Face Off Finalist Rob Seal Talks About Recovering from a Tough Screen Test, the Finale and More [Exclusive] 

We’re down to the final three and in last week’s “Sinister Showdown: Part 1,” we saw the artists get their horror concepts, create their characters, do their screen tests and receive feedback from their directors. Melissa and Walter’s screen tests seemed to go very well, but that wasn’t the case for Rob. Director Bryce McGuire gave Rob a lot of notes about what he needed to change with both of his makeups. So, how did it all turn out? You’ll have to watch Part 2 of the finale to see how all three fared and who was named the Season 10 winner.

Here’s a sneak peek of “Sinister Showdown: Part 2”

I had the chance to talk to Rob Seal right after I watched Part 1 of the finale last week. We discussed how things went for him in both parts of the finale as well as his favorite makeups from Season 10, what he learned from challenges that didn’t go well and what it was really like in the lab.

TV GOODNESS: Part 1 of the finale was a little bit rough on you. You got a lot of notes during the screen test and it seemed like you were gonna have to change a lot. What was going through your mind at the time?

Rob Seal: “When it was actually happening, it wasn’t as stressful as I guess it looked on my face. It definitely was a lot of changes, but it wasn’t anything I was too afraid of.

I knew I had a really strong team and that we were pretty successful with our time management during this first half, so I was pretty confident that we’d be able to get everything done. Yes, it was stressful in the sense that I was more confident this time going into it and then the fact that everything needed to be changed was a bit annoying. But it was pretty even mix of being nervous and not being too nervous, if that makes sense.”

TV GOODNESS: Actually, let’s talk about your team: Kaleb and Anna. You guys seemed to work really well together. Can you talk about that?

Rob: “I was pretty certain that I knew I wanted those two on my team as soon as we were able to choose. I was really glad I was able to go first because I knew those two would be the two I would be able to communicate with the easiest.

Working with Kaleb before, I knew how to communicate ideas to him, we were really good at bouncing things off of each other and we worked really smoothly together. Also, me and Anna got along in general, like at the house and most of the time so it was kind of an easy choice for me. And they’re both amazing artists, so I was pretty happy with who I was able to choose.”

TV GOODNESS: What can you tell me about Part 2 of the finale?

Rob: “For the second half, there’s a lot of re-sculpting for sure. We have to redo the female face and the demon face and add a couple new extra pieces. That’s basically all there is to it.

The shoot is really fun. There’s a lot of crazy stuff going on and I’m pretty sure I’ll be sweating a lot and that’s half nerves and half of it being really hot outside. It was a really cool experience.”

Now let’s talk about Season 10 in general. The judges seemed to consistently like your looks and you won “Covert Characters” and “Smoke and Mirrors.” Going into those challenges, what was your strategy and why did you want to create those specific looks?

Rob: “For ‘Covert Characters,’ my goal was to work smarter not harder. I really wanted to create a piece I could apply quickly and I wanted to do something out of silicon because I hadn’t really been able to show that skill of mine until that point in the competition.

I had that really weird idea to create a makeup that imitated my dad. That was one of the first ideas that popped into my head and once I came up with it, I really liked that idea. I decided to roll with it and in the end it paid off pretty well.”

TV GOODNESS: How about for “Smoke and Mirrors?”

Rob: “As soon as we walked up to that castle, I was really hoping for dragons as you saw in the episode. By my amazing luck, I was able to choose first and I got that exact character I wanted. I knew that with getting a dragon character, I wanted to do something way bigger than I had done before, so I decided to go with the back piece and hand appliances.

At first I was a little worried that it was quite a bit of pieces and once I got sculpting I was in a pretty good groove and time wasn’t too much of an issue. But what didn’t quite make it [onscreen] was the fact that once I started to mold the back piece I only had about half the face sculpted. So between every layer of cement for my back mold, I would run up to my sculpture and sculpt a little bit more and run back and do some more molding, and then run back and sculpt a little big more. So that part was a little bit frantic but overall that probably was one of my favorite looks of the entire season.”

TV GOODNESS: You had a little bit of trouble with “The Art of Warcraft.” You didn’t seem that happy with your makeup, but the judges put it in their top looks. Can you talk about your struggles with that character and how you felt about that challenge after you received your critique from the judges?

Rob: “Going into it, I had a very specific vision in mind and the reason why I thought it was gonna be trashed so much was because in the end, it was nowhere near the vision I had. I was imagining this really big silhouette with a back piece and as each day went on, more and more things started going wrong.

During the first day I was in such a rut sculpt-wise. The first day was an 8 hour day and I got almost nothing done. I think the only thing I finished on the first day was the fingers. That whole day was just a mess.

The second day I started the face over again completely and finally got a vision for it. I had crammed so many things I had to do into that second day that I think I only got half of them done, which then led into me needing to cram a bunch of things into application day, which honestly probably would’ve worked out if all the things I was running on the third day didn’t go completely wrong also.

Once the polyfoam fingers were not working out properly and then the horn broke in half, I realized that I would have to scrap a lot of the work I’d have to do on that day. Then by the time I was actually gluing down my piece and starting to paint there was absolutely no time to do any of those bigger things that would’ve made it more of the vision I had in mind in the beginning.

So when I was actually on the reveal stage, I was thinking this was a really good makeup, but it didn’t look like the character at all and that’s what the guest judge, Rob Kazsinky, mentioned and I totally agree with him.

TV GOODNESS: Is there any specific critique or advice you got from Mr. Westmore or the judges that helped motivate you throughout the competition?

Rob: “I can’t think of anything in particular, but I did stick to what Neville [Page] always says and what Glenn [Hetrick] always says and that is that everything has to purposeful and all of the anatomy and sculptural details have to make sense. I know that’s kind of a given, but that’s something that I really tried to stick to in general.

Any critique Glenn gave was really good to listen to because he would critique you and then following that he would give you advice on how to make it better for the future and those are some of the most helpful critiques I got the entire season.”

TV GOODNESS: Last week I talked to Melissa and Walter about the great camaraderie you guys had in the lab. Can you talk about working with and sometimes against a group of people you became close to?

Rob: “I gotta say that this entire group of people was fantastic. There were never any times where people were malicious to each other and that, honestly, was refreshing because I didn’t really know what I was coming into when I started.

As I got to know them I was really glad that we were all really wanting to help each other succeed. In the beginning at the house, the entire group had a conversation and we were all like, ‘Ok. If anyone has the time to spare to help anyone else, we’re all agreeing to do that up until maybe top 5.’ And even past then we were all helping each other because we grew close as, like a small family, that no one wanted to see anyone else fail. So it was just really awesome in that respect.”

Edited for space and content.

“Sinister Showdown: Part 2” airs Wednesday, April 13th at 9/8c on Syfy. Want to read my Q&As with Melissa Ebbe and Walter Welsh? Click here for Melissa and here for Walter.