Face Off (2011) s09e01 Episode Script

The winner of Face Off is Action.
The Critics' Choice Award winner is better than ever.
Face Off is back.
Hell, yeah.
But if you think you know Face Off, I have something entirely new in store for you.
Think again.
- Yay! - This is so exciting! - Oh, my God, this is real.
- We made it.
This season, the competition gets turned on its head with all new challenges Create a stunning short film on location.
Ah, I'm so excited.
Massive stakes We like to call it "The Gauntlet.
" What? And one epic milestone.
This is the 100th episode of Face Off.
It's overwhelming.
In the end, our legendary judges will decide who wins a VIP trip from Kryolan Professional Make-Up to one of their an all new 2015 Fiat 500, and $100,000.
This is Face Off.
This can't be real.
I'm at the Natural History Museum.
I see this girl walking towards me and she looks just as scared as I do.
Jason.
Brittany, nice to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
You ready for this? I'm so excited, I can't believe we're on Face Off.
Chills is the best way to put it.
I've worked so hard to get here.
After I graduated cinema makeup school, I got involved with the drag community up in San Francisco.
I love doing beauty makeup just as much as slapping blood all over somebody, so being on Face Off is a dream.
As soon as I walk in those doors, my life's gonna change.
I have no idea what to expect.
Yeah, no idea.
Not at all.
I've been a professional makeup artist for three years.
I graduated from Make-up Designory in New York.
I grew up in theater and you're always expected to do your own makeup.
So at six years old, I was putting on my own eyelashes.
I am ready to kick some butt here on Face Off.
- Hey, what's up? - Hey, I'm Missy Munster.
- I'm Meg, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
Growing up, I was bullied a lot just because I'm a freak.
That led me into the effects world.
I found a lot of people that I had things in common with.
Now I'm a lot more social.
I've worked in a few effects shops so I know how to work in a team, and that's a good skill to have here.
Where are you from? I am from the beautiful Garden State.
I didn't go to school for this.
I learned it on the Internet.
That is very intimidating to me, but I am tough.
I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma about six years ago and I showed cancer.
After my hair grew back, I decided to shave half of it, 'cause it reminds me of my tough days.
So if I just keep believing in myself, I could definitely win Face Off.
- Oh, hey, I'm Ricky.
- Jasmine.
I've been in this field for 13 years now.
I've worked on Cirque du Soleil, Latin Grammys, Billboard Music Awards, so I'm really hoping my experience takes me far in this competition.
I'm so nervous.
I am pretty fucking nervous too.
I started off my career path as a kid, chopping up foam furniture to make all kinds of different monsters.
That was before I found out about Savini School, and now I feel like I'm definitely on the fast track to success.
- Let's do it.
- Uh-huh.
This is so cool.
- Hey, guys.
- Hi.
Welcome to Face Off.
Now, I know that you're a very talented bunch, so that's why we're not going to go easy on you this season.
- Ooh.
- Good.
We're just gonna launch into your first epic Spotlight Challenge right now.
No foundation challenge means no immunity, so one of us is going home.
As you can tell, we are here at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, which houses extensive collections of animal and mineral artifacts from every corner of the Earth, but this challenge is much bigger in scope than just little old Earth.
It takes place on a galactic level.
Tapping into one of the hottest genres out there right now, science fiction.
Yes.
Now, while we're all blown away by the super cool aliens in these films, sometimes the true stars are the awe inspiring and nightmare inducing alien animals.
- Yes.
- Awesome.
For your first spotlight challenge, you'll work in teams of two to create your very own alien animal.
Yeah.
Now, I've brought one of Hollywood's most sought-after creature designers to help you out today.
He's worked with huge names like JJ Abrams, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, and Stephen Spielberg.
Please give a warm welcome to Face Off series judge, Mr.
Neville Page.
Hello.
This is awesome.
I am so excited to be in Neville's presence.
He is just so good.
Yeah, good to see you.
- Hi, guys.
- Wow.
Thank you for helping me to kick off this season's first Spotlight Challenge.
I am excited to be here.
All right, Neville has hand-selected items from all over the museum that you will use as inspiration for this challenge.
Today's challenge is all about shifting your perspective and thinking out of the box.
Don't think literally.
Look at your inspiration as if you're seeing it for the first time to inspire design directions.
