Original subtitles

Male announcer: On the last episode

of "Ink Master: Shop Wars," the competition intensified

as a shop housing two veterans returned.

- Lalo and Picasso.

- Two returning veterans? It's on, now.

- You guys honestly came in the lions' den

with meat hanging around your neck.

- We have zero intentions of making it easy on anybody

who walks in that door.

announcer: In the elimination tattoo, weak links were exposed.

- You and your teammate must each tattoo a cherub

on the same canvas at the same time.

- Dave's style is totally different from mine.

- Just make sure you just keep the skin tight.

- The stencil keeps wiping off. I am literally melting down.

- Neither of y'all did a tattoo better than him.

Both of y'all lines are [bleep].

- You're being obnoxious.

- These are horrible tattoos!

- They are not horrible tattoos.

- You're not gonna come at me

and expect me to not come at y'all.

I'm not playing that game.

announcer: In the elimination, Allegory Arts,

Think Before You Ink, and Tri-Cities

were the bottom three shops.

- Allegory Arts.

- Technically, you jacked 'em up.

- I think the flaws that we have in our tattoos

are very minimal compared to the other two.

- You can see a blowout in the top of Dtatstar's halo.

- The hell out of here.

- No one brought up Tri-Cities Tattoo.

- Bang's legs almost connect on a blowout.

Today was the day to not show us those mistakes.

- The judges have decided. Tri-Cities Tattoo,

you do not have what it takes to be Master Shop.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

announcer: Eight shops remain to take on returning veteran shops.

But only one will earn a $200,000 prize

and the title of Master Shop.

[rock music]

♪ ♪

- We're all only one mistake from going home.

- I feel like the alliance

is more important than ever right now.

- I feel like if we're all down at the jury of peers,

it's our responsibility to really defend each other,

and, like, we're not the worst ones.

- So, veterans still get [bleep] canvases. Take the shot.

- It's undeniable that this is a clique-y situation.

- We immediately came in with targets on our back.

- Do you think this will be a wise time

for the vets to put strategy together?

- I don't really see why the strategy, you know?

I want to win this because I'm good and I'm a bad-ass.

- I don't think a team situation is gonna help me.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Welcome, artists. Each week,

this competition gets more intense.

If you make it to the end, you'll earn $200,000,

a feature in "Inked" magazine, and the title of Ink Master.

And your shop will also earn the first-ever title of Master Shop.

Standing in your way are the next returning veterans.

From Las Vegas, Nevada, one competed in season three,

and one competed in season four.

Representing Black Spade Tattoo, King Ruck and E.S.

- We're both alpha males.

- We're gonna get in there, knocking shoulders, elbows

with everybody else.

This time, victory is ours.

- Man, oh, man. This thing's got a lot of design flaws.

You lost the shape of the tiger completely.

- This was a failed attempt from the design alone.

This simple, bold, traditional tattoo,

anybody should've been able

to knock it out of the goddamn park.

- We came in this nose down, ready to fight, tackle anything.

I'm ready to win.

- E.S. and I competed together last time in season three.

Is he someone I'm scared of in any way?

No. And King Ruck? Do I give a give a [bleep]? No.

- Guys, welcome back.

What's changed since the last time you guys were here?

- I'm about 100 times stronger, artistically, mentally,

so I came to flex.

- I didn't play the game. The game played me last time.

I'm ready to play.

- Well, King Ruck and E.S.,

this week is designed to put your shop to the test.

Succeed and you stay,

but fail and your shop will go home

just as fast as you returned.

Head over and join the group.

This week, we're testing composition.

- Composition is a bunch of elements that's put together

to form one cool piece.

Corona believes it's the little things you do

to seize the moment to help you live your best life.

Today, you must give your canvases a permanent reminder

of whatever it is they do to live their best life.

Each canvas has a different way of making these moments better.

And it's up to you to translate that to the skin.

- It's a little hard to translate someone's feelings

into a picture.

But if you're a really good illustrator,

you can illustrate anything.

- You must use composition

to perfectly place each element in your tattoo.

Today, you must collaborate with your teammate.

You decide who tattoos and when.

- You're only as good as your weakest link.

This is your chance to put the driver in the driver's seat.

Who's gonna make this thing get you a win?

- Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

As a self-pronounced team leader,

I know it is the best for us to make sure

that I tattoo and D can just take some notes.

- Win, and your shop will have the power to assign

all the human canvases for the elimination tattoo.

Let's meet your canvases.

♪ ♪

All right, canvases.

Tell us about the tattoo that will remind you

to live your best life.

