Original subtitles

This season on Ink Master, three masters return to coach teams.

Get ready to fight.

It's going to get tough.

On the last episode, 24 artists arrived to find they had to compete for 18 spots.

Fail to impress one of the coaches, and you'll be going home.

If there's a prize to win, I'm going to win it.

I'm going to come in here as public enemy number one with a hell of a bullseye on my back.

You guys got your favorites?

I think we're all going for the same people here.

The top nine artists earned the right to choose their team.

Which team do you select?

I'm going to go with DJ.

Team DJ.

DJ.

Yes.

I got all the top competitors.

Ask the other coaches.

They'll tell you that I'm going to beat them.

The rest of you have one last chance to earn a spot on a team.

If you're going to fight, you're going to fight now.

Good luck, y'all.

The remaining artists battle to impress the coaches.

Badass design, man.

Thank you.

It's probably the most inconsistent tattoo in the entire room.

This outline on this tattoo is challenged in a lot of places.

You can't whisper right now.

You got to scream.

In the end, three teams of six were left standing.

But only one artist will earn a $100,000 prize and the title of

Ink Master.

I think it's kind of funny that the confidence of people who's never been here before, you

guys are good tattoo artists and stuff.

And once you saw the teams together, you kind of like, bloodied up like, we got this, man.

And the one thing I know, you guys have no experience being here.

That's fine, you know, but who is the number one pick here?

And who is number two?

You are all even right now.

You ain't done in this house.

Steve, no one even wanted to be on your team.

We had DJ Matt showed up.

We're pretty good going into this thing, man.

This first flash challenge is going to be funny as .

You're cocky.

You're arrogant.

That's why no one wants to be on your .

Because I'm comfortable in a chaotic environment, and you guys are all, like, head down all

nervous and sweating, you all of a sudden think that I'm a cocky .

I'm not.

I'm confident with my ability.

Your head's up here, and you're not looking down.

I'm here to win $100,000.

It's just going to make it more fun for me when I take down a 15-year veteran with a big-ass

CEO.

You've set yourself up to be the villain.

Whether you've tried to or not, you're not going to be ignored.

They're coming at you.

For the

first time ever, you are being coached by artists who have fought through this competition

and come out on top.

Only one of you will join their elite rank, earning $100,000, a feature in Ink Magazine, and

the title of Ink Master.

Yeah.

Nice.

For your first flash challenge, you will win as a team or lose as a team.

So you must work together.

Of course.

Always.

Family.

This week, we're testing fundamentals.

Fundamentals are the basic elements that an artist needs to have down.

It's strong line work, bold color, and smooth black and gray.

If you don't have those, you shouldn't be tattooing.

Today, you must create a massive image using only colored water.

That's crazy.

Is it too late to leave?

We're getting struck by lightning for sure.

We got this, though.

We got this, guys.

We got this.

Each team will have approximately 10,000 cups.

Using only food coloring and water to create different shades and blends, you need to fill

and arrange the cups to bring a single enormous image to life.

The last time I put cups together, I was playing beer pong.

I don't think that's going to help this competition at all.

But a team is only as strong as its leader.

Coaches, you must lead your teams every step of the way, because you alone will have a bird's

eye view of the design as it takes shape.

Every mistake is on your shoulders.

So it's up to you to coach your team in the right direction.

I'm scared of heights.

There's a lift.

This is horrible.

It's all on me, because if it looks like and I had the perfect view of it, I'd led them to

make something that looks like .

I'm not sure if the other coaches have the experience I have in leading a team, but we're

going to find out with 10,000 cups very quickly.

Fail to communicate, and your team's image will be an unreadable mess.

Every member of the team needs to hustle, get a game plan, and go big.

You don't have to do tattoo designs.

You can make great art.

Today looks like it might be pretty rough.

No time to complain.

You're here.

This is what you signed up for.

No slacking.

Win this challenge, and your team will have the power to assign all of the human canvases

in the elimination tattoo.

Control of the game can make or break you, so every advantage is essential.

You will have five hours, and your time starts now.

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

All right, my man, let's see if there's surrender.

All right, where's the paper?

This is the first time we're seeing these teams work together.

You need the biggest guys filling buckets, because them things get heavy, dude.

We're going to see if these coaches have the faith and trust of their teammates.

You're going to get wet.