All right, the person you walked up with in the rose garden out front is your teammate.
Hey.
Yes.
All right, now, Neville mentioned wanting you guys to think outside of the box for this challenge.
I'm going to force you out of your comfort zone by knocking down the walls of that box right now.
For this Spotlight Challenge, you'll be working with two models in your final creations.
Guys, come on out.
Oh, my God.
How are we going to do this? I have never taken two people and put them into one creature.
It's insane.
On my go, you'll hit the museum to choose one of Neville's picks, and your models will join you once you've made your selections.
Neville will come by to consult on your creature designs before you head back to the lab.
You guys ready? Yes.
- Let's do it.
- Go.
Is rounding the corner.
- Oh, my gosh, yeah.
- The turtle's perfect.
Where's mineral? Yeah, all right.
Got it.
Yes, I love it.
My name is Sidney.
I'm from Pace, Florida, and I actually model for makeup.
After watching what they're doing, I decided I can do it myself.
Being self-taught worries me a little bit, but my teammate Evan is on top of his game so I think we can do this.
We got the Schorl Tourmaline with Albite.
It's a black stone wrapped with white mineral.
Instantly have an idea.
They share a brain.
The layout of the two models is just like our mineral.
She's gonna be wrapped around the male model to make it one monster.
Basically, she's your life force kind of thing.
In 2006, a friend of mine inspired me to go to the Tom Savini School for Special Effects Makeup.
I found my passion.
The rest is history.
I love doing aliens, but I'm super worried 'cause this is a really hard challenge.
Hey, guys, so where are we at? What do you got going? We're going with a six-legged, ape-like creature.
Okay, a six-limbed creature? Yeah.
That's gonna make it feel alien, but those limbs, which are your arms-- Yay, she can animate-- maybe they're some kind of sensory appendage? And that's gonna change your silhouette.
- Yeah.
- Got you.
So since we have a clam and it's two models, I think it's definitely essential that we utilize them to make something open.
I've been doing makeup for about eight years now.
I've worked for haunted houses and independent films in Denver, so I'm used to deadlines.
That's gonna be essential in my performance on Face Off.
Omar and I like the idea that the clam can open up.
So these can operate big shells, little mouth.
I used to work here in Los Angeles, California, on films like Blade II, Spider-man 2, and The Last Samurai.
About 12 years ago, I had a newborn baby with a disability so we had to move back home to be closer to family, but now I'm here on Face Off because I am ready to get back into the special effects.
You've got four eyes? - Mm-hmm.
- Yes, we'll decorate a face that utilizes their double eyes.
My only concern is the reveal would almost feel like you've got two human heads.
That might kind of kill the gag.
There are things here that feel alien and organic, and that's gonna be successful, versus two people inside of a creature.
Okay.
Azurite with malachite.
Yeah, I like the colors on this.
Yeah, and then some of those protruding rocks that are coming off, like, near the bottom there.
Mm-hmm, yeah.
I've always loved sculpting, loved making creatures, and then my senior year in high school, I entered a mask making competition and got a scholarship for the art institute.
That's when I realized I could actually pursue this as a career.
I think it'd be cool to have pieces of the stone jutting out from the shoulders.
Shoulders, yeah, definitely.
I originally started as a computer animator, but sitting in front of a computer didn't really appeal to me.
Special effects makeup is a lot more dynamic, and I absolutely love it.
Maybe stand in front of here.
There's so much riding on this, being the first challenge.
It's go big or go home.
- Hey.
- Hey, how's it going? - Good, how are you? - Good.
We'd like to actually put one of the spikes on her head so that it can move around.
Okay, but make sure that what you're going to not do is create a rock creature.
- Okay.
- It can have the surface that mimics rock perhaps, but it can't be made of rock.
Okay.
My name's Scott, nice to meet you.
Jordan, nice to meet you, Scott.
- I'm Nora, nice to meet you.
- Nice to meet you.
All right, we've got the ram horn.
- Ram horn, all right.
- Yes.
I was not a person that wore a lot of makeup myself growing up, always been a tomboy, so makeup effects school wasn't exactly the obvious route for me.
I went to community college, took philosophy and art courses, and that's when I found out about the Tom Savini Special Makeup Effects program.
I actually just graduated the day before I came out here.
No rest.
