Original subtitles

On the last episode of Ink Master Shop Wars, a massive twist rocked the competition.

Every time a shop is eliminated, another shop will enter the competition ready to fight for

the title of master shop.

But that's not all.

The shops entering the competition will have at least one returning artist who's competed

for the title and failed.

We're done.

The first returning veteran competed in season four, Bubba Irwin.

Everything we touch, we're going to crush every single thing.

The winner of today's Flash Challenge is Old Town Ink.

Straight out the gate, you.

In the elimination tattoo.

The trick's in store.

Old Town Ink immediately made enemies.

Pulling lines with a mag.

DJ is using a mag.

They essentially emulate, like, five single line needles.

Yeah.

You guys are bending the rules.

It's just somebody thought of it, and you guys didn't.

We're focused on every single move you make to find a reason to kick you the out.

The jury up here has nominated Old Town Inc.

Are you kidding me?

Technicality, man.

In the elimination, Old Town Inc., Tri-Cities Tattoo, and The Marked Society were the bottom

three shots.

Why the am I here right now?

Do you look close at this?

Please do.

It is lines.

Every single spot.

You guys put up somebody that you're threatened by.

You wasted your time.

Tri-Cities Tattoo.

You have a lot of sloppy line work here.

With ours, you can at least tell what it is.

The Mark Society.

The tiger is jacked.

Anatomy has proven to be a big issue.

The Mark Society.

The judges have decided you do not have what it takes to be master shop.

Eight shops remain to take on returning veteran shops.

But only one will earn a $200,000 prize and the title of master shop.

GUERRAS DE TIENDAS

I don't want to be here

if we're going to be in the bottom again next week.

And if we keep working the way we're working, that's exactly the going to happen.

You need to let me take the lead.

I feel like you're blaming me for us being at the bottom.

Why are we competing?

You think I was competing with you on a drawing?

Absolutely.

Because I was not just sitting there and let you take the lead and do whatever you wanted

to do?

Did you want me to just sit there?

You could have practiced drawing lines.

So what are you saying?

I should have just sat there and just drawn lines.

Like, what?

Like, I'm not used to doing bad tattoos in the regular.

for me.

Whatever.

RETO RAPIDO

Welcome, guys.

And congratulations on making it another week.

All of you are here to prove that your shop is the best.

If you make it to the end, you will earn the biggest prize in Ink Master history, $200,000,

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

Plus, your shop will also earn the first ever title of Master Shop.

As you know, every time a shop is eliminated, another shop will enter the competition ready

to fight for the title.

The next returning veteran is from Queens, New York, and he competed in season three.

He's the owner of Think Before You Ink, Mr.

Made Rich.

I am here to win.

If I wasn't here to win, I would not be here.

We have a strategy, and we're going to stick to the .

The teeth of the skull, they're kind of non-existent.

Nobody's saying I had to add teeth.

Nobody's saying you have to do a good tattoo at all.

You got two dots for eyes.

The nose is crooked.

The lips are not lined up.

Where's the beauty in this face?

A lot of Asian work, there really isn't much detail in the face at all.

So I tried to dumb it down.

Insulting the artwork that you're doing because of your inadequacies only points out your

shortcomings.

Rich, you do not have what it takes to be Ink Master.

I do have more to prove being this is my second time.

I have a bigger target on my back.

I know me moving how I move with my confidence, the competitors really aren't going to like

me off back.

I know nothing about this dude.

But the looks he's given everyone, I think I know everything about this dude.

Welcome back, Rich.

Who'd you bring with you?

Got my man, Detest Starr, with me.

We've been tattooing together damn near my whole career.

So if there's a pot of money to get got, I'm betting on him for the shot.

Welcome, man.

Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

My style is very illustrative, but I kind of put my urban spin to things.

We will definitely be a force to be reckoned with.

This week's skill is designed to put your shop to the ultimate test.

Each week, everyone will be tested on the skill that exposes the veteran artist's shortcomings

from the last time they competed.

And this week, we're testing.

The best way to show detailing and artwork is to use different colors, do little different

accents, make little highlights, mess with the line weights, just so everything doesn't look

so plain.

For today's flash challenge, you must create not one, but two images.

