Skin Wars Fresh Paint gives us one last taste

Skin Wars season 2 just ended, but we get eased off the show with a special: Skin Wars Fresh Paint. We’ve got 3 mentors: Gear, Dutch and Natalie. We’ve also got 6 artists from different disciplines. We’ve got a graphic artist, a miniature artist, fine artist, a tattoo artist/muralist, a airbrush artist and a performance artist.

We don’t get to see much of the training these artists get, which is slightly disappointing. The first thing the artists have to do is take 90 minutes to do a full front of the body waist-up paint. This challenge will determine the 3 artists that will work with the mentors on the main challenge to win the $10,000 prize.

Natalie gets to pick her artist first, and she selects Adelaide, the performance artist. Gear chooses next & he goes with Ryno, the airbrush artist. Dutch goes last & he selects Max, the graphic artist. The miniature artist, tattoo artist and fine artist are all sent home. Bye Nora the tattoo artist! You were good sassy TV! Bye Steven the fine artist! You were on your way to be Fresh Paint‘s Cheryl Ann!

The collaborative piece mentors & contestants have to create is a head to to painting inspired by the natural elements. They’ve got 3 hours to complete it. The mentors cannot remove or apply paint on any of the models.

We get new judges for this one-off series. Mat Gleason contributes to Huffington Post. Emma Cammack is a body painter.

This is apparently not the last challenge, because 1 artist (and mentor, I assume) will be eliminated.

Dutch’s artist is soaking up Dutch’s advice. I know Dutch has been a teacher before. Not sure about Gear and Natalie, but both of those mentors are having a rough time with their students. Natalie’s artist isn’t listening that she’s got to cover the body. Dutch is taking the approach of saying “you’ve got 2 minutes to do this” and when time’s up, he takes the brush out of his artist’s hand. It’s a really effective technique, and his artist appreciates it. Gear’s artist claims that he knew he had to shut up at some point & listen to his mentor.

After challenge 2, Max is declared the winner, unsurprisingly. Dutch gets all teary-eyed about it. He can be sweet, when he’s not being cocky. The other artist advancing is Ryno. Which means Adelaide and Natalie are out. Again, not surprising. Listen to your mentors, that’s what that teaches me.

And instead of eliminating Natalie, she’s now the 3rd judge. Mwhahahaha.

Final challenge is a full body 360 costume design based on royalty. Eesch. One of the judges has actually done body painting for royalty, so it’s going to be challenging. He chooses medieval Japan as a background. Ryno selects ancient Egypt. The artists have 5 hours and will only get their mentors for a few minutes at the beginning and at the middle of the time frame.

The judges aren’t out of it – they’re in the lounge next door watching everything. Ryno has issues with pasties & the paint and has to walk away for a little bit which causes Gear to freak a little bit.

So the mentors came in at the halfway point to give tips & direction. I’m actually really impressed with Dutch. He does a really good job of giving his artist technical direction in a way that is really clear & useful.

I’m also enjoying getting more from the judges deliberation. I hope Skin Wars proper incorporates more of that in what I assume will be a season 3.

The champion (who doesn’t win anything for their mentor, except pride) is Ryno. His cleaner, but less covered paint trumped Max’s more covered, but messier paint.

With this special, I liked that there was a bit more explanation of the challenges of body painting and more of the judges deliberation. Don’t know if I’d need a whole series of it, but watching people teach body painting offered some nice insight into the process.

What did you think of Skin Wars Fresh Paint