I went from one high stressful situation to the next.
What if it's a predator? We need to have some sort of-- - Not necessarily a defensive - It's got to be quick-moving.
But an offensive system, so what is that? Claws? Teeth? What? Thinking we make this into a claw.
My name is Scott.
I'm 43 years old.
Over the last 18 months, I've had several major life changes, starting with losing 110 pounds.
Then I got a divorce, moved to Florida, and started to work at a special effects materials supplier, and as a result, I fell back in love with my childhood passion.
Now with my weight loss, my newfound energy, it's time for me to reboot the rest of my life.
There's so much texture and detail, which is great.
Just make sure you focus on what we're gonna see.
Spend a lot less time on the back, and try and get some of those details done in paint versus sculpting scales for example.
Absolutely.
All right, we got the native silver.
It's the big one.
- It's that big one over there.
- Okay.
I started by working at haunted houses.
I'm still new to it, but in 2013, entered competition for Top Haunts Magazine.
I won best makeup artist.
Now I'm here to win Face Off, and I'm gonna try my hardest.
Let's start back-to-back just to see, like, - proportions and stuff-- - Yeah, Lily's height could-- - Yeah.
- There we go.
I grew up behind the scenes of the film industry.
My mother was a casting director.
I remember going to sets with her and being in awe of everything that was going on.
I only graduated from Makeup Designory a year and a half ago, so I'm a little worried because Stevie and I are so new to this.
I just really hope that we pull together as a team.
We got the native silver.
- Mm-hmm.
- Yeah.
And we're making a being that could use all of her subjects as miners to draw the silver from the Earth.
That's good for a different challenge.
This is about the organic animal.
Not necessarily gonna have culture, et cetera.
Just worry about making - a really cool creature.
- Okay.
This is horrible.
It's just really bad.
Forgetting what our challenge is about is not the first impression that I wanted to make on Neville.
- Good luck.
- Thank you.
Yeah, my pleasure.
We just wasted all of that time.
All righty, guys, it's time to go.
Now we're gonna have to come up with a new concept in the lab without the models and without Neville's advice.
If that doesn't get done, we're screwed.
_ Holy crap.
- Oh, my God, look at all this.
- Whoo! Wow.
We get into the lab for the first time and words can't describe how awesome it is.
I'm blown away.
- Oh, my God.
Vacuum forms.
- Ah! - Nice.
- Wow.
- Oh, yes, this is my room.
- This is it.
It is like a playground combined with a candy store, and it is amazing.
Oh, my God.
All right, guys, let's get to work! Oh.
All right, all right.
My partner is Ben and our creature is a cave dweller that hides from an alien race that wants to harvest formations that are growing out of their backs.
Are we still going with a no eyes thing or? I was gonna make a flap right here, so that he can see though-- Nice.
Our plan is to make a face, a cowl, four giant legs, and fabricate a giant body.
It's a tall order.
I like where we're headed.
Cool.
Yeah, yeah.
The first thing Libby and I have to do is figure out our concept, because we forgot the animal part.
We have a head here and something that looks like a head - to kind of throw off the prey.
- Yeah.
The concept is this bug-like creature.
The top half is alluring, and the bottom half of it will trap you once you get too close.
All of the texture will be these rock formations.
Okay, I'm gonna go grab clay.
Hey, guys, here with my dad for the first walk-through of the season.
- Oh, hey! - Whoo-hoo! Yeah! There's Michael Westmore, amazing, Oscar-winning makeup artist.
I'm really freaking out.
We chose alligator skin, and it has a giant jaw that's able to snare and catch things.
This is the roof of the mouth.
It looks like a girl that's had injections.
It can't have human elements to it at all.
Right.
So put this form down here so this whole thing looks like a ladder.
- Yeah.
- Okay.
We chose the herbivore jaw.
What's your color scheme gonna be now? Dark shades of brown and then dry brush over it with a little bit of a highlight in a bone color.
If you get it muddy, I'm going to kill you.
Start off very light and build up.
Deal.
We chose the ram horn, and it's gonna be this snake, reptilian armored animal.
And you're gonna have horns coming out of here? Yes, that's where the first set of horns would be, maybe a smaller set coming out of the cheek area.
You could probably get away with making one mold and just running it in urethane a couple times.
Definitely.