One of you must paint the left-facing panels to create one image, while your teammate paints

the right-facing panels to create a second image.

If your details are on point, your canvas will transform from one image to another when viewed

from different angles.

This is insane.

We have to paint while the other person is painting on a different side but still the same

wall.

This is going to be hard.

If you win, your shop will have the power to assign all the human canvases and the elimination

tattoo.

You will have five hours to create two images.

Your time starts now.

You better walk a little faster.

Nine.

We got nine.

The hardest thing about this challenge is getting your design laid out onto the canvas.

We're going to fold the paper and draw it that way.

But you can't just draw right across the canvas.

You have to draw panel by panel and look at it from far back to make sure it lines up.

Probably right here.

It's a 90 degree.

I'm straight on with my side.

Having your details line up from one panel to the next is going to be very difficult.

The Pharaoh Nefertiti, if we want, we could do two on each side.

All right, let's do it.

Right here.

We have to set fear in these competitors' hearts.

Don't make it so flat.

Do the same thing you're doing and clean that up.

We're good to go.

I'm thinking war and peace, two hands.

No, I don't want to do that.

Just do a landscape.

I think I'm pretty good at that.

Like, I really feel comfortable doing it.

He's taking the lead on everything, and I feel like so far it hasn't been working in our favor.

We did a landscape for the last challenge, and we lost.

The cityscape.

OK.

So you still want to do the landscape, or?

Mm-hmm.

I'm doing what I want to do, and I'm not budging.

I'm comfortable with doing this, is what I'm telling you.

I think I was going to do like a little black around the edges so that it looks like there's

a lot of depth going on.

I like to have a plan.

And Dan's like, no, we have to do it now.

It's easier just to draw and paint, April.

You do things your way, I'll do them my way, all right?

I'm going to be done on painting an hour before she even starts touching the paint.

That's what's going to happen.

Oh my god, a little grandma over here.

Are you being sarcastic?

Are you being an asshole?

I'm being an asshole.

Make sure you hit all these darks in these eyes.

I'm doing what I can, man.

One hour remaining.

You're almost down here, Sid?

No, it's supposed to be like all the filigree.

I don't know what it is about the flash challenges.

It's just go, go, go, rush, rush, rush.

Where we work, we just don't work that way.

I'm just going to go back and clean up, dude.

A couple years ago, I got diagnosed with early onset Parkinson's.

I didn't know what to do.

There was a point where I thought my career was in jeopardy.

It just sucks.

Like, I want to win a flash challenge.

I'm not going to give up or anything like that, you know?

Anybody that gets broken down like that and can get back up kind of shows up, perseverance.

It's hard to bring a person back.

Getting broken.

I don't know why I thought I would be able to get this done.

Just hurry.

I love you.

Hurry up.

I just completely mismanaged my time.

We may need to strategize a bit better next time.

It looks like a piece of .

How's it going?

It's getting there.

It's just blocking everything in really hard.

Snake looks cool so far, though.

How's Allegory looking?

They're pretty far behind.

They're behind?

Yeah.

I mean, everybody in our top secret super cool kids club, they're all pretty far behind.

Carlos and Eric are really far behind.

Veterans know how this game is played.

They know how to work the competition.

I need them to go home.

Four, three, two, one.

That's it.

Time is up.

Darn, I'm so close.

There's so many unfinished pieces.

The judges hate unfinished work.

If I'm judging this artwork, there's really not so many people running this house right now.

If this is the competition, I'm not nervous at all.

OK, artists, it is now time to critique your work.

Let's start with Old Town Ink.

What was your plan here?

We kind of wanted to do something that was like a little mix of both of us.

And then you kind of walk past it, and it flips to a skeleton, kind of like an x-ray.

You guys definitely show details in the lashes, in the brows, the hair, the scruff on the

chin.

Bubba, you didn't really get a lot of gradients between the white and the gray and the black.

It's pretty patchy and a little bit sloppier, but it does translate the idea.

Pins and needles.

I like the concept.

The outside uses up a lot more of the canvas.

The green and the magenta together is a very cool color play.

As far as in the eye side, it's also a lot of smaller detail.

The tree and the reflection of the eye and everything is very cool.

Both of these have the beginnings of great pieces.

Both of them just need the finishing touches.

