Episode Recap: Serpent Soldiers

Nothing like being aboard a big ol’ aircraft carrier to get your anticipation sky-high for the next challenge! What could possibly get your heart beating faster? Oh, yeah… Snakes! McKenzie has boxes and boxes full of some of the most deadly of them. You may have guessed by now that this week’s challenge will be a mashup of military and serpentine, but did you know that G.I. Joe is getting some snake-inspired soldiers courtesy of our artists? Well you do now… and knowing is half the battle.

Everybody wants to win this challenge, ‘cuz that’s the point, but Cig has a keen hankering for the special prize that comes along with the usual bragging rights this week: a special edition, 50th anniversary collection of G.I. Joe toys! Oh man, he would have the coolest battles with those things. He chooses the Christmas Tree Eyelash Viper (yep, a red-and-green snake with tiny protrusions on its eyes that look like eyelashes!) and has a plan to make a lady assassin, but when it comes time to choose models, all the women are gone! Instead of doing a gender bend makeup, he starts crafting the kind of life-sized action figure he would want to play with. He transforms the lashes into big spikes along the ridges of the snake’s head, creates snake-head epaulets, and comes up with a killer color scheme. Looks like his strategy of “the most fun,” worked: Glenn confirms it with the verdict, “I’ll take two: One to play with and one to keep in the box.” (Translation: Cig is in top looks.)

Seeing as she got the save last week, Sasha really wants to knock this challenge out of the park, but she struggles with her face sculpt. Mr. Westmore gives her some hints on how to make her Hognose snake look more serpentine AND more hog-nosed (tough combo there), but she still struggles with getting the face sculpt. Drew is also facing a challenge, since he’s the only contestant so far to not have a top look, and by gum, he’s determined to change that this week. Most of the artists are creating true snake-human hybrids, so he goes in a different direction and conceives of a character using body modification to look more snake-like (think: facial implants, fangs as fingernails, that kind of thing). The judges reward his bold thinking by putting him in top looks. Go for the gusto!

Sasha winds up in bottom looks, along with Keaghlan and Rachael, both of whom had a tough time getting not only proper snake proportions, but also the sense of the G.I. Joe universe. Keaghlan perhaps had the least sense of snake in her sculpt, and in a truly tough call, the judges send her home.

Dina’s been working extra hard to win that collector’s set for her boyfriend (who has an awesome collection of action figures) and her dedication pays off! She creates a biker chick assassin with the perfect proportions of head-to-body, meticulous scale sculpting, an iridescent sheen that really matches her snake, and a sense that this character could walk right onto a movie set and start shooting. She wins that prize and has one happy boyfriend!