3:22
AARON: Worst-case scenario, I wobble one line. Done. Katie designed it. Katie nailed the linework. And if I leave one wobble, one transition, one piece of saturation not to the line, that's it. It's over. No line left behind. Long as they're perfect. It's gotta be perfect. I know, and it will be. Why are there skulls out here? DAVE NAVARRO: Morning, artists. Yesterday you tattooed one glute. The first six hours of a 12-hour gluteus maximus tattoo.
Many times, as a tattoo artist, you must finish what someone else started. And today, you must complete another artist's tattoo. [BLEEP] DAVE NAVARRO: And another artist will be finishing what you started. Are you serious right now? This is bull. DAVE NAVARRO: You must all give your current design to the canvas's new artist. You can alter the design you're handed, but you cannot touch the glute that has already been tattooed. This is ridiculous.
DAVE NAVARRO: This is the ultimate head-to-head comparison on the same canvas. Let's bring in the canvases. So where's that last? DAVE NAVARRO: As you may notice, we are short one canvas. Josh's canvas did not return today. That's [BLEEP] up. Dude, what'd you do to that guy's ass? Since Erin's canvas did not get a tattoo yesterday, she will get two tattoos today.
[EXCLAIMING] That means you'll have to work together and-- OLIVER PECK: Ready for that twist? --you'll have to tattoo her at the same time. ARTIST: Wow. Nobody wants that [BLEEP]. I really don't want Erin's canvas. That's just going to be me and another tattoo artist playing tug of war with butt cheeks. DAVE NAVARRO: Canvases, please show us your tattoos.
There's a whole lot of ass. DAVE NAVARRO: Josh, you chose skull number one. You're up first. Which canvas do you choose? My rival's canvas, Jason, the ship. I love shutting Jason up and showing him that I'm a better artist than. DAVE NAVARRO: Erik, which canvas do you choose? ERIK: Julia's canvas. DAVE NAVARRO: Emily. I choose Ty'Esha's. I lost the head-to-head against Ty'Esha last week. I want redemption.
I'm going to make her look like she tattoos like a five-year-old. DAVE NAVARRO: Robbie. I'm going to take Erik's canvas. DAVE NAVARRO: Cleen. - I'm going to go with-- Erin's canvas. CHRIS NUNEZ: Nice. I chose the hardest canvas of the day to prove that I'm the man and I'm not scared of nothing.
DAVE NAVARRO: Mark. MARK: I choose Robbie's canvas. DAVE NAVARRO: Jason. I choose Mark's canvas. No brainer. EMILY (VOICEOVER): Ty'Esha [BLEEP] up the face on her sugar skull girl. Let me see the petals again. It's going to be easy to take her out with this tattoo. She already [BLEEP] up her side so bad that there's no coming back from it. CHRIS: Getting your glutes tattooed two days in a row is absolutely brutal. Today, more than ever, technical application is important because you want to get in and get out, avoiding as much skin trauma as possible and being efficient.
All right. Ready? I guess so. CLEEN: It's too late to turn back now, right? Oh, man. Oh, my god. Three hours remain. Oh, [BLEEP] balls. Feeling it. Oh, [BLEEP]. Ooh, lord. Oh, god. MARK: You want to start placing bets that she taps out? I say four hours. Oh, [BLEEP]. Literally feels like my ass is being ripped off. Oh, my god. Don, your side seems to hurt worse. CLEEN: Don is definitely ripping this girl a new [BLEEP] on this one. If she taps out because of him-- Holy [BLEEP].
--I am going to be so pissed. No. Stop. One more hour remaining. MARK: Robbie really gave this butt a beating yesterday. All I gotta do is a clean musical piece on the other side, and I got this. My parents hated the idea of me tattooing. If I go home, it'll just be like my mom saying, see, Mark? I told you so. Should have just been a painter. That's not what I'm here to do. I'm here to tattoo. Man, you went full koi.
JASON: Oh, hell yeah. There's no comparison between me and Mark, especially when it comes to tattooing traditional Japanese. Looking sick. Nice big piece. Thanks, dude. Mark, if you say you do Japanese work, you better go back to the drawing board, brah. DAVE NAVARRO: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Machines down. No more tattooing. This week, you tattooed for 12 hours, six hours on one glute and six hours on another glute, finishing another artist's design.
Each glute you tattooed will be compared side by side with the other artist's tattoo on the other glute. One of you will win, and one of you lose. Cleen and Julia, let's start with you. Let's start with Cleen's side. Your design overall was really smart. The addition of the bow to bring it to both sides worked really, really well. CHRIS NUNEZ: The color palette is nice. It works well. Overall, man, it's a good job. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's move along to Julia's side.
