S06.E13: Player's Choice

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Artists are knocked off their game when professional football players call the shots; superfans get inked with permanent autographs.

[HunterHunted]

A final goodbye to the world's dumbest use of an alliance in all of competitive reality.

And after the endless bitching about darker skin, the producers demonstrate that have a crueler sense of humor than we ever thought possible by making every canvas an African-American professional football player. And half of canvases have a jumble of twenty ideas of what they want tattooed. Bravo show!

[Guest dutronc]

I think Chris's portrait was worse than Tyler's bear.

[phoenix780]

This episode felt to me to be as much about storyline as anything.  They needed more drama, because for all of Chris's bullshit nobody really reacts, so they encourage everyone to really fight for the win.  Then, they cut Chris's handmaiden so even if the others don't step up there's a good chance he'll go full psycho as he lives some bullshit underdog narrative.  
 

The bluntness of Chris's comments about dark skin, his asking the person to show the leg and then saying it was too dark so he wasn't even going to try- that felt wrong.  Really wrong.  I suppose I can understand why dark skin is more difficult.  It'd be nice, though, to have heard the judges go off about how an "ink master" should be comfortable tattooing people of different colors the way they've gone off on other things.  Seems like that's at least as important as having varied styles, especially since I don't think in the real world you can only tattoo light-skinned people whereas you might be able to avoid certain styles if you can't do them.  I know others mentioned the skin color too, I don't think any were quite as...Chris just put it right out there, and the show let it sit, pretty much.  Not cool.

 

I have no idea what Craig's tattoo was supposed to be, so I'd have sent him home.  The wolf-bear was at least an animal.  He drew...a stone?   

 

And, since this whole show is about Chris, my last thought's about him too.  I need him to explain how Kruseman doing a safe tattoo is inherently more pussy-esque than deliberately and desperately avoiding any canvasses that are difficult.  From my perspective it looks like exactly the same thing just from different angles, therefore if Kruseman is pussing out Chris is doing the same thing.

Edited September 23, 2015 by phoenix780

[niklj]

Chris Nunez: "If I were all of you, I would've played it safe too."

Human Canvas Jury: "This safe tattoo is in the bottom."

 

Ugh. I actually love how much the contestants are pushing back against the judges* this year. Really no reason to respect either of them to the amount they seem to expect to be respected (say that five times fast).

 

*Obviously not talking about Dave because he's never not awesome.

Edited September 23, 2015 by niklj

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Man, I laughed SO HARD when Tyler got eliminated. Between his inexplicable cockiness and Chris reprimanding him earlier (because HOW DARE Tyler screw up and possibly have that affect Chris?), it was delicious to see Tyler finally go home. There is a tiny part of me that wishes he could have stayed long enough for Chris to finally turn on him when push came to shove. You know that if they were the only two left, Chris would drop him off a cliff if it meant winning (and then Tyler would lie at the foot of the cliff crying and whimpering like a kicked puppy).

 

Schadenfreude aside, that wolf bear sucked. Even without the problems with the ear, the angle that he used with the bear's head was not ideal and did him no favors. And that's before you take into account the scratchiness in the fur. Tyler's tattoo was just awful from beginning to end. The choices he made with his drawing sucked and his application sucked.

 

Chris murdered that baby's face. One of the judges was really focused on how much he changed the mouth, which was true, but the whole face was bad for me. The problem with portraits is that if you are not a good artist, you can trace a photograph and it just makes the face look bad. On top of that, if you aren't good at shading then it ends up kind of distorting the face. You have to know which lines to emphasize and which shadows to use a light hand with. In all my years of watching various tattoo shops, there are very few people who I would let put a portrait on me.

 

I agree that Chris saying Kruseman is playing it safe is hypocritical. This coming from the guy who wanted to avoid the canvases with dark skin because it's harder to deal with. The bottom line is that everyone is trying to make it to the next week and I haven't seen anyone say, "I definitely want the most difficult canvas who wants the largest craziest tattoo so that I can really challenge myself!" If you are trying to make things easy for yourself, then you really can't criticize people for doing the same thing.