- Meditating yogi on my right thigh.

- A musical theme on my left thigh.

- A luchador tattoo on my right arm.

- A ballerina holding a bowling ball on my ribs.

- A bowling ballerina on the... I... no, this is... no. No!

- Fashion design piece on my right forearm.

- Combination of graffiti and art tools on my right calf.

- Graffiti. Now that's some [bleep] that I can do.

- Unkindness Art, you won the last elimination tattoo,

so you get the power to pick your canvas.

- This is definitely an advantage that I wanted.

There's a lot of really weird ideas today.

- Which canvas do you choose?

- I think we're gonna go for the luchador.

- Dammit. Oh, I wanted that.

- Remaining canvases, one by one, please pick a skull.

- House of Monkey.

- Mr. Universe. Bring the yogi to Dalai Lalo.

- Artistic Skin Design.

- Allegory Arts.

- Classic Trilogy Tattoo.

- Think Before You Ink.

- Pins and Needles.

- Old Town Ink.

- Black Spade Tattoo.

- Couldn't get better than that.

[laughs] Coming in hot, right out the gate.

- It just means your expectations

are twice as high now, 'cause that's what you do.

- All right, guys, you have four hours,

and your time begins...

now.

- Where's this going? - Left forearm.

- Sweet.

- I want it to be centered around fashion design.

- Okay, wonderful.

- Sometimes the canvases have a very clear idea

of what they want.

- A monkey God.

- The spray cans. - Samurais.

- And other times, they just have a laundry list

of crazy items they want all put together into one tattoo.

- I want basically musical notes,

an old-style microphone, and some roses on the background.

- It takes a good artist and great composition

to make sense out of all that.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- You know, this is what you like to do.

So I surf, and fishing is obviously big.

- I grew up on a lake.

He loves fishing, I love fishing.

These are both our happy places.

I can totally relate to this guy.

- All right, here we go.

After the terrible critique

that we got in the cherub challenge...

- These are the worst tattoos y'all have done

since y'all got here.

You two work the best together,

and seemingly the worst apart.

- I'm definitely a lot more determined

to get the win on this one.

- Getting called out for new school all season long.

All of our canvases have been...

- Fans of cartoon things.

- Luckily for us, guess what he wants?

New school. I'm not gonna deny this guy

them new school tattoos.

- If you crush it, they can't really say much, right?

- Three hours to go. Three hours remaining, guys.

[rock music]

♪ ♪

- So this whole thing is black?

- Yep.

- D.J.'s taking the lead on this.

The design's really simple, but I feel like this one's

a little too simple.

- Dull down the colors a bit.

- And I keep trying to add other things.

Should I do, like, a little thing around

these bottom of the eyes?

- Hmm, I don't like that.

- It's a little frustrating.

- We're still gonna use the dark grey on these keys,

but the background's gonna be black.

Weneedto win this flash challenge.

Swing me the image with the line work in it.

Just put it over here.

Dtat is not going to be tattooing at all,

'cause he was shaken off over the last challenge.

He can sit back, recollect himself,

and just watch and see what these judges

are really critiquing us on.

Can you pump my chair up a little bit for me?

Higher?

The less I got to bend over, the better.

- One hour remaining.

- How you doing, fam? - Perfect.

Our root is graffiti.

Any time you go to that wall,

you got at least a couple dozen people painting, sometimes.

And it's a competition every time, no matter what.

- Everybody's going pretty strong.

Got to make sure everything is on point.

This is just another battle, bitch.

We gonna fight this.

- 15 minutes. What are you gonna do?

You don't have time to get on the face,

and the face and the skin looks great.

- Don't tell me that. Pushing.

- Well, then you can tell me whatever you [bleep] want.

- This looks unfinished.

- I told you we should do something more simple.

- It's already bad enough that there's a lot of pressure here.

And if I can't incorporate what I'm trying to add to it,

then [bleep] it.

- You're gonna kill the contrast.

- Okay, well, then I guess we're done, right?

- Don't you want to put color here, and on the jewelry?

- You might as well just finish it,

'cause what I see and what you see are two different things.

- No, I see what you say, but then you need like an hour more.

- Well, just knock it up.

I do not like losing.

I'm not a [bleep] loser.

- Five!

Four!

Three!

Two!

One! That's it. Machines down.

Time is up.

- We're nice.

- Very cool.

- It's real dope.

- Dtat didn't even tattoo.

You might as well just call him Dnapstar

if he's gonna sit around and sleep all day.

