Miami-Born Twin Brothers Derek and Eric Garcia Face Off on Syfy Channel's Face Off

Photo by Nicole Wilder/Syfy

Eric Garcia

If you're a film buff, you probably have a favorite director, can smell a cheesy rom-com from the first five seconds of its trailer, and know that anything produced by James Cameron is going to blow your mind with computer-generated imagery.

But who's your favorite special effects make-up artist?

Aha! You don't stick around for the credits. (Admittedly, neither do we.)

However, we should acknowledge that without the artistry of special effects make-up, some of our favorite films would've totally sucked. Benjamin Button wouldn't have aged, and the Joker would've just looked like the guy from Brokeback Mountain in drag.

Enter Miami natives Derek and Eric Garcia, fraternal twin brothers with a creative knack for making totally out-there prostheses and applying special-effects make-up. They're contestants on this season of the Syfy network's most popular reality competition show, Face Off.



"[Filming the show] was an amazing experience," says Derek, a tattoo artist by trade. "I'm glad to be on the show and hopefully it'll open up some doors for me."

The Garcia brothers have always excelled artistically, beginning at a young age. As kids, Derek would work on monster make-up creations on his brother Eric. Eventually it paid off, and both men landed gigs as special effects make-up artists at Universal Studios in Orlando, honing their skills at Halloween Horror Nights.

Naturally, the twins decided to audition for Face Off together.

"At first, I really didn't want to audition--I was nervous about the cameras and that situation," says Eric, who spoke to New Times from his home in Central Florida. "My brother was going to come up from Miami and audition in Orlando, and he said, 'Just go with me.'"