 

ETA: Craig's football was terrible!

Edited September 23, 2015 by ElectricBoogaloo

[Kromm]

It's odd they called Duffy down when even the judges didn't think it was worse than the other two. They literally just needed a fourth body down there.

[Demented Daisy]

I would have called everyone down.  No winning tattoo means they're all on the chopping block, in my eyes.

 

Amazing how all of Tyler's bluster from earlier in the season (I wonder why he didn't flip anyone off this time?) was gone.  He looked and sounded like a little boy in front of those judges.  It was cringe-worthy.  He was never going to win, anyway.

 

I don't think any of them deserve to win, really, but someone is going to.  Frustrating.

 

ETA Fixed because Tyler and Chris are not interchangeable.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Demented Daisy

[Hana Chan]

Another underwhelming episode with underwhelming tattoos. No one acquitted themselves well at all. Matt's eagle was completely unreadable from two feet away and Chris did screw up on the mouth of the baby's portrait. Duffy's design was a convoluted mess that made no sense and Tyler's bear was pretty weak. I liked the idea of Craig's design, but the execution was off an the choice of symbol was odd.

 

As for Kruseman... playing it safe is only going to get him so far. Yes, he had the "best" tattoo of the night as far as technique goes, but t was completely underwhelming in design and execution. It was generic, the kind of thing that anyone could walk into any shop and get from any artist. There was absolutely nothing about it that screamed "Ink Master". It's one things to try to get a canvas that you think will give you the best chance of doing a successful tattoo or try to convince a canvas to shift locations to make it a bit easier on yourself, but it's another to totally dumb down the tattoo and Kruseman has been doing that for awhile. Last week he did a very simple design for his birdcage and nixed the specific elements that the canvas wanted in order to make it easer on himself and this week he went for a totally generic design that did absolutely nothing to show his ability.

 

And the judges are no help here. On one hand, Kruseman's tattoo gets held up as a lesson to the other artists (with the crack about their getting beaten by a simple tattoo being on them), but then coming down on Kruseman for playing it too safe. Losing Tyler takes away my dose of pretty to enjoy, but I still have Dave so I'm not shedding any tears.

 

This episode was a whole lot of "meh"... I'm losing my enthusiasm about any of these yahoos taking the title. Wish that they would just bring Josh back.

Edited September 23, 2015 by Hana Chan

[BigBlueMastiff]

 

I have no idea what Craig's tattoo was supposed to be, so I'd have sent him home.  The wolf-bear was at least an animal.  He drew...a stone?

My brother has the same symbol on his leg.

It's an Adinkra symbol (funeral symbol) called: Gya Nyame , meaning Presence of God, or “God alone” (Not, as some have suggested, “Only God can judge me”).

[azshadowwalker]

Refusing to challenge yourself is refusing to challenge yourself, whether you're Kruseman or Chris. If you insist on the easiest canvas every week, it's much easier to take artistic risks. You don't have to consider if your placement, the age of the skin or the tone of the skin is going to cause you to not get a good tattoo with significant detail finished in the time allowed. If you're stuck with the ribs or skin that you're not used to working with, you're much more likely to have to remove elements, go with black-and-grey instead of bright colors, etc. So, Chris is a coward. He doesn't want to have to deal with the challenges that would make him think about how to accomplish the task.

[phoenix780]

My brother has the same symbol on his leg.

It's an Adinkra symbol (funeral symbol) called: Gya Nyame , meaning Presence of God, or “God alone” (Not, as some have suggested, “Only God can judge me”).

Thank you.  I totally missed that on the show.

[TaraS1]

Does Chris actually think he intimidates the other artists?  I'm from Appalachia and we've got a plethora of 300 lb. goobers in overalls.  Intimidating, they are not.  And the hands on that baby were terrifying, so I was glad he got called out on that, at least.

 

Tyler's bear was terrible, but I think Craig should've gone home.  Actually, they should have just immediately eliminated him after seeing that godawful football.

 

Of the remaining contestants, I'm rooting for Duffy and Matt.

[Honey]

I agree.  Duffy first, and Matt would be my backup pick.