Thank you.

Allegory Arts had this go.

Just completely mismanaged time.

It's sad that it's unfinished, because the face looks very nice.

You did get a lot of smooth blends.

I'll also say that, anatomically, one of the better snakes that we've seen anybody slap down

in the competition.

I do appreciate the detail.

I think you guys were on to something.

I think you needed a lot more time.

Black Anchor.

Massively unfinished.

You were two of the guys that the clock is heavy on.

We thought it was going to be a lot easier.

And then once we got at these angles, we're like, man .

is not lining up.

You guys are talented.

You guys have all the tools that it takes, but you're not letting loose.

Tri-city tattoos.

Bang, what you did here excels far past everybody else.

It took a lot of confidence to be able to come in, map out this landscape, and go for it.

The loose reference details that you create in this are where you really show off.

Unfortunately for y'all, both sides have to be outstanding to win.

Dave, your side looks a little bit more like a coloring book.

Hers looks a little bit more like a real painting.

It might be time to let that feminine energy run wild.

Let her lead.

See where it goes.

It's going good.

That's what I wanted to hear, the fact that I carried my team, because I did.

Dave, maybe you should let me take the will from now on.

Artistic skin designs.

It's really loose.

As far as a detailed challenge goes, I think the cat.

Definitely shows a little bit more detail.

My biggest problem is with the fish.

It doesn't line up.

The outlines go from the eye from one panel to the next panel.

You missed a mark on it.

Classic trilogy tattoo.

My side over here would be Jekyll.

And as you flip to the other side, you can see Hyde.

I would say that the Dr.

Jekyll side lines up a lot better than the Mr.

Hyde side.

In a detailed challenge, it just misses the mark.

Unkindness.

The fox has the nicest detail of anything in the room today.

And I really love that you guys were able to put the really nice little details in the teeth,

the nice little details in the mouth.

It sets it off.

As far as the girl goes, she's beautiful.

The detail from the back of the face, from the hair coming forward, you did a really great

job on this one.

Think before you ink.

The profile of Nefertiti is beautiful.

I like the subtle little highlight that you have in the top of her eye with her looking off

into space.

She has pretty lips, a pretty nose.

The darker skin tone that you use in the front juxtaposed with the lighter skin tone in the

back versus the galactic background all plays dynamically to separate the two.

Good choices.

We killed this challenge, man.

Come back, kings.

You cannot deny the detail in these pieces right here.

Think before you win.

Master Shop.

All day.

Can't stop.

Can't stop.

Won't stop.

Won't stop.

Uh-uh.

Uh-uh.

Me and this are gonna win.

That tattoo just seems impossible.

How do you even do that?

Oh, my god, no.

Don't be stubborn.

I'm not.

You are.

God damn it.

Time to get busy.

Trying to cram too much detail might kill us.

All right, guys, big challenge today.

Think Before You Ink, Made Rich, and D-Tat came back.

They were one of the people that really showed some detail and finished both full canvases.

They came in with some big art, so let's see what these guys have.

Let's talk about Tri-City tattoos.

Fang really surprised everybody in the room.

She just painted the hell out of that thing.

Did Danger Dave drop the ball for Tri-Cities?

She ran circles around him.

Today was her day, and she got the show off, and she did.

Let's talk about unkindness art.

Their images lined up perfectly.

Their overall plan was flawless.

It's the only one of the day that actually creates a morph from one story to the next.

Well, I think it's pretty clear who the winner is.

Let's do it.

Today, some of you created impressive transformations.

Judges have decided the winner of today's flash challenge is unkindness

art.

This is a detail challenge, and y'all showed off on both sides, capturing a lot of small,

very clean details.

Should we have one?

Yeah.

But it's all right.

We'll do what we got to do with the tattoo.

Congratulations, Aaron and Doom.

You'll have the power to assign all the human canvases in the next elimination tattoo.

We're going to use this skull pick to tell every new competitor that they don't belong here.

They weren't good enough for their season.

They're not good enough for this season.

You guys can head back to the loft.

So have people been trying to get the top dogs out the house?

They tried.

Didn't work.

We came out the gate and did an amazing tattoo.

People voted us to the bottom right away because they were threatened.

