Inspiration Spotlight #23: Syfy's Face Off

I recently discovered a fairly new series on Syfy called Face Off. The premise of the show is that a group of make-ep effects artists compete in a last-man-standing kind of competition to be the number one artist and they win a nice prize packet at the end. They participate in a variety of different challenges that emphasize different aspects of doing make-up for film and TV including, body paint, prosthetics, hair sculpting, and team work to name a few.

I really fell in love with this show pretty quickly. As a fantasy artist, I was really excited to see a different form of conceptualizing creating fictional characters and creatures. There were actually a lot of challenges that fell into the fantasy realm and it got my creative juices flowing.

One of the things I loved the most was that you got to hear the artists all talk about their work and their thought process behind each piece. I was really impressed to see the level of detail they could achieve in their effect but also the level of detail in storytelling you can achieve with a single figure and some make-up. It made me rethink how important little tiny details can be in order to sell your concept and I plan on taking those ideas into my own work.

They are on their 2nd season right now. The first season was fairly short with only 8 episodes but it was jam packed with awesome work from the contestants. If you're an artist (especially a fantasy artist) I think you could get a lot out of watching this show, and it's a really entertaining show whether you're an artist of any kind or not.