S06.E07: Predator/Prey

[thewhiteowl]

Description not yet available, will update

[HunterHunted]

Thank goodness St. Marq's is gone.

[Madding crowd]

It was awful of the show to expect these people to sit for four people tattooing them at once. Of course, I also think these people are crazy for wanting to be 'transformed' into an animal. St. Marq is a creep but I didn't like any of the people who had no compassion for a canvas who was in near shock from pain. 

[tm07]

I am glad St. Marq is home I couldn't stand him, I couldn't believe he was working against his teammates instead of working with them. Like not only was it bad for the teammates but for the canvas too, because while the others tried to make their tattoos go together and match, he purposely wanted to make his stand out which would have looked weird on the canvas to have that one piece just stand out. I don't know, I couldn't stand his ego, I am just glad he is gone now

[WickedTuna]

Thank goodness St. Marq's is gone.

Amen to that. He was such an ass.

Except for him leaving I didn't like the episode at all. Those tattoos were really odd. The one on the butt looked like she sat in something.

Craig was my favorite but he's turned out to be a jerk. I can't believe some of the things he's been saying.

[PepperMonkey]

Chris was a marine, y'all!! Didja hear?

 

Glad St. Marq is gone as well. He may be talented as all hell, but he's a dick AND he did not meet that team challenge at all. Plus, I'm tired of all that black and grey. He's very good at it, but if he can't really do anything else, then he's NOT an Ink Master, according to Ollie and Nunez's assessment of what Ink Master means.

 

On the other hand, Chris had NO compassion at all for that girl, who was either tapped out or freaked. Doesn't really matter which, you didn't get to finish, did you?

 

I used to like Craig, but he hasn't done anything for me this time around. I kind of like Dave the best, but I think he's ultimately too soft-hearted to join in with the constant douchebaggery, so he probably won't be around long. Besides, I really don't like him because of his skills, but because he's a nice guy, which really isn't what the competition is about, obviously.

 

Edited August 12, 2015 by PepperMonkey

[phoenix780]

I thought that was a very entertaining episode, but the main challenge was buried. I'm OK with that because it was uncomfortable and, to me, weird.

I missed the part of the season where St. Marq was one of the best there. I only remember him for middle of the pack results, ignoring challenges, and repeatedly proclaiming his greatness. So I was puzzled by the judges and their angst. Also, if they don't want weak artists coasting they shouldn't do team challenges. Or even so many head to heads.

Final thought- I loved the artists talking back to the judges, using their own words. I enjoyed how it helped highlight Nunez's bias towards those he perceives as stronger for whatever reason. Plus it was just fun to see how far they pushed back. St. Marq must be an awful person. Or the show really does have a lot of unclear bullshit.

Edited August 12, 2015 by phoenix780

[AppleCore]

I am glad St. Marq is out the door. I lost a lot of respect for Chris tonight, though. He was brutal to that canvas. That was too much for anyone to endure. I preferred his color heart to S.M.'s, but it really bothered me that he colored the aorta blue and the pulmonary arteries red. It's always the other way. Always. I'm sure they got some kind of reference to look at. Take a minute and get it right. I was hoping one of the judges would pounce on it.

Edited August 12, 2015 by AppleCore

[Muffyn]

It was the battle of the dicks.  St. Marq has been a dick from day one.  I will be happy to not have to hear him tell us, in the third person, just how incredible he is.  Show, don’t tell, because you haven’t shown all that much outside of your fully blended black and gray.  Lines matter, St. Marq, in tattooing that is.

 

Chris made a bad choice in having them all tattoo such large areas on their canvas at the same time.  Not many people could sit through that.  When she started to panic, his behavior made it worse, not better.  Katie tried to talk her down and help her get better control.  Chris stood around, posing, trying to look tough, and bitching about her.  I am so glad he knows what was going on with her.  We wouldn’t want to trust her to better assess her own physical sensations and state of mind.  I guess the trained paramedic was also just feeding into her drama.  Thanks, Chris; when I need a medical assessment, you’re the guy I’ll go to, that is, after I have spoken with every other person on the planet. 

 

And hey, Chris was a marine.  Did you know that?  If we made a drinking game out of every time he tells us he’s a marine, I would be dead from alcohol poisoning.  Or as Chris would say, I would be being dramatic.

[Demented Daisy]

That was a close one.  I'm so glad that Katie spoke up about the artists playing by the rules.  At that point, IMO, they had no choice but to eliminate someone.