Don't think about your clothes, your shoes, your nothing.

Make art.

This challenge is testing fundamentals.

They need to make a clear, strong, legible image.

We're going to run these buckets right here.

Start over there.

The team that follows the leader the best is going to be the most efficient.

I think dynamic.

We've still got to keep it fundamental.

An eye.

We can make it look realistic from far away.

And just one big-ass eye.

What are we going to show?

That's too simple.

The iris is going to be the only thing.

Oh, they're already putting out cups.

Pull that tape measure straight.

Then we're going to line the cups up with that tape measure.

Hey, are we up too far?

No, we're good.

It don't matter how far we're up.

Yeah, but don't forget, you're going to be looking at an angle.

Right.

OK.

Garrett.

Yeah.

Focus on keeping it tight so we can see the layout, all right?

Yep, yep.

As a team, we're deciding to create a beetle.

I draw beetles all the time.

I'm obsessed with insects.

Well, we're going to do the shelled in green.

Someone has to take charge.

Having a lot of siblings, I've kind of learned how to be a good mediator.

Let's go, Gary.

Let's go, Jeremy.

Let's go.

Fill them up, bro.

Come on, guys.

Let's go around.

Let's do this .

Focus on laying cups down.

Don't worry about the green.

You just ain't there standing there.

Come on.

Help out.

Bro, everybody slow down for a second.

We're going to be doing that marble bust, right?

Blacks and grays.

We have a well-orchestrated system.

We've got Matt under the table doing the drawing.

Deanna's got buckets of tones and blends all pulled out.

Me and little D are taking the responsibility of gridding out this entire area.

Get all these numbers in there first.

Let's make the grid, and then we'll start looking at it.

All right.

Frank's over there and apparently knows numbers better than anybody.

64 cups per square per quadrant, basically.

I don't see this going wrong.

Four hours remaining.

Lift me to the heavens.

You hit your growth spurt.

You're at adult height now.

Can we get a poncho with a pattern on it for Steve?

Maybe a dragon poncho or something.

Hold on a second.

Hold on.

Stop.

What I'm going to tell you guys right now, we're thinking we might have to move the whole

design down here.

Move it?

It's a little far away.

I thought it would be high enough, but it's not.

I told you.

I told you.

What do you mean far up?

Because you're looking at a different angle.

You're far away.

Let's go.

Let's move this faster.

That's chaos right there.

You win some, you lose some.

The best way to do this is just like tattooing.

Get down the darkest pigment and build up to the lights.

Dark, medium, light, medium, dark.

They're just putting down cups, and I'm just painting the picture.

They're calling me the Blend Daddy now.

They're going to be calling me the Tat Daddy tomorrow.

It's tough because you're looking at it upside down, you know?

It's tough because I'm doing it with water in general.

Just get the drawing on the ground.

We need that, Matt, now.

Here.

Now we're at a stopping point.

We got to wait for you.

Getting there.

Josh Payne's starting to get frustrated with me that I'm not drawing this thing as quick as

he wants.

Don't worry about every cup.

That's our job.

You just get the drawing on the ground.

Josh, why don't you just run your dark lines in the whole square?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

My team is such strong personalities.

I got to tone them down a little bit, make sure they're listening to me.

That's the only thing that's going to keep us together and get us to the end.

What are they doing over there?

A face.

All the cups that they have down right now are just black.

They're going to run out of time.

Two hours remaining, guys.

Work, my little ants.

Do this.

Speed and efficiency, that's what these challenges are about.

Does this look OK?

Yeah.

Go to the black on the mouth.

Make it a little bit of a line with brown.

They're snapping it together.

They're a lot closer to being done than we are.

It looks like a face?

Yeah.

Teamwork, my friends.

Thought we'd do it.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

That's it.

Time is up.

It's beautiful, huh?

You guys wrecked that up quick.

You guys crushed it.

Pillow.

Great.

That's what I'm talking about, team.

That's what I'm talking about.

All right, guys, time to critique your work.

Team Anthony.

Your strong points are nailing the proportions from the size of the pupil to the eyebrow and

everything in between.

The area that you really hit the fundamentals is your color palette.

It really shows an excellent use of blending colors, creating color, and making it play well

in such a vast space.

They did an eye.

Everybody can draw an eye.

It's simple.