[suspenseful music]

- Okay, artists, time to get into these critiques.

Black Spade Tattoo.

- Guys, I think you did a clean piece.

But the thing that makes your composition fall short

is not the layout, it's the contrast.

From the jawbone to the can,

very similar tones.

Those elements aren't visible, and you lose the depth.

- You got the luck of the draw

You guys are the graffiti guys,

and you [bleep] this piece up.

- Artistic Skin Design.

You have this foreground that is identifiable

from across the room.

Compositionally, it's put together really beautifully.

- Details in the fish are great.

Line work, color, shading... everything looks top-notch.

- Pins and Needles.

- I really like the composition.

This is a loose, freer, more open design.

I think it's drawn very well,

and I think it's tattooed equally as nice.

- Thank you. - Classic Trilogy Tattoo.

- Doing the new school and doing your style

plays into a little more freedom in the composition.

The only thing is, you have one specific thing

as opposed to something with another object

or a background to create more composition.

- Yeah, we see what you're saying.

- Unkindness Art.

- The little details in the mask,

the little seam up the center, really, really look nice.

But you also got to remember, today is composition.

Is it the most dynamic composition in the room?

- Next team up is House of Monkey.

- Well, guys, I like the design,

but I think that compositionally,

you could've had an interesting ending.

- It just looks unfinished.

- Old Town Ink.

- It's a very clean tattoo.

The outline and color saturation in this thing

are pretty spotless.

But it's not a really dynamic composition.

- Allegory Arts.

I like the flow of the ballerina tutu.

That bright, solid patch of red behind it

does play necessary for the composition to pull together.

It's very simple and very deliberate.

- Think Before You Ink.

These black halos, it doesn't do anything compositionally

for your tattoo.

It makes it just a very hard ending.

- It's a little bit stale.

The people today that do something dynamic,

that's the one that's gonna get it.

The ones that are just the stale stamps are gonna fall short.

- When the best person on your team

is the only person who tattoos

and it still comes out as a bad tattoo,

that's not Ink Master material.

- I'm not gonna do it with the background.

- Okay.

Okay. Now I'm in fricking panic mode.

- Pass out.

- Are you kidding me?

I do not want to go home on an unfinished tattoo.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Today we're testing composition.

We got Black Spade Tattoo,

E.S. and King Ruck back again.

-The whole design was a little bit muddy.

Unless they've gotten a lot better than they were

last time they were here,

they might just be in and out.

- Let's talk about Artistic Skin Design.

One of the only tattoos of the day that I walked up on

and thought, "Wow, this is impressive."

- You have a beautiful underwater scene.

You have a sky scene.

You have a background.

You have the foreground of the fish.

You have a lure.

These guys swung for the fences

in the time they had.

- Allegory Arts is another tattoo that's really strong.

- It looks interesting. It's not just a spot.

They had to juggle a bunch of things to get in there,

so the way it ended up being composed,

this tattoo was solid.

- Are we agreed on a win? - Yeah.

- Let's let 'em know.

Corona believes to live your best life,

you must appreciate each moment.

Today, you had to give your canvases

a permanent reminder of what they do

to seize the moment.

The judges have decided

the winner of today's flash challenge is...

[suspenseful music]

Artistic Skin Design.

- There was a scene. There was composition.

Foreground, background, stuff coming out of stuff.

That's the extra mile.

- We need an advantage, 'cause we bombed last week.

We can finally start playing the game to make sure

the people that we don't want in the house are not in the house.

- April and Dane, congratulations.

You'll have the power to assign all the human canvases

in the next elimination tattoo.

- I don't care who has control of the skull pick.

At this point, Dane and April's only strategy is to come at us.

But I'm used to it. I could care less. Bring it on.

- All of you can head back to the loft.

- Whew.

- Congratulations. That was a pretty [bleep] sweet tattoo.

- I don't think it was that good of a tattoo.

- The go-to emotion shouldn't be for everyone to get mad at us

because you guys didn't win.

- We literally had a perfect critique.

There was nothing wrong with ours.

- They said your composition was stale.

- Like, you guys should do not new school, and you'll win.

- Well, we did what the canvas wanted.

- So if we choose skulls, do you want a new school tattoo,

or do you guys want a realism tattoo?

- Give us a realism tattoo. - You got it.

- While you're setting it up, these new veterans come in here,

send them home.

[intense music]

♪ ♪

- Welcome to the elimination tattoo.

This is your chance to prove that your shop deserves $200,000

and the first-ever title of Master Shop.