I was thinking maybe the vets would be pushing people out the house.

As far as strategizing, this is a giant chess game.

It's slow and steady, man.

You've been in this house, and you know how could bite you in the ass if you don't do what

you can do from the jump to manipulate it to your favor.

Yeah, my tattoos are speaking for that, though, dude.

Why play this fair game?

I'm an artist, man.

Like, since I've been born, I've been a .

But you've never been in this house.

They've never been in this competition.

You don't know in this game.

I do know.

You should know, bro.

And that's why I brought a DJ.

Me and this are going to win.

We can see what happens all day.

Welcome to the elimination tattoo.

Based on your work, one shop will lose their shot at $200,000 and the first ever title of

Master Shop.

Made Rich, as the veteran artist, it's on your shop to prove that you deserve to be back in

this competition by proving that you've overcome your weaknesses.

And in Made Rich's honor, you'll all be judged on detail.

Today, you must tattoo a natural disaster.

What?

Whether it's a volcanic eruption, a meteor shower, or a tornado, it's the fine details that

will bring your scene to life.

Showing detail in a natural disaster tattoo is going to be really hard.

It's movement and chaos and screaming.

It's not something you can illustrate easily.

The strength of your shop as a team will determine your success or failure in this competition.

And for this tattoo, once again, you will be tag teaming.

Your shop will create one tattoo on the same canvas.

Only one of you can tattoo at a time, and you must switch artists every hour.

Remember, after every elimination tattoo, all of you will form the jury of peers.

You'll deliberate and choose one shop to put up for elimination.

Let's meet your canvases.

Unkindness art, your shop won the flash challenge.

That means that you now have the power to assign the canvases.

Advantages are hard to come by, so use it wisely.

The vets need to go home.

So what were you wanting to get done?

A tornado destroying a cemetery in the left bicep.

New people can't just come in, middle of the game, and try to dominate.

We're going to give them the hard one.

I want a tsunami swallowing a pirate ship.

That's .

A hurricane crashing into shore on my left forearm.

What do you need to deliver?

Hurricanes are literal wind.

They don't look like anything.

That tattoo just seems like almost impossible.

I want an erupting volcano on my ribs.

Oh, cool.

Earthquake engulfing a city.

Oh, my right calf.

Oh, my god, no.

I don't want to do any of these things.

These are terrible.

The hurricane and the earthquake are going to be really hot.

OK.

Doom is a chess player.

Here you go, dude.

And he's a really good chess player.

Who was getting the hurricane?

There you go, man.

So I'm leaving this pretty much solely in Doom's hands.

There you go, man.

There you go.

All right.

Thanks.

OK, canvases, one by one, please read the artist's name on the bottom of your skull.

Fry City's tattoo.

Unkindest art.

What is it you want?

Volcano.

Black Anchor.

They gave us the biggest piece, and it's like, what the ?

What's up, Aaron and Doom?

I thought you guys had her back.

Artistic skin design.

Allegory arts.

Yeah.

Sink before you ink.

I am pissed, but I figured everybody would be coming after me.

We won't think about it.

Classic trilogy tattoo.

Old Town Ink.

Pins and needles.

You'll have six hours to tattoo a detailed natural disaster.

And if your work is a disaster, your shop will be out.

Good luck.

Today, we're testing these artists on detail.

What's going on?

Jesse, nice to meet you.

Whether it be a tidal wave, an earthquake, explosions, you have to show movement.

What you looking to get done?

A hurricane crashing against the shore.

Could be dust, fire, wind, water, some type of force that's going to demolish something.

A forest fire?

Yes.

If you're a tattooer that doesn't have a versatile bag of tricks, it's going to be very difficult

to pull off a natural disaster.

Volcano, huh?

Things you can get in.

Are you open to moving it, or are you pretty sad?

Nah, I'm with the ribs.

Can you just take off your shirt for us?

I'm nervous about him sitting for six hours on his ribs.

He wants it big, he wants it bold.

It's a lot of saturation.

Right back like I never left.

So we talking hurricane.

Beach shore, like boardwalk, palm trees blowing in the wind, boarded up buildings.

Definitely want hurricane flags.

Hurricane flags, what's that?

Off the bat, this guy has too many images that he wants condensed in this little landscape

around his own.

