TASK #9
The Amazon's
Proud Protector
Welcome to Rio!
Uýra Sodoma
Uýra Sodoma is the stage name for an indigenous genderqueer Brazilian drag artist from the rural north of the country who uses their art to raise funds for transgender support groups, and conservation of the Amazon rainforest. Their primary medium is visual art; they use face paint, masks, indigenous clothing, and materials from nature to create photoshoots that are bold, provocative, and unforgettable. Every art piece services the theme of the Amazon, whether it be the animals, the plants, or the indigenous tribes who call it home.
For your first task in Brazil, I want you to design an outfit that would fit perfectly in a hypothetical photoshoot by Uýra. It should be tied to the Amazon in some way. I would recommend using Google Images for this task so you can thoroughly understand this artist's style and motifs. If you choose to be inspired by a particular photo, please change enough of your final submission to where it isn't obvious plagiarism. Otherwise, feel free to invent your own idea for a photoshoot.
This is the first time in Snawlterm history where face & body paint is not only permissible, but encouraged. Do with that what you must.
Hello, top six! Welcome to your first overseas panel. I hope you're all enjoying Rio so far.
Like last week, this week's results are really great. The six of you continue to prove your worth in this competition, and leave no doubts as to why you are all still here.
This was a really bizarre task, but you guys took it in stride. I love the level of risk-taking, and the out-of-the-box thinking each of you approached this task with. All of you guys took the idea of skin paint and face obstruction to new, interesting heights. Excellent work overall.
Nobody is joining me at the guest judge table this week, because this was a last minute task idea, and I was too lazy to organize ahead.
PANEL
arber (icearbr)
This was a very tangible, very human task. An opus of man & nature learning to coincide on a canvas while trying to not destroy each other. Frankly, I see none of that on your outfit this week. You said your inspiration was oil, plastic, and other synthetic materials "infecting" the purity of the Amazon. That sounds fucking amazing, and I would love to see that! Instead I see an Arte Povera sculpture with no resemblance to a human body, or anything one would don. No face, hands, feet, torso, etc. Obviously not every Avant Garde outfit needs to be spelled out for me, but again, this task was about human and nature. This outfit does have elements of synthetic materials, such as the plastic umbrella and birdcage, and the ghostly muscle arm thing that looks like some loose tarp or large plastic bag occupying a space it shouldn't be. You have all the ingredients for the most show-stopping outfit... but you built a sculpture with them instead. Even your analogous colour palette - while beautiful - feels disconnected from the task, because even Uýra's darkest artworks still have tiny but very important dollops of brighter colour. When you mentioned Studio Ghibli as a partial inspiration, I wasn't expecting you to literally dress as Howl's moving castle.
alan (alanio)
I strongly dislike outfits from the lying down angle. I will try my best to judge you fairly, but I had to get that factor out in the open; you're climbing a very steep embankment trying to impress me with this. You have on some level, because I love your head & face accessories. I'd call it perfect, even. The feathers, the exaggerated flower, the face paint, it's all lovely and on brand for an Uýra task. The good will begins to slip away as my eye travels down (travels sideways?) to the rest. Your top is an interesting choice, but then the bisected colour pattern is covered by the dramatic feather accessory, an item somehow more annoying from this angle, miraculously. The gold shoes and insect backpack are cool. The floral dress accomplishes nothing; there are so many dresses whose textures reinvent themselves when you lie down, but you chose one of the few that don't. I wish you didn't use an image generator for this outfit because A. your photo's quality is rather fuzzy compared to your competitors and B. the clean slice through the feather & black waist is really distracting. Logging onto a real hotel and photographing yourself in a bed probably would have made this whole presentation more palatable.
elysse (lc22)
While everybody obscured their faces this week, you have my favourite. This multilayered, almost Freddy Kruger donning a dramatic '60s hairdo approach is hilarious and gorgeous. The head accessories with their partial vegetation and almost synthetic plastic appearance is really on brand because Uýra works with any material they can get their hands on, and sometimes it has an air of artificiality to it. You remain very loyal to your chosen theme of fire damage brought on by dehydration. The graphic on the torso does lose me a bit, and it's entirely that bright white Asian character icon. But I deeply enjoy the elegant, ash-like drapery cascading around your model's lower half. I don't love the raised arm, and I am curious to what this would look like without that. Besides two minor flaws, I think you did really good this week, and the final product looks like you had a lot of fun, too.