E.S. and King Ruck, as the veteran artists,

it's on your shop to prove that you deserve to be here

by overcoming your weaknesses.

And in their honor, you'll all be judged on composition.

There's no better test of composition

than tattooing a color-realistic battle.

- [bleep]

- What the [bleep]?

A color-realistic battle?

There's no way you can do all that in six hours.

- Oh, my goodness.

- It's gonna be a frickin' [bleep] show.

- Whether it's one-on-one combat scenes or ships at war,

your battle scene must have clear composition

so it's easy to tell what's happening.

For this tattoo, once again,

you'll be collaborating with your teammate.

Which one of you tattoos and when

is completely up to you as a team.

- So, should Dtat go take a nap now?

- Watch yourself, bruh.

- More than one battle to be fought today.

- I'm ready. - All right.

This is a color-realistic tattoo.

Anything that doesn't exist in the real world is out.

The biggest thing is composition.

I'm pretty sure some of these are pretty tough to pull off.

But it's a good thing you're working in pairs.

You've got four hands, two heads. Make it happen.

- Let's meet your canvases.

Artistic Skin Design, your shop won the flash challenge.

That means you have the power to assign the canvases.

In this battle, you have the upper hand. Choose carefully.

- What is it you're looking to get?

- Gladiator battling a lion on my calf.

- Cool. Sweet. - Okay.

With this skull pick, we're definitely gonna be looking out

for our alliance.

- Celtic warrior princess

battling a dark warrior on my back.

- Also, we're gonna gun for the veterans no matter who they are.

- Pearl Harbor theme with ships in battle on my left arm.

- How big are you wanting it? - As big as possible.

- Right now, we're gonna get to see if Dane and April

are really loyal to our alliance.

- Color-realistic American Revolutionary soldiers

crossing a river on my back.

- Hopefully, their goal is to bring down our enemies.

- Viking battle on the shore

with Viking boats in the background on my back.

- Oh, so it's not just a battle now.

It's water. And land. And people. And ships.

What in the hell is wrong with these people?

- Color-realistic Romanesque warriors

in a battle for justice on my left bicep.

- How in the [bleep] are you supposed to show justice

in a tattoo?

- Uh, are you willing to move that?

- I'm pretty set on that right there.

- Okay, you got it.

- A whole battle scene this big.

- This is for you.

Having control over everyone is awesome.

It kind of makes you feel like a mastermind.

I'm into it.

- Okay, canvases. One by one,

please read the artist's name on the bottom of your skull.

- Unkindness Art.

- Allegory Arts.

- Black Spade Tattoo.

- Damn. We got hit hard.

- Classic Trilogy Tattoo.

- Pins and Needles.

- House of Monkey.

- Think Before You Ink.

- [laughs] Think Before You Ink, you better think hard

before you make this dumbass tattoo.

- Old Town Ink. - Cha-ching.

- You'll have six hours to tattoo

a color-realistic battle.

Based on your work, one shop will be out.

Good luck.

[overlapping chatter]

- This elimination tattoo is a real curveball.

It's color-realistic battle scenes.

And the key word of the day is composition.

- I want to get some soldiers in the American Revolution

crossing a river, about to go into battle.

- All the elements of your tattoo have to be placed

in a believable manner to give this tattoo

the realistic feel we're looking for.

- So what I'm thinking, like you said, the boats and all that,

it's perfect.

One far, far in the back, one closer in the middle,

and then a Viking's face in the front

so close we can see the gleam in his eye.

- I don't know, man.

Uh, what the [bleep] is this?

You know that there's timing involved.

Making boats in the scene, it's all good, but it's still...

- But I got a dope idea.

- We're not even on the same page.

Like, we haven't even started.

This isn't just your tattoo, playa.

- What is it exactly that you were looking to get again?

- Warrior princess fighting a dark warrior.

But we need to add an element that he's getting the [bleep]

kicked out of him. - Right.

- I want a look on her face that's just bad-ass.

She's standing over him, she's got her sword

sort of resting on him.

Gown can't look perfect.

I want blood, I want holes.

[- We thought we had] the best canvas.

She said one thing in the lineup, and now she's telling us

a million different things that she wants.

- We're working with six hours.

This is easily a 25-hour tattoo. - Yeah.

- There are just elements

that I'm not willing to compromise on.

- If she's not willing to work with us,

then this whole thing's gonna turn into a [bleep] show.

[rock music]

- Bubba, that bull[bleep] you pulled,

that [bleep] was real low.

- You didn't tattoo during your flash challenge.

