S09.E04: Lend Me Your Ear.

[thewhiteowl]

The competition gets even tougher when the artists are tested on technical application with individual tattoos. Two veteran artists return.

[sourpickles]

Fucking hate Lalo.  On this show, Redemption, and whatever VH1 show he was on.  He's an ass.  However, Picasso (really?) was one I felt got underrated when he was on his season.  At least he looks less homeless now.

[sourpickles]

While I think this is the best epi so far, and I'm really liking the cherubs.........did that one chick's cherub have six fingers?  I swear I saw that.

[2727]

Ear tattoos! That was new. It was technically difficult because of the placement but two hours seemed generous. The team that was bitching about how the hell to do a dragon, gawd. You simplify; it's a freaking inch long.

I would have liked Nunez and Peck to pontificate on which tattoos looked like they weren't inked by the same person when they didn't already know.

It's good that Tri Cities was finally flushed after circling the drain since the first episode, but I still want one of the returning teams to go.

[Charlesman]

15 hours ago, sourpickles said:

Fucking hate Lalo.  On this show, Redemption, and whatever VH1 show he was on.  He's an ass.  However, Picasso (really?) was one I felt got underrated when he was on his season.  At least he looks less homeless now.

 

What's weird is that I can't remember ever seeing his face. Whenever he's on screen my eyes never get lower than the Michael Bolton receding hairline with long hair thing he's got going on. I'm unaware of anything below the top three inches of his skull. It's mesmerizing.

[AlliePK]

I can't with Lalo.  And Picasso?  Fangs?  Really?  Some of those cherubs were rough to look at it.  

[Del Boca Vista]

Lots of janky faced cherubs.  One looked like a lollipop guild munchkin face and the girl with the hide and seek ones looked like not cute cupie dolls. 

I don't think Peck's facial hair could gross me out any more than it does. Ick!

[AZChristian]

33 minutes ago, Del Boca Vista said:

I don't think Peck's facial hair could gross me out any more than it does. Ick!

I'd love to ask Kat Von D whether he kept that toothpick in ALL the time.

[2727]

4 hours ago, Del Boca Vista said:

I don't think Peck's facial hair could gross me out any more than it does. Ick!

4 hours ago, AZChristian said:

I'd love to ask Kat Von D whether he kept that toothpick in ALL the time.

Ach, bad thoughts! I already have to avert my eyes whenever he's on screen.

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Man, I would never get a tattoo in my ear. I'm not saying that every tattoo has to be a gigantic back piece, but there is so little space on an ear that you would have to get something really tiny with not much detail. That said, I thought it was an interesting challenge to watch. I loved that the ear tattoos were supposed to be identical. Pinz and Needles definitely looked the best of all of them. The tattoos themselves looked good and they also looked identical.

I could not believe that the Classic Trilogy guys who did the musical tattoo used SEVEN lines. What the hell? And why didn't their canvases tell them there should be only five?

I think part of the reason that Artistic Skin Designs' floral ear tattoos didn't look exactly the same is that they were on the bumpiest part of the ear and you could see that the whorls in the two canvases' ears were totally different.

My issue with Old Town's jellyfish tattoos  was that the shape of the top of the jellyfish looked too much like the head of a penis. I wouldn't want a dick tattooed inside my ear.

Ha, I had to agree with Picasso when he said that the canvases for the main challenge had terrible ideas. I really felt for Artistic Skin Design - why would the producers let that stupid canvas participate in a cherub challenge if she wanted a gothic angel? That's not the same thing!

I had the same issue with most of the cherubs - they're supposed to have sweet faces and instead there were a bunch of janky/fug faces. There were a lot of anatomy issues too. Sorry, but a hand isn't the outline of a lump with three lines drawn inside.

Made Rich can have a seat. Earlier in the episode he got pissy because someone said "shut up" to him and he claimed that he had never told any of the others to shut up. He then very maturely said that he was going to keep talking because someone told him to shut up. Then after the main challenge, he told April, "Shut up shut up shut up," like a three year old. His childish attitude was more than enough for me to want him to go home.

But this was Tri Cities Tattoo's FOURTH time in the bottom. It was time for them to be eliminated.

[Merneith]

Well, that's a relief. Those two never seemed to figure out what the competition was at any given moment.

So far, I haven't remembered a single one of these returning veterans. I intend to forget them all over again once this is finished. I sort of figured that the point of this season was to give Josh Hibbard another chance.

15 hours ago, AZChristian said:

I'd love to ask Kat Von D whether he kept that toothpick in ALL the time.

My understanding is that Peck has a slight speech trouble and the toothpick helps him speak clearly.

[2727]

7 hours ago, ElectricBoogaloo said:

I could not believe that the Classic Trilogy guys who did the musical tattoo used SEVEN lines. What the hell? And why didn't their canvases tell them there should be only five?

There's just no excuse. We see the contestants looking up images online so it's not like they're forbidden from using any references. As bad as the artists can be, the canvases all approve the images before needle is laid to skin so they're just as much at fault.

[AZChristian]

1 hour ago, Merneith said:

My understanding is that Peck has a slight speech trouble and the toothpick helps him speak clearly.

Oliver himself said the toothpick is just his personal addiction.  And he does kiss his girlfriend with it in his mouth.

[qtpye]

On Wednesday, June 28, 2017 at 1:55 PM, Charlesman said:

 

What's weird is that I can't remember ever seeing his face. Whenever he's on screen my eyes never get lower than the Michael Bolton receding hairline with long hair thing he's got going on. I'm unaware of anything below the top three inches of his skull. It's mesmerizing.

You have killed me with this.  It is like Lalo is a walking six head.