 

Personally, I wanted a double elimination.  I know Marines, Chris, and you're no Marine.  He's a stereotype of a Marine.

 

St. Marq bored me.  He was good at what he did, but he never did anything else.

[candall]

Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the judges being all pissy because the contestants manipulated them into using the artwork from an actual challenge to make a decision.

 

I can understand, say, a top three competitor sliding by on a pass now and then after an off day, but it's wearing thin that every damn episode ends with the challenge results being practically irrelevant.

 

P.S>I wouldn't want to show up on the day when "human canvas writhing in pain" is one of the pre-planned challenge hurdles.

[Rancide]

I don't understand why everyone was so eager to send St. Marq home.  I'm sure he's hugely unpleasant to live with, but he hasn't won anything yet.  He's been a middle-of-the-road tattooer with an outsize mouth.  I don't get why eliminating him was such a huge strategic priority.

 

I did enjoy that the judge's stupid attempts to stir up drama by having the contestants pick who was up for elimination backfired on them, and I also enjoyed the whining that followed.  I'm sure Chris Nunez is a great tattoo artist, but he's also an arrogant bully and a condescending prick.  It was good to see it thrown back in his face.  Based on the judges' reactions to not being 100% in control of everything that goes on, it's clear that they wouldn't make it even half a season as a contestant.

[thewhiteowl]

I don't understand why everyone was so eager to send St. Marq home.  I'm sure he's hugely unpleasant to live with, but he hasn't won anything yet.  He's been a middle-of-the-road tattooer with an outsize mouth.  I don't get why eliminating him was such a huge strategic priority.

 

I did enjoy that the judge's stupid attempts to stir up drama by having the contestants pick who was up for elimination backfired on them, and I also enjoyed the whining that followed.  I'm sure Chris Nunez is a great tattoo artist, but he's also an arrogant bully and a condescending prick.  It was good to see it thrown back in his face.  Based on the judges' reactions to not being 100% in control of everything that goes on, it's clear that they wouldn't make it even half a season as a contestant.

 

 Quoted for truth. The only one who ever said how great St Marq could tattoo was St Marq. lol  He was good at a couple of things but overall, no threat. He mostly talked himself out the door.

[qtpye]

No, matter how good you are at something...you should never begin a sentence with "As a self proclaimed God", unless you are being ironic.  I think St. Marq said his nickname comes from his family being pastors, but this type of bravado goes against everything Christianity usually stands for.  However, I could not get past how unsympathetic Chris was with his poor canvas. I also did not understand how having random pieces of animal hide tattooed on your body transforms you into that animal. 

[LoneHaranguer]

 

Final thought- I loved the artists talking back to the judges, using their own words. I enjoyed how it helped highlight Nunez's bias towards those he perceives as stronger for whatever reason. Plus it was just fun to see how far they pushed back.

I got the impression that what we saw was an edited version, but it was nice to see the artists band together and call out the judges on what was shaping up to be another BS decision. And Peck kept getting called out for not knowing what he was talking about wrt what the animal patterns should look like. Would it have been that much trouble to call up some photos on the internet before sitting down at the judges' table? This isn't the first episode where he and/or Nunez have embarrassed themselves this way.

[psychoticstate]

I for one am glad St. Marq is gone.  I was tired of hearing that long winded douchebag go on and on, in the third person, about how awesome he is.  Go be awesome at home, dude.  People who speak of themselves in the third person deserve a punch to the crotch in my book.

 

I am completely dismayed with how Chris treated his canvas.  It probably doesn't help that these people are referred to as canvases but seriously, she wasn't having a "drama attack."  She was clearly in pain as anyone should know or would be when you have FOUR artists tattooing you at the same time. That said, I'm glad that Chris' strategy to throw himself on the sword didn't backfire.

 

Like the poster above, Dave is my favorite artist.  I think he's fairly solid and he seems like a genuinely nice guy.  I swear, I almost busted out in tears when he begged Chris not to make him choose. 

 

Craig - - it's called humility, learn it, live it.

 

From the previews it looks as though Tyler and Marissa get involved. . . ???  Really?  If so, has that ever happened on Ink Master before?

 

Call out to Josh!  I miss Josh.  Can he please come back?  Again?