 

Has a woman ever won?

Edited September 23, 2015 by Honey

[psychoticstate]

It's clear to me that Craig is going to the finale.  They are simply not going to send him home.  His work has been subpar for the last few challenges/eliminations and even said that he was simply trying to get through the competition which normally would set Nunez on your ass like a rabid dog.  Tyler has brought it the last few episodes more than Craig so Craig should have gone home.

 

I agree with the poster above that none of these inktestants truly seems to be Ink Master worthy.  Watching the Redemption series shows that Jime and Cleen Rock would slay them.   Once again, I miss Josh.

 

I love Dave.  Despite getting overruled all the time, he's probably the best judge up there.

[Kromm]

I agree.  Duffy first, and Matt would be my backup pick.

 

Has a woman ever won?

No. And one won't if Toothpick and Jackhole Nunez are judging.

 

Okay, to be fair, Sarah Miller theoretically came in 2nd and Tatu Baby in 3rd, but I don't think it mattered what they did.  To an extent the show implied they got carried that far because they weren't seen as threats, but also because they didn't stand a chance of winning.

[LoneHaranguer]

 

I would have called everyone down.  No winning tattoo means they're all on the chopping block, in my eyes.

As long as there are distinct levels of suckage, calling down the top of the heap is a waste of time. The judges aren't going to send home a D-level artist when they have their choice of D-minus and F-level to choose from.

[PepperMonkey]

Yahooooo: Tyler is gone.

 

In other news, Chris is still a marine, but he's a marine without a sacrificial platoon now.

 

Craig probably will go to the finale, but who cares? Everyone is so meh I don't even care who wins. It would be awesome if Duffy did win, but that'll never happen. I hope I'm wrong.

Edited September 23, 2015 by PepperMonkey

[Demented Daisy]

As long as there are distinct levels of suckage, calling down the top of the heap is a waste of time. The judges aren't going to send home a D-level artist when they have their choice of D-minus and F-level to choose from.

 

Eh, it's a matter of interpretation.  As far as I'm concerned, by bringing everyone down, it put them all on notice.  Any one of you, at any time, can go home if you keep putting out this level of work.

 

People get a little too comfortable, I think.  But, like I said, mileage varies.

[thewhiteowl]

Chris' handmaiden

 

 Thanks, phoenix, this cracked me up. So apt.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

The judges aren't going to send home a D-level artist when they have their choice of D-minus and F-level to choose from.

Ha, it's funny because it's true! And while I get what you are saying, if the judges can declare no winner for this challenge, they can also call down all of the remaining contestants for being in the bottom. It was only two extra people so it wouldn't have taken a lot more time and it hopefully would have put some fear into them. Plus Chris deserved to be in the bottom for that hideous baby tattoo. The face was so terrible that I didn't notice the tiny man hands until one of the judges pointed it out.

[LoneHaranguer]

I took the judges not declaring a winner enough to get their point across.

[Honey]

That baby that Chris did, reminded me of the inbred baby on the X-Files episode called "Home".  The real baby was adorable, the tattoo baby looked like it had multiple chromosomal abnormalities.  Creepy.

[Rancide]

The only thing I'm going to miss about Tyler is the pretty.  Even those hideous face tattoos didn't ruin it for me.

[WickedTuna]

I'm finally looking forward to the next episode but that's only because I want to see Chris' reaction when he finds out Tyler went home. He'll probably cry and sleep with an electric blanket in his pouch. Ha.

I thought the baby was awful too. IMO it wasn't just the mouth. I would be really pissed if I was the player.

[themiki]

The reason you see so many mediocre artists on these shows is because good tattoo artists who take their craft seriously absolutely abhor these shows. They're set up to permanently mar another human being's skin. Sure the canvases sign up for the show and know what their getting into, but as an artist you are responsible for the art that you have walking around with your name (metaphorically) on it. These shows are a blemish on the entire art of tattooing. I mean, an entertaining one that I totally watch, but that's the reason the talent is subpar. 