So tell us what you chose at the museum for inspiration.
We have tourmaline with albite.
What I'm seeing here is the devil.
- Oh! - Exactly, exactly.
- I knew it.
I knew it.
- You know? It really should be asymmetrical like you've done there.
- Okay.
- Yes.
We are doing one creature with two heads.
If you have time, do away with this human crease by making a little piece that would fill all the way out there, because this is a mask with human eyes.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- Good luck, everybody.
- Thank you! - Bye, thank you.
- Bye! I like that a lot.
If you're happy, I'm happy.
I am sculpting the two shells and Kevon is sculpting the inside of our clam, but I'm a little worried because of the size of all these sculpts.
I have never attempted anything close to this before.
I don't think it hurts to go bigger.
Right, yeah.
I'm definitely nervous.
Time's up, everybody! Oh, my God.
Holy cow, I'm here.
The Face Off house is unreal.
This place is huge.
- Wow, this is insane.
- Ho! It's completely surreal to be here.
We all can't believe it.
We're so excited.
Congratulations, everybody.
Today, Stevie and I have a lot to work on, and since we wasted a whole bunch of time coming up with a new concept, Stevie suggests we combine my face with my cowl and make it a mask.
- Yeah, look at that.
- That's good enough.
Now we can do one mold, rather than separate pieces.
Today I need to get this face done, so I put the final details on it Evan.
And I get it to Sidney for molding.
And then I get working on finishing the back and starting the arm.
We have a lot of work to do and I just hope that we can get it done.
_ _ _ _ _ Oh, it's happening.
I'm getting nervous about time.
We have a ton of molds we have got to get done.
We should probably start casting up as many as we can.
On top of that, I have a really big priority, and that is the mouth of this clam, and time is ticking.
I figure we do the buckets or something, - we'll mix a big batch.
- All right, cool, can you start without me at all? Things are taking longer than they should be, and these are the biggest molds I have ever had to make.
I'm freaking out a little bit.
Shit.
I am very nervous.
Get more This is a tall order to fill, and I'm worried that we bit off way too much.
Me and Kevin only have five hours left.
and these are the biggest molds I have ever had to make.
I'm gonna switch gears, 'cause I got to get that other mold started.
We just got to divide and conquer, so Omar is doing the mold of the heads and the inner membrane of the clam, and I'm working on the clam's mouth.
You guys have the biggest shit I've ever seen.
I know.
It's frustrating.
This is hard.
We can do it, though.
I've been up against worse deadlines than this.
I start working on the wings for our alien animal.
It's taking this long to dry, makes me a little nervous.
Yeah.
The slip latex is not drying quick enough.
so I use some stretchy fabric, cover that in slip latex.
That way, we'll only have to do one layer of latex but we'll still have the stability we need to lift it off the floor.
- It was a happy accident.
- Happy, happy accident.
It was, like, completely happy accident.
So I' going off of Neville's suggestion and making feelers out of a pipe insulation tube and panty hose.
Hopefully, that'll give it a real nice, loose feeling when they move.
I also cut the end of the tube to give it a hand look.
It's so long, though.
Well, I know, it's got to feel stuff.
I'm excited.
I am fabricating the body for our massive creature, so I grab several sheets of L200 and start getting the general shape, and then I start laying down tinfoil so that it'll give it that rocky texture.
Once all the textures are on there, I start painting latex, forming a skin around the entire thing, and I couldn't be happier with how it looks.
Hey, everybody, that's 15 minutes left.
Careful with that.
Careful with that.
My gosh, did this actually-- yes! The molds are done.
We just need to open and clean them out as fast as we can.
Uh-oh.
Shit.
Oh, fuck.
There's a hole in my mold.
What's this? I have no idea.
We're screwed.
I'm not really sure what to do at this point.
This is the main thing I worked on.
I have to fix it, but I'm not gonna have time to finish this today.
All right, everybody, time's up! So at this point, I'm just, like, f-- s-- fucked.
I might not have a piece to send out on stage.
Today, there's a hell of a lot we have to do.
It's so thick right here, but that's okay.
First thing's first, I'm running the latex and poly foam cowl.
Jasmine is finishing up the final touches on the back spine for the creature.
- You like this? - Yeah.
I am in the zone, 'cause I have to get this done.
There is no other option.