sarah (sparkle)
Although you didn't share your idea(s) behind this piece with me, I get the idea that this outfit is some sort of commentary on wildlife preservation, because the green attachments training down your back give me a strong reptilian presence. I love your head accessories. The battle scar red across the eyes, the yellow & orange, the creepy green oceanic tentacles, it's a mishmash of organic matter. The rest of the outfit has nice qualities too, like the brave decision to forego the aforementioned colours and stick to brown & black. However, I find the items themselves to be a little too cohesive, which sort of gives a Halloween costume vibe to everything that isn't the head or train. Those boots look like they were specifically made to match that top (I have no idea if they were), and normally that level of cohesivity is good, but in this case, I wish there were a more natural, messy, elemental aesthetic somewhere on the chest or near the feet to make this outfit look like a full Uýra drag piece. Everything is beautiful, but it sorta looks like two ideas colliding together, instead of one beautifully destructive, messy vision.
rae (saffrons)
In comparison to your five fellow competitors, this outfit is surprisingly dialed back and reserved. For this task, that is very dangerous... but shockingly, I love it! The white mask on the blue skin paint is so bombastic and in-your-face that I don't even care that most of your upper torso is bare. If anything, it's free real estate for the blue to establish itself against the ocean of yellow below. I love how there is a very small outline of blue around the upper white on the head, which further sells the illusion that this is either a mask or a heavy second layer of face paint. I love the messy red scraggled paint etched across your chest. The bottom is really neatly framed by the protruding accessories, and I love the hot pink against the yellow. The only "flaw" worth mentioning, is that this outfit shares a few similarities in item pairings with this outfit from a competitor last season... but designers pair common items together all the time and I sincerely doubt you even looked at Season 9's website, let alone decided to plagiarise, so I won't factor it too heavily. Overall, you surprised me this week. Great work!
mickey (player)
Stunning. There are so many little details in this piece that are just now making their presence known to me after contemplating this for a day, like the purple hoop earrings, the skin tone on the hands matching the brown above, the magenta eye makeup almost perfectly matching the pink behind you. It's a simple, but very smart and thorough design. This is another design this week that looks like the designer had a ton of fun making (if you struggled, then the final presentation certainly doesn't show it!). Using the norm karate belt to add more green cluster to the waist is next-level thinking I want to see from everybody. The perfect alignment between the pink lines and the binoculars is so extra, and I love it for this task. Is it a bit too neat and symmetrical? Ehh, sure, but it doesn't rob from the chaotic beauty of the rest of the outfit. Personally I would have used a different colour instead of gray for the top of your head, but that's just me, and I definitely don't find your final decision to be a hindrance. This is a beautiful, impactful, and risky outfit that took great advantage of the face paint element of the task. Please continue operating at this caliber!
Once again, extremely well done to the six of you. This was a TOUGH task, but these outfits across the board were better than I anticipated, honestly. The Top 4 of this week each could have won in their own right. Because we're down to the final six, I am only going to commemorate two. My choices for the Top 2 this week are Rae (saffrons) & Mickey (Player). Congratulations! Both of you really needed this top, and so I hope this international destination has lit a new spark. Keep up the tremendous work! As for this week's winner, I'm gonna go with Mickey (Player).
Week 9
Top 2
Interesting..... Not only did these two submit their outfits at roughly the same time, and with identical image dimensions, but they both wore heavy yellow gowns, too. Watch out, these two bitches are in cahoots!
The Bottom
Choosing my Bottom 2 this week was easy, because there were only two outfits I didn't love . . . . .
Arber
Alan
Arber & Alan, you two are in the bottom for essentially the same reason:
You each took a massive risk - which I appreciate. Sadly, I felt like your risks isolated you two too far from the spirit of the task. I think there is a time and place for both these outfits, but this task wasn't it, in my opinion.
The Designer I Am Eliminating Is...
[Highlight the text to reveal]
Alan (Alanio)... I'm sorry, bud. Normally I never take history into account, but in this rare case, I'm going to because this is your 3rd time in the bottom two, and I feel Arber's outfit - in its own odd and nonsensical way, is showcasing some ingenuity with shapes and textures. Before I bid you adieu, I want to thank you for all your hard work throughout Season 10. I saw how much effort you poured into every task, with your dozens upon dozens of prototypes, countless time toiling over them and making small decisions to maximize your odds. You also did a great job at listening to my feedback (sometimes a little too well!) and applying my criticism. Your tenacity and creativity got you to the Final 6 in my most competitive season, and so I hope you are leaving us with your head held high. You're one of my favourite designers because your simple silhouettes and lush colour palettes are an aesthetic in their own right, and whatever direction this community takes, I hope we continue to see you, because you represent the best of all of us. Take care.
Final five... If you didn't already know, I'm giving cash prizes to everybody who makes the finale, so each of you have a 3/5 chance at winning real money! How exciting.
Your ninth task is uploaded, and it just may be your hardest yet. Good luck.