Episode Recap: Sy-BORG Showdown

Because we can’t get enough of the monster magic, the sci-fi gods have granted us Game Face, the show where Face Off favorites come to do battle for the chance at $10,000. In ever more difficult challenges, four contestants will become two, but there can be only one winner.

Today’s artists are fierce: We have Roy (from Seasons 3 and 5), Jasmine (Seasons 9 and 11), George (Season 6), and Faina (Season 12), all of them are ready to take it all the way. McKenzie introduces them to the judges: The lovely and iconic Ve Neill, silver screen legend Rick Baker, and multiple Emmy-winner Eryn Krueger Mekash.

For round one, the artists must create a fantasy character using nothing but ears as their inspiration. In a mystery draw, everybody gets pointy ears – except Faina. And she’s not happy about it. She settles on a cute nymph-y look, but it’s not enough to keep her in the game and she is eliminated in Round one.

Roy has massive goblin ears and takes so long applying them that the judges worry he might not have time to paint – but when he brings out the airbrush normally used to paint cars, they stand corrected. His goblin takes him on to Round two! Joining him, of course, are Jasmine and George. Jasmine had a great blend of scary and beautiful, while George used dark and shiny paint to make his woodland warrior look intimidating.

Round two features postcards from horrible locales, such as the catacombs, a padded cell, and the sewer. Fun! The artists get to create the monster that lives in each location. For Jasmine’s catacombs, she goes fairly minimal, focusing on color and skeletal silhouette to bring forth the horror. For Roy’s padded cell, inspiration comes from H.P. Lovecraft and his freaky creatures – an octopus/human hybrid is what develops from this crazy brain. For George’s sewer, a water-dwelling, fin-breathing soul sucker is the order of the day, though his excess paint and lack of detail therein bar him from moving on to the final round.

Jasmine and Roy are, at this point, exhausted from working so hard, so fast, for so long. It’s like bootcamp for SFX artists. We thank you, Jasmine and Roy: your service is our entertainment.

And it’s not so bad to be those guys right now. After all, they get a whole lab full of gizmos and prosthetics and L200 to use for their very own contribution to the Borg empire. You may remember the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation as the entity that absorbed other life forms into its mass cyborg consciousness. You may further remember that the original Borg design came from none other than McKenzie’s dad.

Jazz 'n' Roy get their metal scraps together and push their creativity to the limit. Roy makes sure to get all his paint down first, since this is a challenge that could have his inner fabricator running rampant for hours if he doesn’t check it. Jasmine uses the model’s twisted hair and lays on realistic-looking metal paintwork, and even tries to lay down some textures in the model’s own skin color, just to break up the visual stillness of his cheek. The judges love this touch, and though Roy’s Borg is truly impressive, it’s Jasmine’s detail work that gets her the win!

She is truly speechless, in part because she holds Roy and his work in such high esteem, but Roy is purely happy for her. They worked their hardest and created some truly impressive work. Thanks, guys! And congrats!