Show me something that I'm going to be afraid of.

Team Steve.

Fundamentals are shown here.

You got nice color blends, a little bit of negative space here in the body of this beetle,

which really gives it some dimension.

Your outline stands strong.

The symmetry in the outline really looks good.

It has a lot of great contrast.

It's a great job.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Steve's team, the design is very basic.

We're here to do artwork, not tattoo flesh.

Team DJ.

I love the border.

I love the concept of making a stamp.

With all this dark background and this framing, it really pushes the bus forward.

The really heavy shadowing in the bus stands out from a mile away.

Even the meticulous nature in which you put the two cents in here really detailed.

You did a killer job.

No line work.

Thought it was fundamental.

This edge is missing.

Half the cups don't have water.

Three in between each.

Count them.

You can't hate on this thing, dude.

Listen, I'll say it outright.

You're going to have to pull things off like this to get your moment of shine.

That's just where it's going to go.

Thank God.

I don't think there's any need to deliberate.

I think we're all agreed.

The judges have decided that the winner of today's flash challenge is Team DJ.

Yeah!

These other coaches are pissed.

Ant's giving me this death stare.

Steve's bangs are all out of whack.

They know how important these Skullpips are.

Everybody killed it.

This was so hard.

Congratulations, Team DJ.

As a team, you'll have the power to assign all human canvases in the elimination tattoo.

Awesome.

Head back to the loft.

First one out the gate, that's the one you need.

That sets the bar for the whole competition.

I'm stoked right now.

DJ's team is going to implode on itself.

There's a lot of egos, and they all want to be topped off.

It looks dumb.

You didn't think about executing it.

What other ideas you got?

Seriously?

He's coaching, man.

We need to work together better.

I was busting my ass, and some people were just standing there watching me.

For example, Gary, I got annoyed that you were telling me what to do, but, bro, you still

have one hand.

I was focused on getting my drawing and, like, directing people.

He's a supervisor.

You should be on the floor helping us out as well.

Everybody's got to calm the down.

We're in this together.

Let's leave the past in the past.

They got the advantage right now.

You know, skull picks, they're trying to give everybody a difficult canvas to see, to trip

you up.

And the best thing about that is, man, they don't know what they're dealing with.

This is what we .

You can give me whatever.

I'm going to kill it.

You're going to kill it.

They're poking the bear.

They're waking up the lion.

They're making enemies right now.

Welcome.

To win this competition, you must use every tool at your disposal.

Your coaches know better than anyone what it takes to win the title.

Let's do it again.

And coaches, every artist from your team that makes it to the finale will earn you the power

to call a shot in the master face-off for $100,000 of your own.

For this elimination tattoo, you must prove that you have solid fundamentals by

tattooing.

A maze.

Welcome to Ink Master.

That's creamy.

I hope you guys got them lines.

The intricate patterns in a maze leave no room for error.

Every line must be straight and perfectly spaced, or your tattoo will be a confusing mess.

Anything can go wrong in a maze.

You've got to have the balls and confidence to pull a solid single pass line and make sure

it's there and parallel to everything else.

We got this.

There's one other thing you should know.

We aren't the only ones who will be judging you today.

After every elimination tattoo, the coaches will meet and deliberate to choose one artist

to put up for elimination.

Oh.

Oh, man.

This changes everything because the other two coaches, they're not going to vote for their

own.

So you not only have the judges critiquing your stuff, but you have coaches shooting for you

at the same time.

Let the hate begin.

Let's meet your canvases.

Team DJ.

You won the flash challenge.

You now have the power to assign the human canvases.

DJ, pick two artists from your team to talk to the canvases.

I've chosen Matt and Josh.

Matt and Josh, come on up.

Go get them.

Let's do this.

What are you thinking about getting done today?

I want a 3D spherical maze, and I want it on my ropes.

I feel like with Team DJ, we all have targets on our back.

I'll kill it.

And everybody knows Josh Payne doesn't give a .

about anybody else but himself.

I want a technicolor floral maze with mandala designs.

Every color.

Yep.

Oh, my god.

I want a garden maze with red roses.

I'd like a psychedelic maze with a galaxy space background.

That's horrible.

Please don't give me the galaxy tattoo.

It takes a ton of time to make it look right.

My absolute worst nightmare.

A neo-traditional style maze within an owl.