Where's the lowest we can go?

Lowest will be right there.

This is a detailed challenge.

Trying to cram too much in might kill us.

I still think this needs to

be a little smaller.

Why?

It'll look horrible small.

But this is too big.

That's not true at all.

Just a little reduced in size.

Don't you think?

No, I don't.

Look how much better that is.

You don't think so?

Nope.

It's fine.

Let's do it.

Well, if you don't think so, we don't have to do it.

No, it's OK.

Let's just use the smaller one.

You don't want to do the bigger one?

No.

If you really think it'll be better, then let's do it.

No, it's fine.

Let's do it like this.

Don't be stubborn.

I'm not.

You are.

You're grown to fit.

I'm not.

You are.

God damn.

I feel like if you can't communicate or take criticism, we're going to keep, like, butting

heads.

Let's just do small.

Are you sure you feel good about that?

Yeah, it's fine.

OK.

Sure is going to be tiny.

Artists, you have six hours to tattoo a natural disaster.

And your time starts now.

OK.

Let's go get this done.

Tattooing a natural disaster could be very tricky.

If it's a volcano or a tornado, it needs to tell that story.

It can't just be water, and then you say it's a tsunami.

Let me get these little finishing touches in there.

Without the details, these images aren't going to come to life.

Nailed it.

I don't think we can call anybody a front runner right now, but the people who start showing

that they're working well together the best are probably going to have an edge against the

others.

And here we go.

That works for you?

Yeah.

I decide to just go for it.

I'm giving my canvas everything he's asking for.

Here's a drawing.

Here's a skin break reference.

We got cars floating in the water.

We got some rocks.

We got some boardwalks.

We got some palm trees.

There's no tattoo or more detail than ours.

Time to get busy.

I believe Made Rich knows what the judges want more than me.

Make sure to leave a little skin break off the car.

Got it.

And the flagpole.

I trust your judgment.

Let's go.

This isn't the worst part waiting.

I want it to be my turn.

Last week, we kind of did pretty bad.

The circles you have around the main jewel in the center, look at all the problems you guys

had in there.

Your guys' line work is pretty rough throughout this tattoo.

Today, we need to step it up and take it to the next level.

I don't even have to, like, tell you stuff that I have plans of doing.

You just already know.

Uh-huh.

We're so strong together because we really try to work together as a team in every aspect.

You're my best friend.

You're my best friend.

It's already been proven that one girl won this competition.

It's going to be even better when two take the cake.

Three hours remaining.

Switch artists.

Tear it up, bubba.

So this is what we're going to do here.

Put your machine down for a second.

Dave doesn't need to take the lead all the time.

I just took the lead on the flash challenge.

And look how good we did.

Dave, you're going to keep switching stuff up last minute.

We've got to make the script perfect.

My background comes from attending art school and majoring in illustration.

My sophomore year, I started doing ROTC to pay for school.

That's a good stopping point.

Nope.

We got 21 minutes left.

My senior year, I commissioned as an officer.

I consider myself a leader.

As an army officer, I take on that role to lead soldiers.

I'm not a follower.

You're good.

Two hours to go.

Switch artists.

Did you see Carlos in there?

Yeah.

It's what they do all day, though, every day.

Black Anchor is a world-class shop, and it is known the world over for having really great

realism artists.

How are you guys doing?

I'm gonna have to jam on it.

I'm confused at this point that I am even in an alliance in this competition.

I think they gave us the harder one, maybe, to try and knock us down a little bit.

I'm fighting my lip-op right now.

Honestly, I feel like we could really shine.

I just hope that time is on our side.

Final hour.

Switch.

Oh, you got that lava flow.

You got a big piece of it.

Crank it out, man.

Pedal to the metal, guys.

We expect a lot out of Eric and Carlos just because we know where they come from.

Black Anchor Collective is already a very well-known, very established shop in the country.

Black Anchor is struggling.

None of the details they have so far are finished.

All that wavy ground, it's sketchy.

I just don't think that they're prepared to do a tattoo that can be finished in six hours.

They don't do it at home, and I don't think they're going to be able to do it here.

What's happening over here, man?

Oh, damn.

I always show a lot of detail on my tattoos, so we're going to show every little tiny detail

in this scene.