OLIVER PECK: It definitely doesn't stack up. If you look at the letters and you look at your two little S's at the end of "sweetness," they look nothing like the S at the beginning of "sweetness." Your technical application is just not there. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's poll the judges. OLIVER PECK: I think that Julia made smart decisions choosing this one, but it's obvious that Cleen's technical application is much stronger. - Cleen. - Cleen. DAVE NAVARRO: The winner of the head-to-head competition is Cleen. Congratulations, buddy. Thank you. Up next, Julia and Erik.
OLIVER PECK: I think Julia's technical application here is lacking in certain areas. The color in that flower could have been a lot brighter. You could have left a lot more open skin to let that thing breathe. And it does look muddy. DAVE NAVARRO: Erik, let's talk about your piece. CHRIS NUNEZ: Technically, it's done nice the way you let the skull breathe, the way there's tons of skin in there. At least one side of this lady's butt looks nice.
Let's have a final decision. OLIVER PECK: Based on technical application, Erik's tattoo is much nicer. Erik. The winner of this head-to-head is Erik. Congratulations, man. Erik and Robbie. OLIVER PECK: All right, Erik. Technical application. There's a lot of really clean lines, a lot of nice painterly effect shadings and good color tones. DAVE NAVARRO: Robbie. The tree and the icicles, really nice. But you don't have a good fundamental stronghold on backgrounds.
His side, everything has a flow or a movement to it. Your side gets a lot stiffer, and that's the big point that stands out. DAVE NAVARRO: Final decision? OLIVER PECK: Erik. DAVE NAVARRO: Erik. - Erik. DAVE NAVARRO: Congratulations, man. Robbie and Mark. OLIVER PECK: Well, Robbie, the main thing here is your technical application. You caused a lot of damage to this lady's skin.
There is so many areas that are just abrasively overworked. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's move along to Mark's tattoo. OLIVER PECK: I think this is a cute little new-school girl tattoo. You got nice saturation in your blue in the sky. And technically, this is a very sound tattoo. Final decision? OLIVER PECK: Mark. DAVE NAVARRO: Mark. DAVE NAVARRO: Congratulations, man. Up next, Mark and Jason. CHRIS NUNEZ: Mark, I would have gone softer because it's a lady.
Not such hard black at the edges, and the water's a little bit stiff. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's move along to Jason. OLIVER PECK: Some nice clean line work. The little details in the eye look really nice. Really, man, it's a clean tattoo. Mark versus Jason. OLIVER PECK: Going with Jason. DAVE NAVARRO: I'm going with Jason. DAVE NAVARRO: Congratulations. All right, man. Let's take a look at the next tattoo.
Jason and Josh. OLIVER PECK: All right, Jason. The problem I have with this tattoo is the roses. No skin to breathe, no highlights. Just oversaturated with too many of the same tones of color. That's technical application. And it's off big time. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's move along to Josh. OLIVER PECK: You took a lot of the mistakes in Jason's drawing and fixed them. You attached the forward sails in the correct manner.
Leaving the open color in the roses lets each rose stand apart. I like it. Final decision. OLIVER PECK: Josh. DAVE NAVARRO: I'm going to go with Josh. DAVE NAVARRO: Congratulations, man. Don and Cleen. OLIVER PECK: Well done overall. This tattoo is really strong. I know it's tricky working on a butt cheek, especially when you got somebody yanking on the other butt cheek. The line work has so many inconsistencies going straight down the anchor that it really stands out. Let's move along to Cleen's tattoo.
OLIVER PECK: The line weight difference between the exterior of the jewels and the little lines on the inside give it that crisp, sharp look. Technically, this is a very sound tattoo. Thank you. All right, so it's time to poll the judges. Between Don and Cleen. OLIVER PECK: Going with Cleen. DAVE NAVARRO: Going with Cleen. CHRIS NUNEZ: Cleen it is. Thank you. DAVE NAVARRO: Cleen, congratulations, man. Ty'Esha and Emily.
OLIVER PECK: Well, Ty'Esha, this is a very unattractive tattoo. That green, bad smell stench. What in the hell? Let's move along to Emily. OLIVER PECK: Continuing with more of this horrible green swirly background, it's a bad idea. CHRIS NUNEZ: You did very minimal outline. And where you did, it's just not consistent. OLIVER PECK: It's hard to pick a winner out of either one of these things. I'm not going to say that somebody won with this.