[azshadowwalker]

It's also a financial issue. Even the better artists I know aren't rolling in cash. They have bills to pay. They have families. They have businesses to run. They have appointments to keep. If they were really interested in the public attention, they would be going to tattoo shows, anyway. This doesn't do much for an established artist who has people coming in from out-of-state to get work done. They don't need this shit, and they don't have the time or money for it, either.

[phantom]

All the kvetching about "darker skin" in this episode (and throughout the series) made me REALLY uncomfortable. I wish the judges had made a head-on statement to all the contestants about it being inappropriate, unprofessional and hugely alienating to potential clients to bitch about not wanting to tattoo on darker skin. STFU and do your job. Ugh.

 

And I had to wonder what the NFL players were thinking - all these guys could afford to go to a shop with an impeccable reputation and get great work done, but they agree to get tattooed by these yahoos? It was disappointing that the fan tattoos as a group turned out better than those for the players.

 

I thought Duffy's was the better of the elimination tattoos, simply because it was the one tattoo that could be enhanced/fixed later on to make it pop the way the judges had wanted it to. She had enough open space to give it definition. That said, her design to me looked more like Detroit was on fire than shown with artistic misty wisps of fog or whatever. Yikes.

 

And I'm no tattoo expert (I don't have any) but I didn't think Craig's was all that bad. The design really showed up well on the client's skin, and the stone effect was cool. 

[thewhiteowl]

And I'm no tattoo expert (I don't have any) but I didn't think Craig's was all that bad. The design really showed up well on the client's skin, and the stone effect was cool.

 

 I liked it, too. But after the one guy said "Flubber" I couldn't unsee that.

 

[cpcathy]

While I didn't know what Craig's was (shame on you, show!) I thought it had really nice depth wasn't poorly drawn.

[Inkmaster0345]

I'd like to jump on the bandwagon of people commenting on the apparent talent pool of this seasons competitors. I'm no tattoo expert, but as far as I can tell the level of talent this year is considerably lower than in seasons past. Especially in the earlier seasons, when I watched this show and was amazed at some of the tattoos that artists were able to produce. This season there have been very few tattoos that have knocked my socks off or truly wowed me. Also, there is no outright top dog this season. While parody is typically good in a competition, that's not the case when the parody is a result of everyone hovering around the line of slightly-above-average. Artists in previous seasons such as Scott, Sausage, Joey Hamilton, Cleen, etc virtually went their entire seasons without ever being called down, whereas this year, even "top dog" artists such as Craig and Matt and Kruseman have each been in the bottom multiple times. If you look the top 3 finishers of the previous 5 seasons, I believe that you could firmly make a case that 10-12 out of the 15 of them would win this season's contest absolutely running away. In my honest opinion, Chris and Matt are the only two artists from this season that would even have a shot at making one of the top 3s from the previous 5 seasons. Looking forward to better in the future

[qtpye]

I think Chris is being an ass because he really needs the money.  I mean those one pair of overalls that he owns as his only piece of clothing are not going to last forever.

 

Tyler reminded me of one of those pretty boy rocker types that used to be the lead in heavy metal hair bands in the eighties.  He is like a combination of a young Axl Rose and Sebastian Bach.

[Charlesman]

It's odd they called Duffy down when even the judges didn't think it was worse than the other two. They literally just needed a fourth body down there.

 

 

I think the judges decide on their own Bottom Three. Then the Human Canvas jury votes. If the Human Canvas Jury votes for one of the three, then those three go down. If the Human Canvas Jury votes for someone outside the judges three, the judges call their three plus the HCJ pick.

 

So when there are 4 people, when the Human Canvas Loser walks in to say who they are "putting on the bottom", you know instantly that the person is safe. The judges feel all the other three are worse.

 

Which means the whole HCJ thing is pointless and stupid and a waste of time.

Edited September 25, 2015 by Charlesman

[candall]

The shape of the winning football was a little wonky--there was a better one, but I wasn't invested enough to note who did what.

 

I thought Craig's was the best elimination tattoo.  (I like it even more now that I understand the symbol.)  You could tell it was embedded and he did a good job portraying several different "depths."  It was sharp and clean.

 

I swear, on my non-HD tv, more and more of these things are just blobs.