[Inkmaster0345]

For many reasons that people already touched on, I didn't care for this episode at all. The challenge was weird from the very beginning and honestly I didn't think that any of the tattoos looked very good or even realistic. The crocodile skin that won looked, as St. Marq put it, "like f-ed up cobblestone". The judges didn't really seem knowledgeable in their critiques and I agree with Tyler that while the focus of the day was texture, the challenge was to transform your canvas into an animal, and I don't think anyone could look at the winning canvas's scattered spots and go "oh yeah that's crocodile skin". 

 

No flash challenge was lame. The flash challenges, while not always super relevant, are a great way for the contestants to showcase their overall artistic talent, and it results in the skull pick which is one of my favorite aspects of the show. 

 

I get that the big twist this season is the master/apprentice dynamic, but I'm tired of the forced teamwork. Save teamwork for the flash challenges. When it comes to the elimination tattoo, I wanna see each artist throw down individually and compete against the field (no more "head to head" elimination tattoos either, which are irrelevant since the worst tattoo of the field goes home anyways). 

 

St. Marq is finally gone. What a total creep. The guy is world class when it comes to his style of no-outline black and grey, but he clearly had nothing else. His elimination reminded me of Craig's elimination in his original season, when he was eliminated for not knowing how to do black and grey despite clearly not being the worst artist there. People tried to draw comparisons between SM and Josh as Ink Master villains. The difference is that while Josh always acted cocky and ran his mouth, he backed it up with countless wins. SM had a couple of nice tattoos early but once the judges figured out that was all he could do it was quickly downhill from there.

 

Craig, Kruseman or Matt is going to win the title. Chris, Erik, Dave and Katie will go far but fall short. Look for Marisa, Tyler, Big Ceeze and Duffy to fall soon. Those are my predictions, anyways. 

Edited August 12, 2015 by Inkmaster0345

[psychoticstate]

And I agree, I don't think the judges on this show are very good at all in terms of their decisions. I don't see why Dave has so much input when he has a ton of shit tattoos and no tattooing experience.

 

 

I like Dave as a judge.  I think he's supposed to represent the tattoos from the standpoint of the person getting them.  I do think he's shot down and overshadowed quite a bit by Oliver and Chris but I think he makes valid points. 

[candall]

Oy, maybe this "four at one time" thing was just a way to get a good (free) jumpstart on these people getting their whole bodies covered with fur or scales ink.  :/

[wovenloaf]

And I agree, I don't think the judges on this show are very good at all in terms of their decisions. I don't see why Dave has so much input when he has a ton of shit tattoos and no tattooing experience. The other two aren't the best tattooers I've seen either. There are plenty of artists online with portfolios that blow theirs out of the water. I'm convinced that the guy with the toothpick in his mouth is trying to disguise/distract from his lisp.

I was just talking to Mr. Wovenloaf about Dave's judging last night and we both feel like most of the time Oliver and Chris (and sometimes guest judge too) are the ones pronouncing the loser - as in, pretty often they just agree about the person going home, and Dave's really only casting tie-breaking votes occasionally. Which I don't think is an accident... I think the show is set up to not have Dave making people angry - he's hosting, being way nicer even when he doesn't like something (which is probably mostly just due to him not being anywhere near as much of an asshole as the other two, but I think it's also edited to be that way), and only bringing the hammer down on people if he has to. So I don't think that his judging input is actually that great, unless Oliver and Chris decide they don't want to agree on that particular day. 

 

Also, regarding lisp - yes! I have wondered if the dumb toothpick was causing the lisp, but I think you're probably right that he's just trying to fool me into thinking that.

[OakGoblinFly]

No, matter how good you are at something...you should never begin a sentence with "As a self proclaimed God", unless you are being ironic.  I think St. Marq said his nickname comes from his family being pastors, but this type of bravado goes against everything Christianity usually stands for.  However, I could not get past how unsympathetic Chris was with his poor canvas. I also did not understand how having random pieces of animal hide tattooed on your body transforms you into that animal. 

 

 

Or Loki.

 

St. Marq was an unpleasant person and I can see why the rest of the house wanted him out - then again, I really don't think anyone (excepting maybe Dave) is anyone I would classify as 'nice' .... they're all kind of jerky and not anyone I would want to spend and time with.  Is it impossible to find tattoo artists who are decent human beings?

 

I did like how team crocodile approached the task; they were very caring with their client. 

 

I didn't like any of the final looks - then again, I don't understand why anyone would want to permanently transform themselves into an animal.

