It seems to me one of the best scenarios you can find yourself in on Face Off is the one Rayce found himself in last night.
Of course, it wasn’t envious at the time. As a matter of fact, it was downright uncomfortable. He was second guessing himself nine ways to Sunday, he was nervous as all get out, vocally declared he could have done a lot more with paint and other finishing touches and he thought the judges were going to pick his creation apart to the Nth degree. But his fears turned into groundlessness come show time. Just the opposite took place: He was praised for the work he did. Rather a relief. And I think he deserved it. He put into practice a few funky efforts to make his corythosaurus hybrid birdlike, angular and rather innovative.
At this point in the game, the remaining hopefuls are well aware of the time constraints they have to work within. Knowing that, the only thing that hinders them from putting out quality product is poor design and application and/or the inevitable glitch that might arise. And they do arise. Rayce was well aware of that when the texture to his creation’s tail clumped and tore and fubared. And RJ was totally aware of it when he ended up scrapping his entire sculpt, reasoning it was aping his previous efforts too closely. Let the judges catch whiff of that fact (because they do remember past projects) and it will go against you at the end of the day.
Overall, each of the contestants put out some pretty solid work this challenge … so much so it was difficult for the judges to call out a bad design/creation. It was a matter of narrowing things down to the best three of the five works rather than choosing the worst. There was no “worst.”
Much as I enjoyed the fact Sue beat out Beki in the end (she remained in the competition a couple clicks past her opponent’s ouster) I definitely would have picked her to be eliminated this episode. There’s too much frantic energy surrounding her and her whining bugs me. I would rather see confidence throughout your work process instead of beating yourself up episode in and episode out. (That confidence didn’t help Matt much, however, as he was the other half of the multiple-elimination. I thought he was a worthy opponent, too.)
So now it comes down to the finale. All three remaining contestants — RJ, Ian and Rayce — have output some pretty spiffy work, flubbed occasionally yet remained perseverant. I’m putting my money on Rayce who is the more consistent of the three to win this thing.
Clacked by Michael Noble 
on Mar 08, 2012 @ 12:30 EST5EDT