Within an owl?

Yeah.

The tree of life with the maize as the bark starting off as a skull and then ended up into

a rose.

Oh, .

Where are you thinking about putting this thing?

Ribs.

My goal is to be in the finale against the two worst tattooers in this house.

We got to look at the heavy hitters.

We got to take out competition.

What do you guys think of the worst?

The galaxy piece is going to be super tough.

Dude, I've got that .

You want to do that?

Yeah.

Outer space doesn't take long, and you don't have to do a stencil for it.

We're doing a stencil for everything in this challenge.

No freehanding space here.

So what do you guys think for you?

Think about you guys.

I'll go with traditional owl.

It says traditional.

I don't mind the hedge maze with the roses.

OK, cool.

So we got this, right?

Yeah.

All right, dude.

Got this?

I got it.

Team DJ.

There you are.

Thank you.

There you go, sir.

Rose garden.

Thank you.

There you are.

Quick, painless.

Strap in.

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

One.

Mike.

Got you.

Lindsay.

Hey.

Rolly.

Right here, bro.

Frank.

I'm ready.

Lil D.

What the hell just happened?

That's not how we planned that at all.

Did they just forget their team?

I don't understand.

Sparks.

That all up, guys.

We got those backwards.

Josh.

It's me, boss.

Gary.

Right here.

Garrett.

What up?

Matt.

Yeah, buddy.

Jeremy?

Hello.

What is this?

Galaxy.

Katie?

That's me.

I called that .

You got it.

You're going to get points because they know it harder.

What you do right now, you smile at her and you make her feel confident that you would win

her over right now.

The big tree and the roses.

Jason?

There is no way this guy is going to get a tree of life, roses, skull, a maze on his ribs.

There's no way that can be done.

I hate Team DJ.

You just created very big enemies.

Amanda.

I'm right here.

Daniel.

Diane.

Deanna.

Dane.

It's going to get dirty, baby.

It's going to get dirty.

This is going to be a street fight.

You'll have six hours to demonstrate your fundamentals and tattoo a maze.

Hit a dead end, and it is game over.

Good luck.

Get up.

Go talk to the cameras.

We want to see these artists have the basic skills of tattooing down.

Line work, solid shading.

They want us to be able to solve this maze, go on your skin, and be able to get from start

to finish.

In a maze, you guessed it, it's going to need a lot of line work.

Where should I start?

Get that strong image first, because you've got to start your maze.

That's what I would do.

These coaches have to make sure that these artists do the best they can and keep their team

intact.

Here's the thing is, if we do it on the ribs and it's this big, when you lay down and lean

because you have to lean your arm over, that thing is going to get this big.

I want you to walk out with something that you're really proud of.

If we can move it, that would be amazing.

Yeah, yo.

What all areas would be open that you'd be OK with?

My legs.

You'd be cool with your legs?

Yeah.

The whole owl idea is for my daughter.

How old's your daughter?

She's six.

She just turned six.

If it's for your daughter, it would definitely make the owl's face way more feminine.

Yeah, because I want it, like, softer, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

We can do a hairband with, like, a little flower.

She could wear a charm necklace.

Would that sound cool?

That's pretty cool to me.

OK.

I love that.

I'm really vibing with my canvas.

I know exactly what I want to design.

It's going to be great.

I mean, I'm super pumped about doing this.

So that went super smooth and easy.

I was totally true, you know?

I was just like, listen, man.

This would be a bad idea to try to knock this thing out on the bibs.

Smooth operators, man.

That's it.

These guys messed up.

And the client are really clicking, you know?

Yeah.

It's a little girl owl.

So it's going to have a little hairband bow.

She's going to be holding a toy maze looking up at you.

Sounds like a lot.

You and him sat down and came up with this concept, but you didn't think about executing it

here.

They're going to rip your owl up if it looks dumb.

And the wings are off the neck.

This has no body.

This is like a scarf.

So forget about what you and him talked about.

Come up with a different idea and draw it nice.

Seriously?

I already started a plan of attack in my head to go after this, and now I'm screwed.

That's all we think.

Have fun with, man.

Breathe and loosen up.

It's hard when you get in question every piece of this.

And I apologize, man.

I'm the one that was up there, and I gave you that wrong pick.

I got screwed up with all those people.

It just bums me up.