Broken buildings, broken cars, truck falling off a cliff, little guy hanging off a truck,

graffiti on the truck.

There's like 700 windows in there.

Tell you what, if you do finish that thing, it's going to be great.

What's that truck?

Dope.

It's getting there, yeah.

I need a little bit more of it.

There's way too many details in this thing.

We might have bit off more than we could chew.

Keep missing it.

Right there, where it doesn't meet the line.

Just go further down.

3, 2, 1.

That's it.

Machine's down.

Time is up.

No more ink.

Done, though.

That's awesome.

Hell yeah.

That's too big, dude.

It looks smaller when you put the stencil on, but then you forget about all the color around

the outside.

I had to comb back through and fix a bunch of the...

holidays you left.

The problem is I'm used to tattooing my own designs.

I don't know where anything is because you pretty much take control.

I don't mean to take control.

Instead of shooting down my stuff, help me work through it a little more.

I'm not shooting down your stuff.

I think you're taking it that way.

I feel like I'm a better tattooer than all you guys put together.

How are you going to walk around with your head hanging high knowing that you did a ?

tattoo today.

There's no detail.

It looks messy.

This is one of the rougher tattoos I've seen here.

So what do you guys think at the bottom?

I think you two are on the bottom.

Mm-hmm.

I agree.

It's a confused image, jam-packed.

I felt like it was just too busy.

But the purpose of the challenge is to do detail.

It didn't work, and it was poorly done.

We hit detail.

That's the challenge.

I mean, that's fine.

Like I said.

You clean tattoo, no detail.

You.

Clean tattoo, no detail.

We're not disagreeing with you on detail.

We're just saying that you did it the wrong way.

It's a detail challenge.

I know, but you did too much.

You the judge?

Detail.

The challenge is detail.

Damn.

If you're not going to hit the challenge, what's the point of doing the tattoo?

If the challenge was to drop the ball, then yeah, you guys would win.

Every detail counts.

Made rich, this challenge was designed to test your weaknesses.

So let's see how you did.

Think before you ink?

You're up first.

What you have here is a strong design that doesn't really translate into tattoo as well as

it did on paper.

But you do have clean line work.

You do have smooth shading.

Your application and your tattooing, nice.

The actual imagery, lost.

You have the exact same tonal shading in the water that you do in the car.

It's all camouflaged.

So you did all that nice tattooing and all that hard work not to shine.

Pins and needles.

Oh, brah, I just like how soft this thing is.

Lots of really nice details in the foreground, certainly with the tree, with the grass, with

the debris in the house.

Certainly identifiable.

You have a lot of nice light that comes in from the right side where the clouds are, and then

you capture the darkness on the left side with the looming cloud over the top.

That creates the energy of the piece.

It's a beautiful job.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks.

Tri-Cities Tattoo.

First of all, you can definitely tell what's going on.

Definitely see tornado.

Definitely see the graveyard at the bottom.

One detail that stands out is this little gate that's flying up in the air.

This thing looks like the kind of gate.

It's like two pieces, and it opens.

But somehow, when it flew in the air, both pieces just stayed perfectly together and are flying

instead of it opening and getting torn apart.

Seems a little weird to me.

The details you have on the bottom of the tombstones, I think you have some question of line

work.

Technically, this tattoo is pretty challenged.

Classic trilogy tattoos.

I do like the design.

Meteorites flying across the galaxy to attack your neighborhood is like right upper alley.

I just feel like the center of the meteor is a cover-up.

It's the only place where you just have this patch of black.

Some of your colors look a little muddy.

The car, the wheel, the hubcap, the street.

You're showing us what you're into.

You're going to have to step out of that and show us some versatility.

Unkindness art.

You have a lot of anatomy problems with the ship.

The lowest front sail just disappears into the boat.

It's hard to read.

As much as you have to understand the mechanics of the ship, you have to understand the mechanics

of the water pushing the ship.

Our bottom water, the finger waves are one size.

The middle piece that's coming up over the sail, another size of fingers.

Then we go to just this plastic green piece up there.

Making water look like water, those are all tricks.

And you have to have all those tricks in your pocket to pull off that look.

Allegory Arts.