I mean, [BLEEP] the designs. This is technical ability. You can't pick between the two of them? You guys have equally bad outlines. I have to call it. They both lose on this one. DAVE NAVARRO: The judges have decided there is no winner in this head-to-head challenge. Wow. Emily and Angel. Let's address Emily's side first. OLIVER PECK: There are so many bad areas in these tentacles. Some are super thin.
Some are super thick. Your little underside suction cups are just haphazardly half-circles. Very inconsistent. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's move along to Angel. OLIVER PECK: She gave you a drawing of a shark. Yes. OLIVER PECK: I don't really like the design. I will say this in your favor. The areas of the blue swirls in the background-- yours do appear to be smoother. No hammerhead looks like that. They do not have that shape head.
ANGEL: Well, I followed the crap that she laid out, so-- Should have redrawn it if you thought it was that [BLEEP]. If it's something that [BLEEP] we outlined, then you know what? I should have just followed my own. [BLEEP] you, Angel. [BLEEP] you too. OLIVER PECK: Y'all can [BLEEP] each other all you want. Both these tattoos suck. DAVE NAVARRO: Final decision? OLIVER PECK: Drop the aesthetics, and I'm going to go with Angel just because the smoother color blends.
I'll go with Angel. I'll go with Angel as well. Winner of this head-to-head challenge is Angel. This week you had to show flawless technical application by tattooing glutes. Mark and Jason, you're here because the human canvas jury determined that you had the worst tattoos of the day. Wow. JASON: I can't believe that this many people that got their asses tattooed, and they chose that. MARK: It's crazy. Did she piss off the rest of the human canvas jury? Because she has an awesome tattoo. This is what I do for a living.
Every day is my koi fish. That is solid. There's clean line work. There's smooth shading. I can name all down the [BLEEP] line here the rest of the tattooers that didn't even come close to that. If the human canvas jury needs to borrow my glasses, here they are. Because that tattoo is awesome. We do not agree with the human canvas jury. OLIVER PECK: I'll tell you straight up. Angel and Julia should be standing where you all are. I certainly agree. Robbie. OLIVER PECK: Main reason you're down here, Robbie, is because of your technical application.
Causing someone that much trauma on their skin is just unacceptable. This is a huge mistake, a huge hiccup, and I'm begging for forgiveness at this moment. I mean, I showed you way better technical application in the tattoo I did after this. Because I made mistakes in this one, and I didn't go back to those. This is a major misfire. Major. This isn't what I do. This isn't who I am. I just want one more [BLEEP] chance to make this right. If I go home now, I'm going to feel like the biggest [BLEEP] failure.
Calm down, brother. Breathe. Just having a [BLEEP] moment. Robbie, don't beg. Just fight. Emily. OLIVER PECK: I think overall this tattoo is very awkward. I've been here twice now, and twice is enough for me. I eat, breathe, sleep. Everything is tattoo to me. I'm here to compete, and I'm here to win this [BLEEP]. CHRIS NUNEZ: When you give us things like you're giving us, there's no way that is going to win this thing. The judges have decided.
Robbie, you do not have what it takes to be Ink Master. ARTIST: Skulls. Yesterday, you tattooed the left side of the brain for the first six hours of a 12-hour head tattoo. And you're being judged on adaptability. One of the best ways to prove your adaptability is to finish what someone else started. What? That's right. You must all swap canvases.
Today, another artist will be finishing what you started. And you must finish what someone else started, tattooing the right side of someone else's brain. Hell yeah. Hallelujah. Now somebody can deal with what I had to deal with yesterday. Let's bring in the canvases. Canvases, please show us your tattoos.
Mike. I'll take Boneface's canvas. DAVE NAVARRO: Ryan. I'll take Eric's canvas. Oh, little head-to-head battle. DAVE NAVARRO: Nate. I'm going to take Mike's canvas. Mike's the weakest link on the girl alliance. Might as well get rid of him now. OK. So that means, Sketchy, you get Nate's canvas. Word. SKETCHY: Sure enough, I'm getting Nate's canvas, who wants all the bells and whistles. I'm [BLEEP]. You want a tree, a skull, a flag.
Doesn't really have to be a tree. I just want it family-oriented. SKETCHY: What about some sick ass, like, script along the side that says "family?" If you let me do my thing-- I've done head tattoos. I've done some fire ass script, man. And you're going to love this [BLEEP], man. - Hook it up. - Hook it up? Yep. My dude. He sees where I'm coming from, and he's going to let me ride with it. We need to come up with something creative. I want the flag.