What do you expect me to say? - That was my choice,

and my team's choice. - Good, good. Dude.

If you ever pull some [bleep] like that...

- Don't point to me like that.

Can't take a [bleep] joke, bro? - That was a joke?

- Were you sleeping during your tattoo?

- I wasn't [bleep] sleeping during my...

- Then it was a [bleep] joke.

- He called your whole team out.

I mean, D.J. even cringed on that one.

Him carrying your weight through these last couple tattoos,

that puts a lot of extra pressure...

- Oh, you think so, too?

- D.J.'s a far superior tattoo artist than you.

- We're still beating you in every challenge.

So if you guys think I suck and D.J.'s awesome,

well, you guys equally suck.

- Okay, artists.

You have six hours to tattoo.

If you fail, for you, this battle is over.

And your time starts...

now.

- Let's get this thing started.

- We're testing composition by giving these artists

color-realistic battle scenes.

- And this is kind of what we're thinking.

- It's beautiful. - Cool, yay. Awesome.

- There's many different elements

that are occurring at once.

There's movement. You have flesh, you have cloth,

there's a foreground, and you have a background.

And that all takes composition to execute.

- Lay this down first, and then I'll do the background.

- Yeah, I'm with it.

E.S. has this huge background

and all this stuff going on.

- I'm going up here with the clouds or something

with the light rays.

- I'm not good with it at all,

but I don't have time to be pissed off.

We need to get this thing rocking.

- Look at the contour. - You showed me.

Don't even come in on the nose. Don't come in on the mouth.

Just do the outside of the face. - Got it.

- I am gonna take my man Dtat

up off the bench.

I'm making sure that we work on this tattoo

as a complete 50/50 team.

- So knock out the line on this one,

and then just move to the next one.

- Cool. I don't want to hear [bleep] from nobody.

I can do this, and that's that.

- We've been in this bottom too many times.

Made Rich is not meant for the bottom.

This has to be our up week.

- Do you want to do anything above it?

- Yean, like, we can do, like, a little trail here,

detailing stuff in front of the boat.

- I'm definitely giving my input on this one.

I'm making sure that D.J. hears me.

Looking good, D.J.

If he listens to me and if I listen to him,

I think we can pull this off.

That's dope.

Keep underestimating me while we keep winning.

- You got three hours left, guys. Three more hours.

[intense music]

♪ ♪

- I need room, 'cause I would like to do

the background super simple.

- Lalo doesn't understand that in order to have composition,

you need something huge in the foreground

to balance out everything in the background.

Yeah, I got it.

- Picasso gets crazy and he wants to show the world

what he can do, but dude, we don't have the time for that.

- You can tell he was getting stressed out.

- He needs to [bleep] grow up. That's what it is.

- Yeah? - He's an amazing artist.

But in his mind, the word "simple" is bad.

- This is your final hour. One hour left.

- I thought you said you wanted to soften up the top.

- Um, it's pretty soft as it is.

- I want the top to look a little more

even with the bottom.

- The only battle in this situation

is our canvas battling with us.

- I'm just not seeing your background.

I'm not picturing it on the tattoo,

and I'm worried that it's gonna not look good.

- Yeah, but as artists, we like to give you something

that we see as well as a collaboration together,

you know?

- But it's my tattoo, so...

give me... give me a minute.

- Okay.

Now I'm in fricking panic mode.

- We're trying to give her a best tattoo,

and she's second-guessing everything we're doing.

- This is [bleep] crazy.

- So when you do the cuffs, these cuffs are leather.

Not the skin, but it's the same brown tone right now.

- Okay. - Our goal to make this tattoo

stand out is to plan a good foreground,

a battle scene in the middle,

and then a nice background to accent it.

My only nervous thought is, did we go too big?

- Breathe nice and slow.

- I feel like I'm gonna pass out.

- Try some of this.

Sugar in your system's gonna help.

Here. - He passed out.

- Pass out!

- Hey, you with us? - Tim.

Tim.

- [inaudible]

- Tim, you awake? - There you go, buddy.

- It's all right, man. It's all right.

- Need some sugar or something?

- Chair up, put the feet up.

Are you kidding me?!

I do not want to go home on an unfinished tattoo.

- Just a little rest, man. You'll be all right.

- Welcome back.

- So I want you to do what you want to do with the dress.

- Okay. - And, um...

I'm not gonna do the background. - Okay.

- I feel like a lot of this comes down to this girl

not being able to sit for a six-hour tattoo.

Jess, do you want me to get in, or you go?

- I just... I think you tattoo a little more gently.