The big thing for me here on the technical side is the green roof area.

It just sticks out like a sore thumb.

Those wobbles are very evident.

You have details throughout this design, but the idea of the tsunami wave like covering a

mountain, I envision a bigger wave and then a mountain that's about to be engulfed.

This looks like the wave is the foreground and the mountain is the background.

It's just too much that just doesn't seem to make sense.

Black Anchor.

The perimeter shape is just an obtrusive big smear on the side of his body.

You've got to leave some open skin.

It's like everywhere you look in this tattoo is a cover up.

The only contrast you have is from the areas of solid color to the areas of light color you

did.

As far as details go, there's no detail.

This is one of the rougher tattoos I've seen here.

Artistic skin designs.

There are some great details in here.

Each little line of the little pine needles, it's very crisp, very sharp, very technically

solid.

The way you shaded the tattoo just to capture the light sources on both sides of those thin

little trees adds the life into the piece that it needs even in that dead forest.

But the fire is rigid.

Tattooing fire is not incredibly difficult, but tattooing, like, a forest on fire was definitely

a challenge.

Making things that are still look like they're in motion is the trick for all of us as tattooers.

Old Town Ink.

This is a definite swing for the fences.

But I like it.

The details in this thing, the little truck, the little guy hanging off the truck, the car,

and the nicest light post I've ever seen tattooed.

But that crack where this is all going into is where you needed to spend the time to punch

home what this was.

There's so many areas that don't have any shading at all in them.

That big, blank, white face in the building there with all the windows in it, it looks unfinished.

OK, judges.

Time to announce the best tattoo of the day.

The ones that stand out is hitting the challenge and having detail and looking like what they're

supposed to be.

Obviously, pins and needles and artistic skin.

How about Old Town?

It's just way too unfinished.

Yeah, I mean, I love the tattoo, but I want to see more of it done.

So we have artistic skin design, and we have pins and needles.

I think the pins and needles looks like a finished, beautiful piece.

I think pins and needles take this one.

I have to concur.

The judges have decided that the best tattoo of the day

Goes to pins and needles.

All right, artists, as the jury of peers, you must deliberate and put one shop up for elimination.

Head back to the loft.

I'm just going to go out and say I feel like I'm a better tattooer than all you guys put together.

Oh.

Y'all stand a good chance of going home.

I don't really think we deserve to go home on it.

What the ?

What?

How you going to walk around with your head hanging high knowing that you did a tattoo today

and you still here?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I don't give a .

We did a salad tattoo. I don't give a .

We did a salad tattoo.

Y'all got ripped the most, man.

Yeah, but at least ours was readable.

Ours is too.

Maybe after like 10 minutes of looking at it.

It hit the challenge.

But is it done well?

That's questionable.

You guys should have thought before you inked.

We're here as the jury appears to determine which shop should be brought down for elimination.

What do you guys think's the worst?

The worst?

Black angler.

Looks like a cover-up.

It does look like a cover-up.

I love this tattoo.

But as far as meeting the challenge, I feel like it has plenty of detail.

I think the hardest tattoo to read what it is is Think Before Your Inks tattoo.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Can you really look at that tattoo and know what the hell is going on?

It's pretty dark.

It's because it's black as .

It's really not that black.

And there's snow in there as black as theirs.

Ours is dark.

But you can tell it's a volcano.

And theirs wraps around so much, you can't tell what the challenge is.

I can't tell what it is.

Why did you guys wrap it around?

That was just a terrible idea to begin with.

I can't agree with the fact that it's a problem, that it's wrapped around his arm.

There's a right and wrong way to do things.

And I feel like you guys tattooed this the wrong way.

Our design was solid.

We still had the detail.

We still showed a disaster.

So I don't think we really missed the mark.

Exactly.

Detail challenge, natural disasters.

This challenge was designed to test Made Rich.

And he may have come back stronger, but I don't think he hit it out of the park by any means.

Everything looks the same.

They put details in there and then disguised all the details that they put into this piece.

But what I will say for Made Rich, as far as the quality of tattooing, this is a lot smoother

of a tattoo than we saw him do last time we were here.

For sure.

But I think Tri-Cities is in the bottom again.

The big problem for me is they're still having all these technical application struggles.