The first thing we come in and do is repair the mold, and then we have to poly-foam two big pieces, and we also have to figure out how to cover up the rest of our model.
We got to get this done.
We got to get this done.
_ - Hey, what's going on? - How you doing? How are you? - Hey.
- Good to see you.
There you go.
When my models show up, I start applying the cowl and the face while Jordan's finishing up the body.
The amount of work is just shy of soul-crushing.
So where is the monster's eyes? It doesn't really have eyes.
- Okay, cool.
- Yeah.
Your face is right here.
You're gonna be terrifying.
I am very nervous.
Not only is this the biggest challenge Face Off has ever thrown at anybody, but we also made a very risky decision, because there is no way we could stick those two actors together and then send them to Last Looks, so we're not going to be able to put anything on these models until we get to the stage.
So just sit tight for now.
Okay.
Yeah! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! All right! This might not fit.
I take charge of the application while Evan paints the tentacles and works on all the extra pieces that we're gonna add to this character.
Yeah, we're gonna have to trim that out.
But I'm stressing out because the cowl doesn't fit properly and I have to stuff pieces of mattress foam in there so that I can get the face and everything lined up.
This is our first challenge.
It's so scary.
Everything's applied, and now we have to get this thing painted.
We decided to use a cooler palate with highlights of browns and oranges, and we're feeling good with how everything is gelling.
Like, right here, is this what you want? For our paint scheme, we're using Pax washes, which is Pax paint with a little bit of water in it, just so the color's not so monochromatic.
Just keep doing it the way you're doing it.
I'm extremely stressed about how long it's taking, but it's easy to muddy a paint job when you're using so much brown.
I just want it to have a lot of texture.
All right, everybody, ten minutes! _ _ Not over till it's over.
Time just flies by and we are so far behind.
You got everything? No, I need sea sponges.
We've spent so much time patching holes and fixing things that now, we have nothing painted.
Do you think I should take some of this texture just down - into her arm a little bit? - They're fine.
I thought we were just cutting them.
Time.
We just don't have time to fabricate the pieces that we had hoped to cover the actor's body.
All right, guys, that's time! We're gonna have to do the entire paint job in Last Looks.
We're just not gonna get everything that we want done.
We only have one hour of Last Looks.
Turn that way for me.
I'm trying to finish this paint job, but I'm nervous, because a bad paint job can send you home.
All right, this is gonna have to do.
Where are those scissors at? We are just slamming this all together.
We're pinning, we're cutting, we're hot-gluing.
This is my first chance to make an impression.
I've got to make this good.
Right now, we're just trying to paint, paint, paint and try and cover, cover, cover.
I've gotten out of my head that we're going to go out with a winning look, but at least we'll have something.
We get the suit on Isabelle and we position her with Matt, and we realize that the front is completely open, so we look over to our wardrobe, we drape it over it, start ripping it, and it's looking great.
All right, everybody, I'm having trouble seeing the vision, girl.
I'm starting to lose my cool.
I don't know how I'm gonna conceal this one.
Just glue it together.
I have to conceal this whole body.
Let me just do the eye real quick.
This is supposed to be when we're ready to send it out, and I feel like we've got nothing.
I can't-- I can't put this on stage.
It was what it is.
Time's up! - I've never done anything that looks like this.
- We're gonna be okay.
Our makeup's a piece of shit, and I'm worried I'm going to be in the bottom.
We got to go, okay? We're gonna get ripped up.
Welcome to the Face Off reveal stage.
You know our illustrious series judges.
Owner of Optic Nerve Makeup Effects Studio, Mr.
Glenn Hetrick.
Good evening.
Oscar and Emmy award-winning makeup artist, Ms.
Ve Neill.
Welcome to Face Off, everybody.
Hi, Ve.
And of course, creature and concept designer, Mr.
Neville Page.
All right, guys, for your first Spotlight Challenge, we definitely threw you a huge curve ball there asking you to make an alien animal using two models.
So let's take a look at your final creations.
From a distance, this actually looks really amazing, so I'm really hoping that the judges are really digging it.
It's just awesome.
When our creature is moving around, it looks like it is one massive creature.
I am so pumped right now.
I do like the way the inside of the clam turned out, but I'm worried that it doesn't look finished.
She looks fierce, beautiful, deadly.
We did it.