I'm having a really tough time with my drawing.

It's just hard to get my head back in the game.

I got DJ .

breathing over my shoulder.

That's his job.

I love input, but now I'm ready to just rock myself.

I can't do, like, the idea to talk to him about if I'm doing this.

You know what I mean?

Like, he's just stuck with this.

So I'm just trying to figure out, like, maybe.

Sparks is really combative.

If he doesn't start really listening to me, then he's not going to make it anywhere.

OK, artists, you have six hours to tattoo a

maze.

And your time starts.

Now.

Woo!

Let's do it.

Arms straight down, look straight ahead, standing even on both feet.

The challenge in doing a maze for a lot of these artists will be their fundamental skills.

It's a maze.

What I want to see.

Clean lines.

Straight lines.

It's really the ABCs of tattooing.

Their line work, their shading, and how it is that they will be able to draw in what other

elements are existing in the piece with the maze.

Like this?

Yup.

Exactly.

That's where art needs to happen.

Ready?

Yep.

How's that?

Good.

Get after it.

I'm just going to keep going and give myself time to tune everything up.

This is the first elimination tattoo.

People are nervous.

People are shook.

My artists need to stay focused, and that's where I come in for it.

These toes.

Yeah.

See if you can nice and easy finesse.

the space between the pillars, just line it.

I'm tattooing an angel transcending from a maze.

I'm definitely in my head way too much, and it's like a storm cloud going on.

Once you get up in here, everything has a line on it.

Oh, up in the angel?

But just make sure it has structure.

Yes, sir.

Yours is.

Probably the most elaborate.

In the room?

Yeah.

Circles are one of the hardest things to tattoo, so I'm going to do as many circles as I can

and really show that I have the best line work in the house and maybe the world.

What do you think about Garrett's line work over there?

I can't see.

That's the only one I'm, like, really worried about.

All right, I got you.

I have a circle maze, and he has a circle maze.

They're going to be compared to each other regardless.

You're smashing it.

I'm smashing it?

Give me one more hair flip.

Oh, my god.

Four hours, guys.

Four more hours to go.

Find your worst line, drop

shadow from that point on.

This is a line challenge, and this thing's got to be bulletproof.

Just got to make sure every line meets up.

There are people here who are doing, like, five lines when I'm doing 500.

I understand why Steve's doing what he's doing, but it's only making me freak out more.

The most difficult aspect of this piece is the fact that I have to include a maze and a galaxy.

Those are two really complicated things.

What do you want me to do about right here?

Just line that top of that head.

Should I do it thick?

Yeah.

Right now, just line it so it's there.

And then if you have to thicken it, we will.

Steve wants me to add lines to the head.

I don't really want to, but he's my coach, and I feel like I should just trust him.

Two hours to go.

Two more hours.

I was going to do brown as the floor of it.

Got a lot of dark, so.

Maybe if I just give it a light width.

Well, that's still pretty dark, so.

Is it?

OK.

Don't do any more black.

Leave the maze all negative for now.

I'm second guessing myself constantly, which never should happen when you're tattooing.

You want to think about the owl's shading.

This is like drop shadows over the wings and stuff.

Yeah, I mean, not too heavy to wear too heavy.

I really feel like you can see my frustration in this tattoo.

What do you guys think?

What about that lion?

What?

There's no maze in that thing.

What'd you let her do?

I mean, you're there for that.

You're the buffer.

What do you think about that monster brow?

You can't have an eye without a brow.

Yeah, but that thing's, like, this big and that big of a maze.

I don't care how nice it is.

You can't win.

Last hour, guys.

One hour to go.

I can just tell you right now that there's actually plenty more maze.

Trying to think what else I could put on there.

Right now, my maze is small, and I don't have enough of it.

So I decide to take the maze that I already have, blow it up, and tie everything together.

So it's, like, that maze within the maze?

This isn't a risk I should be taking with an hour left, but I have to hit this challenge.

Is there a way to bring any maze design into any of this, like, how

it's different from here?

No.

At this point, I don't have any time to do any more maze if I want to finish this huge lion.

I feel like my team's not really taking direction too well.

We won the flash challenge, got skull pick.

If we don't succeed, we're going to look like idiots.

One.

That's it.

Machines down.

Time is up.

No more ink.

We are done.

All right, man.