[Demented Daisy]

Really, I think this week's challenge was a setup for failure.  Four different artists doing the same thing in four different spots?  So that future artists can fill in the blanks?  Hideous.

 

Would have worked much better, IMO, as a tag team challenge.  Make it one big tattoo (say, a back piece) that everyone works on individually, but the judges shouldn't be able to tell that different artists worked on it.

 

Yep, they've done it before (I think), but can we please think of the canvas?  Won't someone think of the canvas?!?!  ;-)

[qtpye]

St. Marq was an unpleasant person and I can see why the rest of the house wanted him out - then again, I really don't think anyone (excepting maybe Dave) is anyone I would classify as 'nice' .... they're all kind of jerky and not anyone I would want to spend and time with.  Is it impossible to find tattoo artists who are decent human beings?

 

 

There used to be a tattoo show on the Lifetime channel called Best Ink.  It was the same premise as Ink Master (find the best tattoo artist) and most of the contestants were so sweet and nice, that you wanted to take them home with you. It was even hosted by a former rock star.

 

In the twop forums we often speculated is that the vast difference between the attitude of the two shows was that one channel is geared towards women and the other focused on men.

 

The big problem with Ink Master is that the Spike network can not tell the difference between a bad ass and a ass hole. They encourage the contestants to act in the worst way possible, because it makes the show more "cutting edge" or cool.

Edited August 13, 2015 by qtpye

[Hana Chan]

I'm not a fan of a challenge like this. For any person, no matter how high their pain tolerance is, a six hour session alone is rough. But having different areas of your body worked on at the same time for six hours? There's probably something in the Geneva Convention barring that. I can't blame Cheetah girl for getting overwhelmed because unless she's got lead skin, this job was going to be hard to sit through. There was nothing that anyone could have done (either Chris's muscle through attitude or Kate's soothing) that was going to make this better. It was just too much for her.

 

And I didn't love the end results because you had tattoos all over the body that didn't connect in any real way. I think that the Crocodile team did the best work because they had a smart strategy - the artists tattooing one at a time. Besides not overwhelming the canvas, it also allowed them to see what the artist before them did and match their work precisely. I just didn't love having patches of crocodile skin scattered across the body. I think it would have been a lot better to pick one body part (the back of the shoulders, maybe) and do four pieces that connected into one big, cohesive tattoo. If the judges would have a hard time picking out who did what part, it would cement how well they nailed the challenge. Hell, they could have made it look like the canvas was shedding his human skin and the reptile skin was underneath. That would have been a serious kick ass tattoo.

 

I might have been irritated with Chris in how he handled their canvas, but I'll give him credit for balls in putting himself on the firing line for the sole purpose of taking St. Marq out. That took some serious stones.

 

As for as the face off with St. Marq... for me it was no contest. And it has nothing to do with the fact that I don't like St. Marq. Chris's tattoo was alive and vibrant and had so much dimension that it looked like I could actually lift it off the skin. He used every trick in the book and made an amazing design. St. Marq's, on the other hand, looked much too soft. I didn't find it very readable and with no real line work or deep black to accentuate the details, I can't see this tattoo looking good ten years down the road. And again, he does the one thing that he's good at as a tattooist and I'm glad that it finally came up short.

Edited August 13, 2015 by Hana Chan

[hatchetgirl]

I hate St Marq. What a pig. Having said that, he was a one trick pony and the others should have kept him. He wouldn't have won.

[azshadowwalker]

Having said that, he was a one trick pony and the others should have kept him. He wouldn't have won.

The way the judges slobbered over him makes me wonder about that. They seemed completely impressed in a way that I couldn't justify. If he stayed, I could see it coming down to him and Chris at the end.

[Maleficent]

Well, they didn't really need St. Marq anymore with Chris stepping up to be villain.  I think he's a cocky guy, but I kinda liked him...until he pulled that crap with his canvas.  What an asshole.  That was just too much and he gave the editors a whole lot to work with.  I like the rest of the bunch.  They all have their issues with mannerisms, ways to confront and mostly likely lack of sleep, but all in all they seem like good people.

[MiseryIndex]

I don't know where they find these people willing to go through that. Especially at the same time. It's almost not fair to thr canvas to make it harder on the artists and more likely to get a bad tattoo. Or tattoos that don't match like they should.