 

12 minutes ago, AZChristian said:

Oliver himself said the toothpick is just his personal addiction.  And he does kiss his girlfriend with it in his mouth.

Kat was known for liking gross looking guys.  She definitely wanted to be the beauty in the relationship.

[azshadowwalker]

On 6/27/2017 at 7:07 PM, sourpickles said:

Picasso (really?) was one I felt got underrated when he was on his season.  At least he looks less homeless now.

Picasso was the guy whose artistry was raved about by both competitors and judges, but we didn't see it much on the show. When asked about the best artists on the season, Anthony brought up Picasso as one of them. I think his artistry rep might be the reason for the name. (Unless it's his real name. Doubt it, though.)

Edited June 29, 2017 by azshadowwalker

[TVbitch]

I wish this show would have a Bloopers Show, cuz I would love to see how many times Dave says "You do not have what it takes to be Ink Ma... fuck, I mean Master Shop!" 

Not sure I dig the team thing. Maybe if they broke up the team at some point before the finals like they did Master/Apprentice or whatever it was called. It seems like there are a lot of lop-sided teams and I would hate to see a good artist go, or worse, a goat get drug into the finale. 

Edited June 29, 2017 by TVbitch

[sourpickles]

23 minutes ago, TVbitch said:

a goat get drug into the finale. 

Would there be a T-Rex, too?  Cause I could get behind a finale that involved carnivores.  I'm so going to get kicked off this site.

[candall]

Okay, Inkmaster has officially exceeded my patience.  I'd have to make a cheat sheet to remember which artists--with their increasingly ridiculous names--belong to which shop.  And now they have newbies and returners--some returner shops have one newbie, but the one tonight has one guy from one season and a second guy from a different season.  TOO MUCH.

 

I loved the idea of the ear tats.  (I always wanted to have a little ivy vine trailing and twisting along the top/inside/back of my ear.)  I think the single blob ones, like the ladybug and the jellyfish, are going to make people squint and think there's a weird smudge, since the camera was forced to get close enough to reveal a couple of unfortunate blackheads.

 

Drawing a staff with seven lines is about the laziest mistake I've ever seen made on this show.

 

Since when did cherubs make the Top Ten list of difficult subjects?

[sourpickles]

17 hours ago, candall said:

Since when did cherubs make the Top Ten list of difficult subjects?

I'd like to see whose list that is, at that.

Edited July 5, 2017 by sourpickles
Grammar

[Rancide]

On 6/29/2017 at 10:02 AM, Merneith said:

Well, that's a relief. Those two never seemed to figure out what the competition was at any given moment.

So far, I haven't remembered a single one of these returning veterans. I intend to forget them all over again once this is finished. I sort of figured that the point of this season was to give Josh Hibbard another chance.

My understanding is that Peck has a slight speech trouble and the toothpick helps him speak clearly.

My assumption was always that he had a speech impediment and stuck the toothpick in his mouth so that he could pretend like it was the toothpick and not him.

[Maharincess]

I want to like this show but its hard for me to get past how fake it is. None of the finished tattoos they show are fresh like they pretend they are, they are all completely healed . They'll show an artist holding the tattoo gun to a half done tattoo that has no blood or irritation, as a tattoo is being done, there is smeared ink, blood and other stuff that they never show.   I can suspend reality for some shows but my late husband was a tattoo artist and we owned a shop so I just can't get past the fake crap.  

And yet, I still watch. 

I am glad that Tri Cities is gone.  

[azshadowwalker]

They used to show a lot of wiping. They had at least a few canvases whose skin was destroyed. They also used to mention wrapping the tattoo, which I haven't heard in a while. I am not sure they're going to show a lot of blood, regardless. I am sure that the close-ups of the tattoos are taken at least a few days later. They want them to look good on TV. 

[2727]

They used to have the canvases physically there during the judging, both to show the tattoos and answer questions about whether or not they liked the work. Was that only the first season? Maybe it ended up being just too long a day for the canvases to wait around for several hours during judging after already being tattooed for hours.

[azshadowwalker]

I think that was axed because they went to the canvas jury. Now, that's gone, too. 

[MaKaM]

So less related to the episode except all the ear stuff made me think about it--so many of the tattoo artists have the stretched ears (the one lady on the 2 lady team that wears dangly earrings in the stretched hole makes me queasy--floppy stretched ears are a gag thing for me) and individually they probably look "outside regular society" and "cutting edge" or whatever they are trying to achieve with the neck tattoos and piercings and whatnot but when you see everyone as a group, they all look so homogeneous and conforming. Like is it just the same kind of people drawing to be a tattoo artists, do they all just want to look similarly, or is there pressure in the industry to suppress how you might want to look? Or is it that a certain look of tattoo artist "sells" better or meets what people expect a tattoo artist to look like and everyone just subconsciously conforms to that look? One season did have Josh (?) who dressed like a corporate shill but since then, they have all been very much of a style.

Tri Cities going was a mercy kill. Bang at least seemed like a nice person but she got stuck with a partner who wasn't helping in the slightest. They were lucky other teams screwed up so much worse in the first few weeks because they were clearly the weakest on all levels but managed to not completely screw up like some of the teams did.

The show has become much more watchable for me since I've started fast forwarding through any of the parts that happen in the loft/house/whatever. The posturing and pissing contests were the worst parts of the show and I am glad to not watch them anymore even if it means I see the episode a day or two later. This is going to be a long season. Wonder if the final tattoo is going to be 2 or some sort of required tag team thing or what.

[azshadowwalker]

You get into tattooing because you are into body modification. So, it makes sense that most tattoo artists would have body modifications. If you don't like computers, you probably aren't going into tech. Most IT people I have worked with (including myself) like to have gadgets.  It's no different.