- No worries. Yeah, that's fine.

- This girl's insane.

Absolutely.

[suspenseful music]

- Five! Four!

Three! Two!

One! That's it. Machines down. Time's up.

No more ink.

- Okay.

- Oh, my God!

- I would have loved to be able to do a lot more to it.

- We killed this challenge, man.

Most of these other people, they didn't even finish.

- Hopefully we get to stick around.

- I highly [bleep] doubt it.

- That was like, so relieving.

I feel like this competition just started.

- I really think Think Before You Ink

are just delusional.

My daughter could draw better than this.

And she's five.

Our canvas passed out.

What's your excuse?

- What's up with the cosmic gladiators?

- You're the Etch-A-Sketch wreck.

- Shut the [bleep] up.

- Those hands are jacked, and you put that on somebody.

- [bleep] - Y'all got to shape it up.

- Today's just a bloodbath for everybody.

[rock music]

- You mother[bleep] [bleep] the bed today.

- If our client didn't pass out, we would've finished.

- Dude, I don't know.

- We stuck to the composition and the challenge

more than Pins and Needles did.

- Just in my defense, I [bleep] shaved my leg.

I was ready to tattoo myself. - Really?

- And I was gonna do it. - You should've just did it.

Dude... - For the competition,

that would've been the best call.

- You ain't got [bleep] to say about doing it.

Your [bleep] looks like it's melting, aight?

- You're the Etch-a-Sketch wreck!

- Dude, admit your [bleep] was [bleep]ed up, all right?

Admit it. - My [bleep] was smoking yours.

- Admit it. Zip that [bleep], dog.

- Their canvas walked out, but that tattoo is still better

than the piece of [bleep] you put on somebody's body.

- Bro, my [bleep] was finished,

and your [bleep] will be in the bottom.

[dramatic music]

♪ ♪

- Today you had to create battle scenes with clear composition.

E.S. and King Ruck, this challenge was designed

to test your weaknesses.

Let's see how you did. Black Spade Tattoo, you're up first.

- You got a lot of compositional problems.

See that guy standing way out there in the water?

Look at the size of his hand.

Now look at the size of the hand of the guy in the foreground

that's holding the axe.

Those two hands are pretty close to the same size.

And one guy appears to be 75 yards downwind.

That's a composition issue.

- Are these guys' half bodies underwater?

- No, I was trying to do a rolling fog.

- The elements in here need to look like what they are.

I think you guys lose it in this one.

- Pins and Needles.

Was there a conflict when you got going with this canvas?

- Oh, my God.

- She didn't want to trust us on any aspect.

Aside from it not looking like a battle scene,

and aside from the problems with the canvas and blah, blah, blah,

you drew those hands.

- Yeah. - Those hands are jacked.

And you put that on somebody.

- I would've quit too.

You win your client over in the beginning.

And you make them shut up by impressing them

with a beautiful drawing.

Your art speaks louder than anything.

Artwork, first and foremost.

That's how you get the title.

- Unkindness Art.

Compositionally, you got a cool, active character,

in the foreground.

You've got the lion, which is the shining moment

of the drawing.

But his paws are kind of, like, off to the side.

It's not ferocious.

It's kind of whimpering away.

You missed an opportunity

to make this look even more embattled.

Artistic Skin Design.

- The best part of this tattoo is the flying decapitated head.

The background is just so haphazardly done

done that it doesn't help your composition at all.

The tattoo would be better

if you had not put the little, light gray mountains

across the back.

It's not the worst portrayal of realistic battle of the day,

but it's not close to the best.

- We're still alive. We've got to fall so far.

- Classic Trilogy Tattoo.

What's missing from this?

- There's a rock face that rises to a ridge line,

and the clouds in the sky were gonna be, like, washed-out blue.

- Lot of time spent in that green.

It looks like a battle scene that has the same color green

in the hatchet blades than it does in the background,

with a little darker shade than that in the loincloth,

and a muddier shade than that in the pants.

- Yeah, that came into my mind

shortly after putting the grass in.

- You guys went nuts in this thing.

- Drastically under-finished tattoo.

And the 20 minutes that he was passed out is not the reason.

- Old Town Ink.

- The composition is great.

You see the foreground. You got a couple little images

floating up close.

The ship sitting nicely on the plane in the water,

and then you have the horizon line in the back.

It gives it depth.

- You've got a tiny little inference of these palm trees

in the background to show that this is, in fact, Hawaii.

-You guys did a beautiful tattoo.

You worked your asses off in six hours.

There you go.