I love how the tentacles hang out of the back of the wardrobe.
They look great.
It's hard to look at it because this is not the caliber of work that I like to put out.
My heart is dropping.
I knew we should've gotten some cloth to cover that.
I see some good points and some bad points.
I definitely see the things we missed, but I'm pretty happy with my facial sculpts.
Okay, judges, why don't you go ahead and take a closer look at our alien animals.
Oh, I see, this is supposed to be the bottom of the mouth.
- Yeah.
- I got it.
Ah, that's so unusual.
Thank you.
There's a lot of interesting shapes here.
I love the coloring on this.
It's kind of like Little Shop of Horrors.
Yeah.
I can't understand if I'm supposed to see a face in this.
Thank you.
I like the paint work on this.
They were smart to put a little bit of sparkle powder in there, because it gives it life.
That use of the second performer to have these tentacles is a good idea.
It's different from what everybody else did, and it makes great use of that second person.
This one actually got worse up close.
I'm losing my mind.
In my head, I'm completely ripping it apart It's buried in the paint.
So I feel like they're gonna rip it apart too.
All right, guys, it's time to get on Twitter and tell us who made your favorite alien animal using #FaceOff I feel really, really stressed out because I have no idea what they're saying.
They did a lot of sculpting.
It's buried in the paint, but it's some of the nice form language happening up in these horns.
I don't see the synthesis.
I don't understand how that's utilizing the two performers.
I do love the paint job, though.
Yeah.
Really elegant form language happening.
His goes that way and hers goes that way.
That's kind of interesting.
Okay, the judges have scored your creations.
Let's find out what they thought.
Jasmine and Ricky, Brittany and Jason, Missy and Meg, Nora and Scott, congratulations, because you are all safe and can head back to the makeup room.
Nice work, guys.
Thank you, guys.
That means the rest of you were the best and the worst this week, and the judges would like to find out more about your work.
so Sidney and Evan, if you please, step up.
All righty.
Tell me about the concept behind your alien animal creation.
Our reference was stone with a mineral wrapped around it, and the white section of the stone looks like it's a Parasite.
So this intelligent creature merges with it to protect itself.
I think you did an amazing job.
Tell me about the division of labor.
I sculpted the cowl, the back piece, and Sidney blocked out the face, and I fabricated the tentacles.
I absolutely loved the tentacle movement and I thought it was very successful combining the two performers into one creature.
The eyes were the creepiest part of the thing.
I did like your paint job, and the back end was so great when it was animated.
Cool idea.
Thank you.
The way you executed the tourmaline was beautiful.
It felt authentic, and as a consequence, it's standout.
- Nice.
- Thank you.
Sidney and Evan, if you please, step back.
Omar and Kevon.
Please tell us how your clam inspired your character.
We wanted to create a clam, so we thought we could have the models each use an arm to open and close part of the shell and then use their hands as part of a jaw that's in the center.
I tell you, it looked like SpongeBob the Clam.
It was very cartoony, guys, and it was confusing.
You have camouflage fabric on the outside, your colors were all over the place.
It looked like something right out of a little kid's TV show.
Okay.
When yours opened up, it was just a mess visually, and having a clam as your reference, definitely don't make a clam creature.
It could be clam-inspired, but just not a clam.
You myopically focused on this hand gag and lost your way, trying to figure out how to build things around it.
I think there's a great concept underneath there, but you didn't get there.
Omar and Kevon, if you please, step down.
Thank you.
Libby and Stevie.
Tell us about the object you chose and how it inspired your alien animal.
The object that we ended up choosing was the native silver.
We decided to make this insect where the top head would draw prey while the bottom head would feed on it.
I made the top head.
For the bottom creature, I did the cowl and the face.
I think the core concept really fell apart.
You had this head on top, which didn't feel like an angler lure.
It felt like another person in a body position that wasn't very inventive.
There's no synthesis of the two actors, and that was a failure in terms of succeeding within the challenge.
If it's trying to lure its prey in, you want to give it something recognizable to look at, not down there where it's gonna get eaten, but up top where it might be looking at it.
All of that being said, I thought your paint job was absolutely spectacular.
Thank you.
Libby and Stevie, please step back.
Ben and Jordan.
So what is the overall concept behind your alien animal? This alien creature is a cave dweller.
