S12.E09: Drawing Alliances.

[thewhiteowl]

The artists cross enemy lines to pick secret alliances. Free hand drawing challenge.

[AndrewSBB]

How the fuck did Ash go home over Jason!? That Viking wasn't remotely anatomical and the lack of black in the helmet. The axe handle? I swear everything was off. I couldn't pick one point of his tattoo that I actually liked but with Ash there was literally only one point I didn't. Seemed weird at the end too. I know it's all highly edited but Oliver seemed to be going for Jason but was swayed? I don't know. Was it that they couldn't have the teams so unbalanced? Was it to cause drama in the house by keeping Jason after the alliance argument this episode? I really can't make sense of this ugh.

[psychoticstate]

This elimination was clear proof that the judges are trying to keep the men/women tally as close as possible.  Out of the three at the bottom, Ash would have been the one I would deem safe.  

And Dani was robbed yet again of tattoo of the day.  Whatever. 

[2727]

2 hours ago, AndrewSBB said:

Was it that they couldn't have the teams so unbalanced?

Bingo. It was a woman's week to go. 

Ash was the weakest artist left but I didn't think her work was the worst this week.

I'm not riled up about it, but the "evening up" bullshit probably means a less deserving male will be in the finale. Holli, Dani or Laura is due to be screwed in favor of Pon or Cam.

[Kelda Feegle]

Another steaming pile of BS

[RoadFullOfPromise]

5 hours ago, AndrewSBB said:

Was it that they couldn't have the teams so unbalanced?

Yes. 

[Princess Sparkle]

2 hours ago, 2727 said:

Bingo. It was a woman's week to go. 

Ash was the weakest artist left but I didn't think her work was the worst this week.

I'm not riled up about it, but the "evening up" bullshit probably means a less deserving male will be in the finale. Holli, Dani or Laura is due to be screwed in favor of Pon or Cam.

This is the 3-Coaches team season all over again. When Roly was the worst in the portrait challenge, but they couldn't leave Team Steve with no one (and you could see that realization happen ON CAMERA), so Deanna went home.

[dstann]

6 hours ago, psychoticstate said:

Out of the three at the bottom, Ash would have been the one I would deem safe. 

I disagree in that Ash's tattoo had no composition.  It was just three objects put together with no flow or relationship to each other.  It was just a skull on the bottom, handcuffs floating on the side and a flag at the back.

The teams obviously had to be evened up as you saw at the flash challenge how much a difference the women having 2 extra people made.

[hookedontv]

How about this: Let’s have next season be “back to basics.” No “this team vs that team,” no “teachers vs students,” no “winners” or “runners up” from prior seasons. Can we please have a group of talented tattoo artists, I don’t care if they are guys or women-just a bunch of people who can tattoo. 

Actually, what do y’all think about this: “Back to Basics, featuring all blind judging.” And while we are at it, let’s stop spending the time to film the artists bitching and moaning and talking shit. 

Is anyone as interested in this as I am? 

[aussieinsydney]

2 hours ago, hookedontv said:

Actually, what do y’all think about this: “Back to Basics, featuring all blind judging.” And while we are at it, let’s stop spending the time to film the artists bitching and moaning and talking shit. 

Is anyone as interested in this as I am? 

Oh hell yes! I'm sick of artists getting sent home over other artists who do worst tattoos simply to even up the numbers. It's grossly unfair and we all know it's true and it stinks.

[Charlesman]

I didn't care for Ash's tattoo, and she'd been circling the drain for so long, I'm glad she's out. 

Jason's was totally off though. The top of the axe handle was twice as thick as the bottom. It made no sense. 

Even so, floating handcuffs and that terrible canton on the flag, so dark and making the skull disappear, I don't really have a problem with that decision. It may have been biased, sure, but she didn't help her cause with an equally bad if not worse composition. 

[Wandering Snark]

I too can't see NOT sending Jason home on this one... Each part of Ash's was at least clearly legible while every part of Jason's was a mess. The one eye he did do clearly warped the face, the beard was a mess of lines fading into nowhere and the guy basically had a face and a half hidden behind that helmet... but yes it was clearly "girls day to lose" here.

And again it conveniently turned into a week where they actually did take the "focus" of the week into consideration to ding Ash's. They do that so subjectively it drives me nuts. I swear they'd find a way to give the winner of the day to someone who made the "bold choice" of doing full color on a day when they claimed to be testing black and grey shading.