That looks good.

Oh, yeah.

It's awesome.

My tattoo turned out as good as I ever would have wanted it.

But our team could really be in trouble.

I'm so excited about it.

Deanna's maze is almost impossible to see.

And then Sparks' color's so dark.

Our whole team was looked at as the dream team.

And here we are falling apart.

I don't like it.

A little less walking around, running your mouth.

And that would have won.

Strange choices throughout this thing.

Bro, can I trade this mother to one other team?

I will take a trade.

Josh's tattoo is cool, but his line work wasn't any better than mine.

You know, this guy had, like, 250 lines in his tattoo.

Yeah, exactly.

Feeling threatened by me, dude.

Yours is the one that kind of went to my head that was super similar to mine, so I knew we

had a competition between me and you.

Except that mine was twice your size.

My was perfect.

I'm here to win.

I want that 100,000.

I got to do.

You dropped the ball big time.

You know you did.

I thought I was going to be better, too, man, but I had to start rushing it.

At the end of the day, you're on my team, bro, and, like, you got to tighten up.

Today, you had to prove your fundamentals tattooing a maze.

Let's see how you did.

Team Steve, you're up first.

Let's start with Garrett.

This one looks like a struggle.

A lot of areas where your outlines just get carried away.

I've been super nervous since I got here, so I think that's really showing.

A lot of areas where you went and you built up, once you build up one or two times, three

or four is going to cut them.

You got a lot of divots.

In my defense, I did have the most line-intensive piece in the room.

Well, you did draw it, so you gave it to yourself.

That's true.

You're fighting yourself a lot on this tattoo, and it shows in the end.

Rolly.

It's legible, it's clear, and it is bold.

All the shading you have in the maze, very smooth, very consistent.

But then you go up to the top of the tattoo, and you have that same technique in the cloud.

You're telling me that the cloud is made out of the same substance as the wall of the maze.

In the cloud, you need to do something different.

Katie.

Hi, y'all.

I think you did a great job on the galaxy.

It does have a space afro look.

The fact that you did that line at the whole top of the head that goes through the space.

That was Steve's idea.

That was my idea.

I didn't want to do that at all.

I mean, it was a tricky one, because galaxies are hard to pull off, and I think she did a

pretty good job.

Strange choices throughout this thing.

Gary.

Your design of your minotaur is pretty cool the way he interacts with it.

I do feel that in the end, this thing just became one complete monotone piece.

Fame.

This big purple square is terrible.

I mean, that purple is not evenly saturated.

It's not smooth.

This black tribal maze in the center of a yellow flower, you had a challenge in the whole

design.

I understand.

Jeremy.

This tattoo is nice and clean.

It's legible, and the outline is very nice.

It's a perfect example of how simple can hit the challenge.

Oh, good job.

Thank you.

Team Anthony won.

I really like the shape of the tattoo.

But getting into fundamentals here, your circles get a little bit out of whack.

And your main upright lines, you get some wobble to them.

Lindsay.

The names, you could have done a little bit thinner so that they didn't contrast so much with

the shape of the maze.

Kind of looks like two separate thoughts.

Next up is Amanda.

You have a lot of camouflaging going on.

You have the same values and tones in the maze and through the figure.

I was trying to build up some of the lines to make the angels stand out more, but I think

it did get kind of lost.

And you did a weird effect where you got your front hands fully articulated with fingers,

and then the back hand is a little weird nub hand.

To me, that's an inconsistency.

Mike.

I don't like it.

This eyebrow is .

It's crazy.

You have some very intricate details, but doing a load of eyebrow hair, it's not going to

win.

Next up is Jason.

You took a valiant swing, but I dislike colored red outlines.

It makes me question the longevity.

If you would have outlined these roses in black and just pumped red in there, it would have

been a much bolder look.

Daniel.

The drawing is really well thought out.

Fundamentally, your outline on this, pretty great.

We're humans, but this thing's pretty damn near machine.

I knew if I could pull this off, it was going to be one of the best.

You're a sleeper.

I didn't see this coming from the last tattoo you did.

Team DJ.

Let's start with Josh.

I think it's a killer tattoo.

Lots of really great detail and texture in the alien himself.

But it's one of the simplest mazes in the room.

It just takes you out of winning the scene.

Dude, we know you can tattoo.