- Thank you.

- Allegory Arts.

- As far as the composition of this,

it would've been a lot nicer to have the back of his shoulder

and do something more beautiful

in the actual foreground of the robe.

If you look at the way that you colored the forehead,

see how strong that looks?

'Cause you left it open.

All the other stuff that you guys forced in

and all that color...

totally unnecessary, right?

You could've cut your time in half and just been set.

- Think Before You Ink.

As far as composition goes,

you got one guy going one way,

one guy going the other,

and a bunch of scribbly stuff in the background.

- The shape of the swords look like a feather fight.

- Those are the shapes that the gladiators had.

- Those are the swords. We actually looked it up.

- I got you, but the way yours look, look like they're bending.

Like, "I'll hit you back." It looks playful.

The guy on the left is wearing a Spartan helmet.

What helmet is the guy on the right wearing?

Samurai!

- We wanted them to be different.

- Oh, they're different. Different continents.

As far as doing anything real,

the hand's not real, the arm's not real,

so you're not competing.

- Damn.

- House of Monkey.

- There's not composition here.

It's a stagnant figure with just the horizon line

and a couple of boats.

This huge field of color behind this guy, no.

Huge waste of time for you.

- Returning veterans, you know the traps for artists

who go so big in these challenges.

- I take the blame for that. I... I got ambitious.

- Thank you.

- Thank you. - Look at Bubba, you know?

Bubba learned from being here,

and he's crushing it, you know what I mean?

You guys have those same tools.

- Thank you.

- Okay, judges. It is time to announce tattoo of the day.

- There's no debate in my mind that it's Old Town.

- I don't think anybody else in the room

gets close to hitting it.

- Congratulations, guys.

Old Town Ink, best tattoo of the day.

All right, artists.

As the jury of peers,

you must all deliberate

and put one shop up for elimination.

Head back to the loft.

- Except D.J. and Bubba, we all failed.

- I didn't get to give the client a finished piece.

But an unfinished tattoo can be worked on later.

A busted-ass tattoo is [bleep].

I'm pointing at you. Your tattoo was garbage.

- Bro, you was about to go over your dark green

with light greens in one session.

- Yeah, that's called a technique.

- In one session. You've done that in one session?

- Maybe we didn't [inaudible], maybe we should've gone smaller,

but your... your [bleep] was [bleep].

- I know that I'd never put a tie-dyed piece of [bleep]

on somebody either.

- It wasn't a tie-dyed piece of [bleep].

- I don't know which green is worse,

the blob or the [bleep] one.

[heavy percussive music]

- We're here as a jury of peers to decide what shop

goes down for elimination.

- Just throw out the elephant in the room

and put us up first, go ahead.

- Classic Trilogy.

- The green is so solid. - Too solid.

- Their tattoo at least has redeeming qualities.

Like, the anatomy is pretty good.

It looks like they should both be fighting each other.

- Is there another unfinished tattoo that's worse than this?

- Pins and Needles.

- It might not be the best quality and have all the colors

in there, but this'll pass as a finished tattoo.

- Are you taking into consideration

that there's no battle scene here?

- No one here met the battle challenge

except for one team.

- Yeah, so we got to throw that out right here.

- So everybody's off the board for that one.

- Think Before You Ink said theirs was finished,

and I feel like that's a bigger problem,

thinking that's finished.

- Why do the lines on him not touch?

- You want to talk about lines not meeting?

Black Spade. This is all throughout.

- This is still applied better.

- What?!

These look like two different tattoos.

- But it looks like a battle scene.

Looks like some mother[bleep] are gonna die.

- Your sail lines are [bleep], all of them shaking.

- For me, when it comes to a design,

your guys's drawing, from the get-go, was just wrong.

And it's actually my biggest pet peeve,

to not think before you ink.

- Testing composition today,

and we got a multitude of tattoos to choose

for bottom of the day.

- Let's pick a few.

- Pins and Needles didn't do [bleep].

Their sad little guy walking away that's, like,

an emo warrior, that's just all poorly done.

- But it's not as ugly as some of the other ones.

- Oliver, her client said, "You're jacking me up,

[bleep] you guys."

- That one makes way more sense than Black Spade.

The drawing, the composition, the techniques...

- But I would argue that it is not as bad

as Think Before You Ink.

- I don't know.

- Talking to these guys is like talking to a brick wall.

They're not gonna take your critique.

This is what they have to offer.

- It's safe to say that these guys are

one of the bottoms today.

Let's talk about Classic Trilogy Tattoo.