[Hana Chan]

St. Marq's biggest sin to me wasn't his oversized ego, or his annoying habit of referring to himself in the third person. A good villain (like Josh) can be highly entertaining while a bad villain (like Emily or Kay Kutta) just makes you want to pitch them off a cliff. St. Marq wasn't entertaining. He was obnoxious and worse, his work in no way justified the overblown image he had of himself as a tattoo "god". I'll give credit where credit is due - of all the black and grey artists the show has had up until now, he's probably one of the better ones. But he has shown himself absolutely incapable of doing anything else. In every challenge, no matter what the skill they were demanding of the artists, St. Marq just did his own style.

 

And worse, the judges almost never called him out on it. When they did the Egyptian challenge where he did his usual style, he in no way met the challenge and rightly should have been in the bottom only for that reason (though he would have been saved from going home by the Shar Pei sphinx. He biffed the koi tattoo and again, wasn't sent to the bottom. I get that when he sticks to his own style, he's good but if he's not even trying to satisfy the challenges, there is something deeply unfair about artists who did (and ended up having less success) going home instead. I'm not a rule Nazi and I can forgive that lapse once. But it's been a repeated issue with St. Marq. 

 

And the way Oliver and Chris were going on, like losing this bozo was some kind of huge tragedy for the competition... give me a break. A tragedy is someone having to drop out for a family emergency or a medical crisis (or in Josh's case, because he was smoking weed). Not going home for the duel sins of ignoring the challenge requirements every week and not only making himself so obnoxious that his entire team was more than ready to throw him under the bus (justifiably) but also have one of the top contenders be willing to be placed in the bottom just to make sure that his ass got sent home.

Edited August 14, 2015 by Hana Chan

[thewhiteowl]

I did think St Marq was quite good at his thing but his thing, B&W with minimal lines, is going to be a blur in a few years. Sure it looks good now but that thing is there forever and I think most artists have a thought to that when tattooing. He didn't seem to. Colors will fade with time and even the best outline will blur but even with those things the tattoo should still be readable, if you went to a competent artist. St Marq's are going to be a blurry mess, IMO.

I do think the others put up St Marq because he is an ass. The designer/leader of that team should have gone up because the type of snake was unidentifiable. And the head was a worse match to the others than St Marq's IMO.

Chris was an ass but the rest think he's a hero, St Marq ought to study that strategy. lol

[BigBlueMastiff]

Am the only one who saw fish scales, or snake scales in SM's (i refuse to write whatever the eff he calls himself) heart? There was no question whose was better, surprised by all the praise SM got. Looked pretty flat to me. A heart should be dynamic, like telltale heart dynamic, SM's was just meh. Good riddance.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Thank goodness St. Marq is finally gone. He is totally delusional if he really believes all the stuff he says about himself. At least now I won't have to hear him talk about how he's a tattoo god anymore.

 

Chris was such a dick about his team's canvas. Great that he was a Marine. So was one of my best friends but she doesn't go around denigrating other people's pain and comparing it to her experience in the military. Dick move.

[TattleTeeny]

There used to be a tattoo show on the Lifetime channel called Best Ink.  It was the same premise as Ink Master (find the best tattoo artist) and most of the contestants were so sweet and nice, that you wanted to take them home with you. It was even hosted by a former rock star.

 

In the twop forums we often speculated is that the vast difference between the attitude of the two shows was that one channel is geared towards women and the other focused on men.

 

The big problem with Ink Master is that the Spike network can not tell the difference between a bad ass and a ass hole. They encourage the contestants to act in the worst way possible, because it makes the show more "cutting edge" or cool.

I miss that show; I liked it much better. 

[TattleTeeny]

Am the only one who saw fish scales, or snake scales in SM's (i refuse to write whatever the eff he calls himself) heart? There was no question whose was better, surprised by all the praise SM got. Looked pretty flat to me. A heart should be dynamic, like telltale heart dynamic, SM's was just meh. Good riddance.

All I know is that I loved Chris's heart, even if the artery and vein colors were reversed. I actually like so much of the work of his that I've seen online. I can't judge St. Marq's work too harshly because I don't love black and gray tattoos (I mean, I sort of do, I guess--I definitely appreciate them but they just don't do it for me; I like lots of color) but none of his stuff so far has really wowed me.

 

ETA: Oops, I didn't mean to do two posts in a row; I thought I was adding to my first one. Sorry!

Edited August 19, 2015 by TattleTeeny