave of her hair, which is perfect:
The show didn't technically identify bottom looks this week, so I have ranked the remaining four according to my personal opinion, from next best to absolute worst.
Melissa and Keaghlan, Cleo:
This was a hard character, because Cleo is even more human than Draculaura, being literally just a person with bandages, so they struggled about what to do for her to showcase their talents. Melissa and Keaghlan initially made a full face prosthetic for this look:
But wisely decided to scrap it before final looks. I personally think this one looked the most like the doll (though that's mostly because of the hair), but they did fabricate all her collar and belt pieces. Additionally, they made the mummy wrappings part of her skin (much like new!Cleo has them molded into her plastic) and added cool hieroglyphics to them:
So overall I doubt they would have been on the bottom.
P.S. The model has Cleo's attitude DOWN:
Adam & Logan, Abbey:
May I just say, their attitude seriously pissed me off. Abbey has two really defining features: a wicked under bite, and glitter skin
And why does she have pink eyes? Also, her skin is not blue enough, nor is it glittery. Plus, they failed to capture her hair correctly, which almost every other team did so well. It usually has big blocks of pink and blue in mostly white hair, and what they went with looks a lot like Rochelle's hair instead.
Also, I want to hate that they spent so much time making this bag with Shiver in it instead of making their Abbey better, but it's too cute for me to be mad:
Niko and Cat, Clawdeen:
Oh dear. She looks a bit like a member of Jersey Shore, and a bit like a sad drag queen (this is not meant to be an insult to drag queens, because they would look much better than this, but also because Clawdeen is not one). Problem one is the hair; has Clawdeen ever had teased up hair like that? Spoiler, no, she has not. She usually has her hair down, with color streaks in it, just like on the doll they have her posing with. Problem two is their weird decision to put her wolf ears over the model's actual ears, instead of on top of her head like the doll and a real wolf would have them. Mr. Westmore warned them to make the ears extra big so that you'd be able to see them through all the hair, but they didn't make them big enough. Problem 3 is the fur they basically just stuck in her bracelets, making it look like she took off a jacket and it got caught there, rather than like it's growing out of her.
Problem 4 is that there's just something off about the face:
I'm not sure if it's the round shape of the hair against the sharp angles in her face, or the GIANT eyebrows, or the nose sculpture that I'm not quite sure what they were going for with, but she looks masculine somehow, which is giving me the drag queen vibe (with the big hair and the fur wrap and the fishnets). I hate to say that she's not pretty enough, but, well...
It looks a little better from the side, where at least you can see the ears:
Gage and Rachael, Venus:
Looking at this from here, it looks ok. Maybe a little bit too much like the doll, honestly, not pushed far enough, but solid.
And then you see the close-up:
AH! Look, I know they're called Monster High, but they're still cute, you know? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO VENUS? Look back up there at that doll, and know that her teeth DO NOT look like that. They're not crooked, and they just barely peek out of her mouth, like so:
On top of the teeth, which are honestly enough for this to be the losing look, the eyebrows are wonky and the green color is terrible. It's literally flat green, with no shading, because they ran out of time to finish painting her. At least they got her hair right.
I had such high hopes for this look, once I saw what they were doing with her hair, and after watching Gage lovingly craft a (also terrifying) Chewlian, but then those teeth happened. Yikes.
I WILL EAT YOUR SOUL.
It also looks a bit like the vines at her neck are strangling her. But who's even looking at those in the (literal) face of those teeth?
Bottom line: Gage and Rachael should be glad that this wasn't an elimination week.
no subject
But I'm no longer sad I forgot to record this episode. I don't like any of the looks.
I mean, they do look better in action, in the gifs. Skelita is the best but I feel like there should be MORE on her face but then I've only seen this show once and don't know anything about make-up but comparing the look to the doll...idk I'd just like to see more around her eyes. I don't 'get' Draculaura & Lagoona. I know they're not supposed to be exact replications but...I mean if I saw these pics without knowing they were supposed to be MH looks I'd never guess that on my own. But Clawdeen & Venus are just horrible yikes. And what's with Abbey's nose?
no subject
Anyway, it's hard to know what exactly happened with Skelita. Since it's only a hour long show, they only show you some of each team's process, but my guess is that they spent their time mostly focused on her arm bone things (which are GREAT) and then had to skimp a bit on her face.
I actually think Draculaura is very representative of her, except for the collarbone protrusions, but I totally agree about Lagoona. I like the look they made, but it's not that much like her.
I think their mistake in making this episode was in asking the designers to make 'realistic' versions of the characters, like for a movie. They might have been better served by asking them to play up the monster aspect of each character, while still keeping them non-scary (kind of like the Ghouls Rule line) so they artists had more to work with and didn't feel like they had to jam weird things in just to show that they did some work.
What's up with Abbey's nose is stupid Logan insisting on making her look like a traditional yeti, rather than like the doll. I love Abbey's underbite look, and I was so irritated with him over this.
no subject
LOL I guess I didn't know what 'real' Yetis look like, RE: Abbey's nose. It just looks messed up. And you're right about her underbite, it's cute and I think they should've found a way to incorporate it. The more I look at her...she needs to be bluer...and sparkly-er like you said...and I agree with you that her hair is more Rochelle-like. (I somehow missed your first paragraph on Abbey. That's weird. I read all the others but missed that one.)
Venus makes me sad because Venus (the doll) has such a great look and wow it's just so bad. Kind of wishing they would've thrown in Operetta to see how they'd handle her tats/scars.
(Also randomly is that Lagoona doll in the pic a real Lagoona doll because I've never seen it and kind of think I need it.)
no subject
I know that if the real judges were there last week, they would have had words with Logan & Adam about this nonsense. The color choices are bad and they failed at the challenge. I hope the judges get to consider these looks when they make their elimination decision this week.
I was so excited that they included Venus instead of just the basic line-up, and then they were so into making her hair look right, and then it all went BADLY sideways.
I think that Lagoona is the new reboot basic version, but after extensive Googling, I couldn't find anything other than promo images for her. I think she may not have been released yet, but I can't imagine Mattel promoting a doll so prominently that won't be available for purchase eventually. :)
no subject
:D
no subject