The boots are like the country music because I love country music, so-- NATE: I'm afraid the shape of the boot is going to look weird. I cannot do literal boots on the side of this guy's head. It's always been boots. That's what I wear every day. The flag I can do. I can put the boot in there, but it's not going to be good for me. I have to convince my canvas to change this crappy idea, or this thing could easily send me home.
What are you shading now? I'm, like, finishing out the buckle. Thank god I found a picture reference of a belt buckle with a pair of boots on it. He's happy with that idea, so we're going to run with it. Can't go wrong with a man from Texas. A whole lot of boots out there. Oh, yeah. I've been getting crappy canvases pretty much the entire competition. It's dragging me down. I need to be in that top spot.
Four hours to go. Four more hours. RYAN: Eric and I are the only pair of artists that ended up swapping canvases. And even though he's been tattooing for over 20 years, I am not afraid of adapting to another artist's work. You want to learn something? Look at the other side of her head. You're just being a pain in my ass. ERIC: I'm going to make my side of the tattoo stand out a lot better than Ryan's by throwing in way more detail. I'm going to nail this [BLEEP] tattoo, and I'm going to win tattoo of the day. Five, four, three, two, one. That is it. Time's up.
Machines down. No more ink. This thing is sick, man. DAVE NAVARRO: This week you tattooed 12 hours, six hours on the left side of canvas's head and six hours on the right side of another canvas's head, finishing another artist's design. There is no jury of peers, and both teams are up for elimination. Let's start with Boneface and Mike. OLIVER PECK: Boneface, I think that this is a great tattoo for this challenge. It definitely speaks to the logical side, and the simplicity of this design is its strength. How you shadowed it to look recessed, it just looks cool.
DAVE NAVARRO: Mike. OLIVER PECK: Buildings are going straight up, and the Statue of Liberty is kind of leaning. CHRIS NUNEZ: Your outline on here-- that big tall skyscraper definitely has a little lean to the left. I was just trying to make this shape fit, and that's what I was having a really hard time with. OLIVER PECK: Also, you did leave one puzzle piece uncolored. I don't know if that was an accident. Didn't see that. [BLEEP] OLIVER PECK: That's a mistake. Unfinished, it's a little weird.
Boneface came out ahead of this one. DAVE NAVARRO: Mike and Nate. Mike, it looks like you had some issues with your gray. It looks really patchy all throughout. It has a very grainy look to a lot of it. And you chose to do a lot of circular shapes, and none of the mechanisms really tie in together. They're all just kind of overlapping. Nate. OLIVER PECK: When you first glance at this tattoo, it's very impressive. It has that wow factor. But really the shape of the buckle is pretty wonky.
Nate, you have your issues. But for the wow factor and for everything about it, I think Nate takes it. DAVE NAVARRO: Sketchy, come on down. All right, Nate. One of the weirdest things about this whole design is the eyebrow just crashing into the eyelid. That has a strange look. It confuses me about the direction of the eye. The reference went straight down. It was like a mean eye. CHRIS NUNEZ: There's no way in hell that eyebrow is laying on your eyelid.
I feel like this one got away from you. DAVE NAVARRO: Sketchy. OLIVER PECK: As far as adaptability goes, your canvas had a crazy idea. You simplified it. I think it's the easy way out. What should I do with that, man? OLIVER PECK: There is a lot of sketchy outlines in this. This tattoo right now puts you in a very vulnerable spot. Frankly, this head doesn't really seem to work together. CHRIS NUNEZ: This one, for me, is a draw.
Let's bring down Kelly. CHRIS NUNEZ: Well, Sketchy, this is more the guy that I know. These lines, nice and strong. It's solid, it's bright, it's vibrant. The colors play off of each other. OLIVER PECK: I'm not a big fan of the way it fits on her ear. But this strong, crisp outline is what you needed in that family tattoo. DAVE NAVARRO: Kelly. OLIVER PECK: Aesthetically, right off the bat, it's beautiful tattoo, brightly colored, great color palette.
I like the way it fits the head a lot better than the way Sketchy fits the head. It has some breathability, and it doesn't look like it's crammed in. Between the two, I lean towards Kelly on these. CHRIS NUNEZ: I'm going with Kelly. DAVE NAVARRO: Cool. Ryan and Eric. OLIVER PECK: Ryan, I really like this tattoo. I think you definitely used contrast to put depth in this to make the skin and gears and tools look like they're overlapping. And the detail is very nice.
