'Face Off' recap: 'Bugging Out'

Eric and his winning creation. Courtesy Syfy
BY LARISSA MRYKALO

After last week's Face Off, the nine remaining artists engaged in two challenges in this creepy-good episode. First, they headed to the lab and were greeted by hostess, McKenzie Westmore and Make-Up Forever’s head make-up artist, Lijha Stewart. Their Foundation Challenge was to reinvent an iconic female storybook character with a twist...they must turn the good girl, bad.

Not only is immunity from elimination on the line for the challenge but the winner also receives a professional make-up case filled with thousands of dollars worth of products. The contestants chose their model and classic story and had two hours to complete their design. Some examples were Eric F.’s Red Riding Hood that was mid-transformation after a werewolf attack, Anthony’s burned Cinderella, and Wayne’s Little Miss Muffet that’s turning into a spider.

Lijha loved Eric F.’s and Wayne’s designs the most and chose Eric F. as the winner. He was thrilled with the immunity and also the kit, since he described himself as a poor artist who can’t afford all of those high end products. He’s excited that it’ll help out with his business. Now that he has immunity, will he get even MORE wild in the main challenge?

Spotlight Challenge

Day One
The Spotlight Challenge in this episode was all about deriving inspiration from abstract photos. Each artist had to choose a colorful and mysterious picture that turned out to be an image that was scanned with an electron microscope. The real image was revealed to be a bug, and they needed to create a bug/hybrid character.

Here are what the artists chose: Wayne (Firefly); Kris (Butterfly); Anthony (Any); House (Honeybee); Eric Fox (Wolf Spider); Alam (Grasshopper); Autumn (Beetle); Meagan (Moth); and, Eric Z. (Mosquito).

They had five hours to design their creation and start molding the pieces. Anthony really seemed lost this week, even though his bug, the ant, seemed simple. He admitted that he feels a lot of pressure due to starting the competition so strongly. Overall, the designs look cool, but complicated. Does it end up being another stressful three days?

Day Two
Michael Westmore does his walk-through and offers his artistic advice to Alam, Meagan, and Anthony. We assume he helps out everyone, but ya know, editing and stuff. Anyway, Anthony is still stressing out and needs to create many pieces for his Army Ant but Michael is glad he decided to make the design’s head larger. He suggests that Alam not complicate her grasshopper (the very bugs that she used to fry and eat as a child ...yum?) with too many colors. Meagan needed help with her color scheme and her moth’s fur.

Day Three
It’s Application Day! Yay! Four hours to go until Last Looks and then the Reveal. No pressure? Poor Anthony struggles with his mold. At least he took to stress spotlight away from the usually harried Meagan, right? Not really. Meagan wasn’t happy with her work this week either, in fact, she said her color-challenged Chewbacca/Moth fusion, “looks like hell.” Alam’s mish mosh-y grasshopper with the plastic wings and glitter flip flops still needed some applications up until the end. Wayne was really kicking ass but ended up forgetting the elements of his photo in his Firefly.

Overall, the looks were cool and, immune Eric F., as well as House, Autumn, and Eric Z. were safe. Bottom looks included: Meagan’s badly painted moth; Alam’s grasshopper who’s colors just didn’t flow; and, (GASP!) Anthony’s bizarre Army Any that Glenn described as the “worst that he’s done.” There were only two top looks tonight: Wayne’s “amazing”, “ingenious”, “knocked out of the park” firefly; and, Kris’s “pleasing to look at”, well-proportioned and artistic butterfly.

According to Glenn, Wayne should have been the winner, but since he didn’t complete the challenge because he didn’t use the original image, the deemed winner was Kris. Kris didn’t care...it’s all good. The artist who was eliminated tonight was Alam. She was said but expressed great love for what she does.

So what did you think about this episode’s main competition and the judge’s decisions? What do you think of the season SO FAR? Who are you rooting for and who do you think needs to pack up their kit?

Next week, the remaining eight need to create an original werewolf ... from another planet! A space werewolf? Be sure to check out "Howl at the Moon," next Tuesday on Syfy at 9 p.m. ET.