- That big green mess. - Ugh.

- Just block it in green and I'll deal with it later. No!

- Right, they got to be down here.

- Well, you know what is gonna be interesting.

- Yeah. - Jury of peers.

- That might change our dynamic.

- Let's get 'em down here and see what happens.

- I don't even know who's gonna go down.

- I think we're definitely going down.

- We're definitely going.

[door opens] - Oh.

[tense music]

♪ ♪

- All right, jury of peers.

Who are you sending up for elimination?

- The jury of peers has voted Think Before You Ink

to the bottom.

- All right. We'll see Think Before You Ink,

Classic Trilogy Tattoo,

and Pins and Needles,

and everybody else downstairs.

- Let's hit it. - Let's go do this.

- All right. - Get it over with.

♪ ♪

- Today, you had to prove that you've mastered composition.

Based on your work, one shop will be packing their machines.

Let's hear it from the jury of peers.

Why did you vote Think Before You Ink to the bottom?

- I feel like the majority just picked the tattoo

that we found the least appealing.

- Yet again. Yet again.

- Do you feel that that's a personal thing?

- Of course. - It's just fundamentally, man,

the color doesn't meet a line.

Could you call yourself Ink Master doing that?

- I'm good with the piece.

- It's just serious [bleep] to me.

- It is serious [bleep], and I'm seriously standing by my piece.

- Rich and Dtat, I don't feel like

you're unjustly in the bottom.

There's technical problems throughout.

The line work has problems.

The black shading has problems all over the place.

- But I do know there's two guys

that are about to have a feather fight.

- But what's realistic about that?

- Nothing's realistic.

- Of the three, it's the least realistic.

- Oh, no. What's realistic about the girls'?

- Well, first of all, there is anatomy, that is...

- There's proportion. - Where?

- She has no right shoulder. She's a shoulderless woman.

- We had decent anatomy on ours.

- I just can't see it.

- That green, when you go into it

with some highlights or some tones,

like you were saying... - But guys,

that is not the technique that's gonna finish

a one-sitting tattoo in six hours, that a canvas...

- Oh, we've learned that. We're not disagreeing whatsoever.

- No.

- We have three challenge tattoos here.

- The problem I have is, if somebody cruises

in the middle of your work,

that's the ultimate slap in the face.

- So I take it you're voting to send Pins and Needles

out of here.

- There's only one element of a battle.

It's half the work that the other two teams put in.

So I'm obligated to make my decision

for you guys to go home.

- [bleep]

- Oliver.

- Pins and Needles does have a few areas

where you do see smooth color transitions.

Classic Trilogy had a bad gameplan.

But if I had to say which one of these three tattoos

had the most technical problems,

I got to go with Think Before You Ink.

It's hard for me to let that slide.

- It's really difficult, man, because Pins and Needles

didn't really do much of a battle,

nor is it finished.

But overall, the tattoo looks cleaner.

[suspenseful music]

I'm going with Think Before You Ink.

The judges have decided.

Think Before You Ink, you do not have what it takes

to be Master Shop.

- The two of you working together

just didn't come out the same.

That was your struggles while you were here,

and you guys were kind of doomed from the start.

- Please pack your machines

and move out.

[rock music]

♪ ♪

- You know, the chips didn't fall how we planned for them to.

- Yeah. - This group of friends knew

to keep us down there enough, that eventually we'd go.

- Yeah, down there, exactly. Exactly.

- This house [inaudible] show wasn't the same thing

I walked out of last time.

I walked into a completely different monster.

- We realized we had to battle more than the judges.

That's when it got complicated.

- I wasn't trying to hear nothing

that none of the other artists had to say, for real.

- I know. - And I'm proud of the fact

fact that we got eliminated with a tattoo we're proud of.

I came in here completely true to myself.

I'm gonna be [bleep]-talking Rich

and this is gonna be cool, calm and collected D,

and that's what the hell we did.

- We'll be good, bro. We will be.

♪ ♪

announcer: On the next episode of "Ink Master"...

- We've kind of hit a groove with the alliance.

- All this friend bull[bleep]'s gonna stop.

- We're calm and collected 'til the time is right,

and then we'll strike.

- Do us proud, Lalo. - I got it.

- We in this together. - Yeah.

- Go [bleep] yourself. - This is my whole life!

- You guys haven't seen me flex yet.

- This quality work is not gonna last.

I'm gonna tell you that right now.

Either [bleep] or get off the pot.

- It's not solid. It's not smooth.

- [growls]

- What's coming next is gonna knock you guys out of the box.