So a little less walking around running your mouth.

How about really concentrating?

That would have won.

Lil D.

Hey, y'all.

You have a lot of really .

and you do have that deep black, but this design is a little stale.

You're competing with Young Bucks, so let your coach push your drawings because a good tattoo's

gonna go home.

Deanna.

The color in this thing, it's just patchy.

There's nothing in here that's solid.

Coach, is it solid?

She paints, so she paints its colors in.

That's cool.

But you got a tattoo color in here.

You and two or three of your people have the weakest mazes in the room.

Everybody's going to learn that hitting the challenge does count.

Frank.

It tells the story, but you get towards the back of that maze, that line work is not precise.

Your whole scene is broken apart and crumbly.

Why not crumble the lines in the maze and continue that rocky feel?

I didn't think about that.

And then winner, winner.

Matt.

The illustration is cool.

The overall quality of the line work here is a little bit shaky, and you need it to bump up

that thickness so you really have beefy area to work off.

Yeah, I think I went a little too thin with the outline.

It's a cool design, but it definitely has some hiccups.

Sparks.

From a distance, these colors together just get pretty muddy looking.

Too much black.

There's a lot more light that you could bring into this thing.

These colors standalone are bright.

But doing that much black and having no air to breathe gives it that muddy, stagnant, solid

feel.

Know what I mean?

That's why I didn't want to go, like, super nuts with the colors.

We were talking about no wall-to-wall saturation.

I mean, we went over a lot of stuff.

I'm trying hard to coach you guys.

I mean, I literally threw out the drawing because that's what you told me to do.

Just listen to me, dude.

I'm here because I know about this competition.

OK, judges, time to determine who had the best tattoo of the day.

Daniel runs away with it for me.

It is just really crisp.

It's really clean, really solid.

When it comes to a maze and it comes to doing outlines, the kid ran the show.

The judges have decided that the best tattoo of the day goes to Daniel.

Congratulations, man.

OK, coaches, now you must deliberate and put one artist up for elimination.

Head back to the loft.

Was anyone, like, super upset at their critique?

If I were Sparks, I'd be pretty bummed out.

I felt like his coach didn't come to his aid the same way that he did everyone else on his

team.

Yeah, you straight threw him under the bus, like, compared to everybody else.

That's what you think?

My ideas and my voice got on.

Your first drawing would got torn apart 100 times more.

I didn't even get to finish my drawing, BJ.

You didn't have to.

I was halfway through it, and you were like, no, no, no.

You didn't listen to my first piece of advice while we were drawing.

Everyone else did.

Because I don't trace my dude.

I don't look at .

Just to copy it.

But do you look at stuff for reference?

After I get the original idea down, yeah, I clean it up.

backwards, man.

That's just how I work.

Everybody works different.

I don't draw like you.

I don't work like you.

And then I'm taking your advice in the simplest thing.

And you didn't.

No.

that, dude.

I didn't want to say anything.

About what?

I didn't bring this up.

I did.

you, dude.

What'd you just say?

You just said me?

Bro, can I trade this to one other team?

I will take a trade.

Yeah, take a trade.

That doesn't listen.

I've been listening the whole time.

I'll let you listen.

I'll petrify my team.

I will coach the rest of my team.

I'll exclude you now.

All right, guys.

We're here so we can determine which artist to put up for elimination.

It's fair to say Garrett had a rough outing.

There is not one line similar to the next.

I walked over there.

His lines were wonky.

And I just said, man, you got to fix them.

And he might have went back just too many times.

That's how you get cuts.

Building too much, overworking.

Too much trauma.

But it's amazing.

From three feet away, I'm sure this girl's happy.

I don't see anybody happy with that thigh brow.

And honestly, Mike's, you've got to be able to pull small lines.

You can't pull a line that's quarter-inch long.

I don't know where you go from here.

Yeah, I agree.

There's not much line work in there.

There's a line that goes into the eye on the bottom.

Everybody looked at Mike's eye from across the globe and goes, what the hell is that?

I can't get over the eyebrow either, man.

I'm taking it back to hurting that skin so much.

Listen, I can't.

Regardless of lines, mazes.

I can't argue with that.

But at least the guy went through it.

Whatever you want to say.

I'm going with my gut and saying, here, it's going home.

I'm going to choose Mike for one reason.