I won't get up to a full rant again about the things that need to be "fixed" in the current format but I agree with hookedontv, especially about the blind judging.

Edited August 8, 2019 by Wandering Snark

[MamaBird]

13 hours ago, hookedontv said:

How about this: Let’s have next season be “back to basics.” No “this team vs that team,” no “teachers vs students,” no “winners” or “runners up” from prior seasons. Can we please have a group of talented tattoo artists, I don’t care if they are guys or women-just a bunch of people who can tattoo. 

Actually, what do y’all think about this: “Back to Basics, featuring all blind judging.” And while we are at it, let’s stop spending the time to film the artists bitching and moaning and talking shit. 

Is anyone as interested in this as I am? 

That would be WONDERFUL! Back to basics, and each episode a different style of tattooing is featured, as well as things like composition.  "Photo-realism", "Old school", "Pin-up", "Black & grey", "New school", and so on.  Everybody tattoos every week; none of the "winner of whatever doesn't have to compete in the elimination tattoo" like they did a season or two ago. 

This is how it used to be when I first started watching the show, and it was great.  They would also have a guest judge each week, and it would be a recognized expert at the featured style.

The one thing I wouldn't bring back is the "human canvases debate to put one artist up for elimination".  That couldn't help but make one or more of the canvases feel bad about their tattoo, and just struck me as cruel.  Let the judges do the judging.

[slaterain]

While I was ok with Ash going as I do agree that she has been circling the drain quite a while (aside from her one deserved win), I was actually bummed more that her going meant that the guy guest coach (not up on all the guest coaches names as i only started watching in the last few seasons) didn't get to move on. The woman guest coach annoyed me and I didn't agree with many of her points (granted she did try to tell Jason what was wrong - well the nose part at least). Her attitude was a bit obnoxious while the guy was giving really clear recommendations and supporting the women. I wish that they didn't move the guest coach on based on who got cut and instead based it on who got the best tattoo!

Overall I don't think I would have minded who went home of the three this ep as I thought all of the bottom were fair game. 

[Charlesman]

21 hours ago, slaterain said:

 The woman guest coach annoyed me and I didn't agree with many of her points (granted she did try to tell Jason what was wrong - well the nose part at least). Her attitude was a bit obnoxious while the guy was giving really clear recommendations and supporting the women. I wish that they didn't move the guest coach on based on who got cut and instead based it on who got the best tattoo!

I'll admit I experienced some schadenfreude joy with the sequence:

1. "I won every single flash challenge, right up until the men stopped listening to me"
2. All the men listen to her
3. The men lose

[TVbitch]

Seriously? The ONE time out of her many trips to the bottom that Ash genuinely deserved to stay ...and she goes home. I can't with this show!

Totally unfair to the male coach. His team won the flash challenge and had the best tatoos of the day but he gets screwed over anyway. 

[keameo]

This show is such monumental bullshit that I was pissed off enough to come on here, find a forum just to express how shitty it is.   Fuck this show.  Every single mens tattoo got a crap review.  Every single women's tattoo got a glowing/relatively positive review.  Who goes home.  One of the women.  Fuck this show so hard.   It's blatantly clear that it is NOT remotely about the quality of the tattoos.  Its a fucking fix.  And the judges sit there  with smug little smirks as they deliver their bullshit verdict.  This makes me genuinely angry.

What this show should be:   No stupid themes or teams or alliances that just encourage the judges to shitvote purely to keep the game going.   BLIND judging in EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ROUND.  Tattoos stand on their own merit.

[2727]

2 hours ago, keameo said:

This show is such monumental bullshit that I was pissed off enough to come on here, find a forum just to express how shitty it is.

Welcome!

Tuesday nights filled with seething annoyance have become a habit for me.

[Inkmaster0345]

If Ink Master wanted another female champion (as many believed when the theme was announced) then they should be rejoicing because they're sure as hell getting one. 

Ash being eliminated aside--the females are dominating in elimination tattoo quality. Two weeks in a row that the best 3-4 tattoos of the day were all from the women's team. 

Will Cam or Pon make the final for the sake of the theme? Of course. But a female (likely Dani or Laura) is absolutely winning at this rate.