Part of its anatomy uses camouflage.
Its main senses are smell and vibration.
I love this thing.
Thank you.
In terms of the detail that you accomplished, it's extremely intelligently designed.
Thank you.
Who did what? I sculpted the face, he sculpted the cowl, and I applied the cowl and face and did the painting on both of those.
He fabricated the entire body all by himself.
It's like a subterranean dinosaur.
I mean, it has triceratops, a rhino, an elephant mixed into this one creature.
It's so cool.
- That means so much, thank you.
- Yes, thank you.
The discreet graphic design that lives within your mineral, you used it in such an organic way.
Beautiful work.
- Thank you.
- Thanks so much.
Ben and Jordan, please step back.
Thanks, guys, please head back to the makeup room while the judges deliberate.
Thank you.
All right, judges, let's start with your favorites.
How about Sidney and Evan? The fact that they just covered the second performer with this parasitic thing and allowed it to become the mechanical element made it so visually interesting.
That just brought that whole thing to life.
Absolutely.
That black rock element, I thought they crafted it quite well.
It looked authentic.
Okay, let's move on to Jordan and Ben.
This is definitely the hardest opening challenge we've ever given, and these two delivered on a level that could not be expected out of this challenge.
I love that they used things that were familiar to us like the rhino skin, the elephant feet.
It was like an alien dinosaur, which is cool, and the color was beautiful.
It was a very resolved head sculpt and the paint job was so good.
All right, let's move on to the looks you liked the least.
Let's start with Omar and Kevon.
Biggest mistake was to do a clam.
A clam.
And it was sloppy, and it wasn't a very creative clam.
They even sculpted and molded the shell.
It might as well have been a piece of L200 with some shapes carved in it.
I thought it was.
I did, too, until they told me they sculpted it.
Yeah.
And finally, Libby and Stevie.
Great paint job, horrible ideas.
The two heads was such a bad choice.
Why is the second performer a second face.
they could have covered him with a trash bag and just had him holding wings and it would've been more successful.
All right, judges, have you made up your mind? I think so.
Let's bring 'em back out.
All right, Glenn, tell us about tonight's top teams.
Sidney and Evan, you guys made some really smart decisions, and the tentacles gave your work that special something it needed to set it apart.
Jordan and Ben, your creature is the epitome of same-page teamwork and the head was the crowning achievement.
Okay, which team came out on top? The top team tonight is Alright which team came out on top? The top team tonight is Jordan and Ben.
The varied textures, the brilliant sculpting, and the fantastic graphic paint job combined into something pretty incredible.
- Thank you.
- Thank you very much.
Jordan and Ben, excellent work, but as you know, we can only have one winner.
Glenn? The winner of tonight's challenge is Ben.
Thank you very much.
Though Jordan did do a massive amount of work, my favorite things about this creature were the face and that beautiful graphic paint job, and that was all you.
Great job.
Thank you so much.
Wow.
Being the winner of the first Spotlight Challenge is pretty incredible.
It's a really awesome way to start out in the competition.
_ Ben, congratulations.
Thank you.
You, Jordan, Sidney, and Evan are all safe and can head back to the makeup room.
- Thanks, guys.
- Thank you, guys.
All right, guys, unfortunately, that means one of you will be going home tonight.
If you'd please step forward.
All right, Glenn, tell us about the bottom teams.
Kevon and Omar, the idea of the mouth gag was great, but it was your straightforward concept that was at the heart of what went wrong for you this week.
Libby and Stevie, your paint job captured the essence of your native silver, but it was the scope of the work and poor use of models that really did you in.
All right, Glenn, so who is going home tonight? No one is going home tonight.
- Oh, my God.
- What? My God.
What? We threw this incredibly difficult challenge at you because we wanted to see what you were capable of.
Needless to say, we learned a lot about every single one of you this week, but you definitely have a lot to prove next week, so do not waste this opportunity.
All right, guys, you can all head back to the makeup room.
Thank you.
- See you next week.
- Good night.
Got all teary eyed.
Me too.
I can't believe that this just happened.
I can't believe that they are keeping us around.
It's all of us.
- You serious? - What? We're all staying.
Being given a second chance is awesome.
I'm incredibly relieved, and I have so much more to show.
Oh.
And I'm ready to kick some ass.
Season nine! Season nine!