I still don't see a long pulled line.

I mean, Mike's was a bad designer.

His was.

He went against my judgment and chose to do the eyebrow.

Well, bro, I mean, it don't have to be unanimous.

Let's call it what it is.

All right, today we're testing fundamentals.

Do you think that there was a particular team that did the worst today?

DJ's team took the biggest fumble today.

Sparks is one of those guys that wants to do it his way, and his way gets the highway over

here.

He loves to put these muted, dark, overdone colors with black and gray underneath them.

He ends up with muddiness.

Deanna, though, so many bad outlines in her.

And bad coloring choices.

Look at the blue.

The saturation is really not there.

This, to me, is a mix of all fundamentals.

Garrett probably has the worst application.

Building up a lot of these lines, he overworked the skin.

This tattoo is not going to heal well.

One of the worst ones today for sure is Amanda's.

It's very monotone.

There's problems with the line work.

There's problems with the shading.

There's a problem with the legibility of the angel.

The coaches are deliberating and putting one artist up for elimination.

And I am super curious to see how that turns out.

Garrett, do you think you're going to be in the bottom?

I'm definitely going to be in the bottom.

I'm not going home.

No one's safe.

All right, coaches, who are you putting up for an elimination?

The coaches have chosen Garrett to be put up for elimination.

All right, we're going to see Garrett, Amanda, and

Deanna, and all the coaches.

One from each team?

Holy .

All right, guys, let's do this.

Be strong down there.

Fight for your spots, y'all.

Good luck, Grandma.

Good luck, boss.

You had to tattoo a maze.

And based on your work, one of you will be packing your machines.

Let's hear from the coaches.

Why did you vote Garrett to the bottom?

Breaking it down to fundamentals.

That type of damage to the skin, that's just a deal breaker.

I had a bunch of hiccups today.

I guarantee that's not going to happen again.

I'm going to get my nerves under control.

I have that technical stuff down 100%.

It's not about what you can do.

It's about what you did.

But you know, on paper, I'm a much stronger artist than the majority of the people here.

And I think my tattoo is way prettier than theirs.

From a distance, it is appealing just at first glance to one that looks the worst.

It's the most unattractive one.

It's things I was kicking myself about as I was going through.

Everybody fumbles, but this room you can't.

At this point, we want to know if you can do smooth gray shading.

I can't.

This tattoo is not telling me that you can.

But Deanna has the least amount of maze work in it, which was the challenge of the day.

I think from a distance, it still looks better than my competitors.

When it comes to fundamentals, line saturation and design, mine is better.

I can lose count finding how many line mistakes are on this thing.

But I didn't cut her up.

I could have totally put black all the way up against my lines, like in Deanna's.

I just chose not to.

If I get another chance, you'll never see another blow off from me, and I can guarantee that.

All right, judges, it's time to determine who's going home.

Just to look at them, I like Garrett's the best.

As challenged as Deanna's tattoo is, it fits the back nice.

Amanda's tattoo is just difficult to read.

I'd vote for Amanda only for one reason.

The other two are just a little more pleasing to look at.

The best design on paper is Garrett's.

I'm forever going to be the cut judge.

If you cut, you go.

So my vote's for Garrett to go home.

My vote's for Amanda.

Oliver.

My vote's for Garrett.

The judges have decided, Garrett, you do not have what it takes to be Ink Master.

Garrett, 100%, man, I know you can do better than this, but unfortunately, it's by that one

tattoo.

I just think you guys are making a mistake.

You got the chops, man.

Unfortunately, just one little mistake here or there.

Send you home.

Come back 10 times stronger and kick some ass.

All right, Garrett, please pack your machines and close shop.

I think I would draw 95% of the people upstairs, and nobody got to see that.

I just think they made the wrong decision.

The one thing that made me want to combat my doubts of putting myself out there was my artwork.

I didn't get to show them anything.

I just really thought I would do better.

On the next episode of Ink Master, your fate is entirely in your coach's hands.

Wow.

The game just changed.

No pressure.

Man, this is going to be crazy.

I got to put my money where my mouth is, and I'm over here shivering.

This competition will stop you dead in your tracks.

I up.

I slipped up.

Everybody could get touched.

Tell him what to do, and he doesn't do it.

I think it's bull .

You're talking now.

You can talk when you do something.