But overall, you can at least see what's going on here.

I had a little bit of a harder time seeing what's going on than the Black Anchor tattoo.

This thing is just a storm.

There's no detail in this.

This is the big bummer of the day, because I know what they do at home.

But if any other tattoo shop does that, you'd have a field day with them.

I would be totally amazed if Black Anchor's not picked for the jury.

It's going to be a tough decision.

I wonder how they're going to go.

Yeah.

We'll get him down here and find out.

I don't know if it ever gets easier downstairs.

I feel like it'll just get harder and harder.

Yeah, it doesn't.

I can tell you that from experience.

It sucks.

All right, guys.

Jury appears.

Who are you putting up for elimination?

Jury appears I put up Think Before You Ink.

All right.

We'll see.

Think Before You Ink, Black Anchor, and Tri-City Tattoo.

See you all downstairs.

Bring up your defense.

I mean, you guys know you did a rough one, but.

You can still defend it.

It's what you didn't say that kills you.

It's your final word.

It's like your last meal.

Now let's go.

Yeah.

Let's do this.

Today, you tattooed scenes depicting natural disasters.

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

Let's hear from the jury of peers.

Why did you vote think before you ink to the bottom?

One we could tell was a volcano when you look at it.

And this, you can't really decipher what it is right off the bat.

Today is a crazy day.

You guys say the worst tattoo is not Black Anchor.

As far as details, we were trying to compare the problems in each tattoo, and we felt like.

So do you think the details in Think Before You Ink are not as detailed as that volcano?

I mean, look at the Ferris wheel.

It was a yes or no question, champ.

I feel like ours is a little bit more recognizable.

I didn't have any detail in that tattoo.

It's a little bit more dynamic than yours.

Dynamic.

It wasn't dynamic day.

It was detail day.

Black Anchor.

This is a large, unappealing spot on this guy's body.

Detail could easily be added to that.

Back at the shop, we do multiple scenes, and I know that's not the case this time.

This isn't back at the shop.

We're judging on today, and today it's just this blocked out mask with no detail on detail

day.

But if we did get another shot, pick ourselves out of this slump, you know, this is our third

time.

You guys keep throwing that around, like, so what if we've been down here before?

At the end of the day, we're looking at it now, like they said.

Try Cities.

Compared to the other people in the room that did small details, you're outshined.

I just don't think our tattoo, when you look at it, it's not questionable as much as these

two tattoos.

It's the one that's the clearest to me of the three.

But are we not judging on the worst tattoo of the day, period?

Because that's what I thought I was here to do.

The technical mistakes are pretty big.

But is it the worst?

Technically, I think it's the worst applied tattoo.

Technically, it is.

But is it the worst?

We do need to make a final decision.

I'm going to keep it 100% honest.

I think Black Anchor did the worst tattoo of the day.

I got to stick with Tri-Cities.

My vote's for Black Anchor.

The judges have decided, Black Anchor, you do not have what it takes to be master shop.

It's a bummer, man.

If I was picking teams, I would have had you guys first pick.

But on any day, worst tattoo goes.

It doesn't matter what you've done.

Please pack your machines and move out.

You think we deserve to go home?

No.

What the went wrong?

Just a little bummed.

I mean, I feel like we were potentially one of the best ones here.

Yeah.

I'm sure Tri-City was jumping with joy.

Time was a huge issue for us.

It's just so compacted in a warm storm.

For us to get out three challenges in.

Challenges in, yeah.

Sorry.

I felt like we deserved way more than we got credit for.

I'm a ride or die guy.

I stand by Black Anchor.

100%.

on the next episode of Ink Master.

Welcome the next returning veterans.

This is your chance to fight for your shot.

Take it.

I told myself I was going to make your life flip out, but you me.

you.

I'm coming for your neck every time.

Do that.

Time to separate myself from my teammates.

Just go over those.

They're too thin.

I'm so far behind, I'm literally melting down.

It's the battle of who's going to it up.

Some people are frustrated with you because you get.

I don't care if you're frustrated with me or not.

Shut up.

It just looks messy.

Design just jacked.

You can see a blowout.

Really rough.

Get the hell out of here.

You're missing it on this.

He's the worst tattoo to chug out here.