DAVE NAVARRO: Eric. The style of the rips really match up nicely. You followed the same flow on the front of his head as Ryan did. I think you guys worked really well together. Ryan and Eric, you guys picked each other's canvases. Let's start off with Eric. CHRIS NUNEZ: Eric, I love this floating figure that you have in the center. Then the color trickles off into this gnarly pattern.
It looks great. What I love about the way these two tattoos tie together is the fact that, Eric, you created that beautiful floating geometric shape. And it looks like that's the light that's backlit on Ryan's tattoo. DAVE NAVARRO: Ryan. OLIVER PECK: The layout and the artistry here showed adaptability. All four tattoos came out super strong. Out of the one that Eric started and that Ryan finished, picking a winner out of these two, I would pick Eric. But out of the head that Ryan started and Eric finished, the winner I would pick is Ryan.
It just shows that knowing that you're creating something versus you have to match something shows a lot more confidence and a lot more comfort. This is the first time that we've had both teams tattooing at the same time. OLIVER PECK: Anybody standing out in the front? Yeah. Eric and Ryan for the win. It's my team versus your team. OLIVER PECK: One person gets to win. I mean, I'm going with Eric all day.
Eric's creativity activity, consistency, and flow on both sides of his tattoo were much nicer. OLIVER PECK: The cleanliness is not there if you look close to that outline. The couple sketchy lines on your keys and a couple of stressed out areas. Does Eric's purple lack a vibrancy to it? OLIVER PECK: Looking at all aspects of all four tattoos, Ryan's just a little bit sharper. My vote is for Ryan. Bastards. DAVE NAVARRO: Winner of the best tattoo of the day goes to Ryan. Thank you. DAVE NAVARRO: Congratulations.
This week you had to show adaptability. Based on your work, one of you will close shop. This decision is far from made. We are not in agreement. Let's talk this out. Nate. OLIVER PECK: At first glance, your tattoos pop out as eye-catching and dramatic. But you left yourself open for a lot of debate on why these lines are not all clean or why they don't make sense. I guarantee you I can show you clean line work. CHRIS NUNEZ: But then you did the second tattoo. And the only place that you had to do clean line work was in the belt buckle. And there you have a lot of problems.
My tattoos compared to Mike's tattoos, I definitely don't think I deserve to go home. CHRIS NUNEZ: Mike, if we're looking at the gears, the teeth have to fit. It just doesn't play properly to what a gear looks like. Those are things that count at this point. I got no excuses for the gears. But with the Statue of Liberty, I was happy. CHRIS NUNEZ: I think when you get to the statue, your mouth's definitely to the right. There's no two buildings that are exactly perpendicular to each other.
These tattoos have a lot of problems. DAVE NAVARRO: Let's move on to Sketchy. OLIVER PECK: I know there's been some talking around the people that do like the mandala, but I have to say it, man. I just feel like it's weak. I do see line work problems. There's even some lines in a leaf that's going completely the wrong way compared to all the other leaves, which is weird. But man, this family thing is hard for me to swallow. That Y, the way it goes over the ear, out of sorts. The skull with just no interaction between the family just popped there.
I felt more comfortable doing this than a tree and all those crazy ideas. I was confident in it. That's kind of my concern. You were cruising, and you got really comfortable because you didn't feel like your ass was on the line. I don't know, man. When you look at what the field was doing, there was a lot of strong artwork out there. And you needed to be as strong as them on paper. And these were just really big and simple. I do script all the time, man, and it's good. This time it just wasn't. All right, guys.
Time to decide who's going home. OLIVER PECK: The one worst tattoo today, 100% hands down, is the family. DAVE NAVARRO: For sure. Well, I thought we were averaging two. OLIVER PECK: But I don't like the mandala either. What's a better tattoo? The mandala or the eye? I take the mandala. The mandala or the gears? I take the mandala. Between the mandala and the statue, I take the mandala because it's cleaner.
DAVE NAVARRO: But you can't take that family and put it up against the Statue of Liberty or the belt buckle. But I would rather have "family" on me than that big eye. OLIVER PECK: You put that family next to that, go for it. That family looks [BLEEP] up. Family is worse than the eye? OLIVER PECK: Technically, yes. ARTIST: The eyebrow that goes into your eye? Who has an eyebrow that goes into your eye? I think they're all scared of me.
How in the world can we be scared if you're in the bottom again? The only reason you would want to vote me off is because you're scared. OLIVER PECK: I think that the family's the worst tat of the today. ARTIST: I don't like the family at all. But I feel like if you average the family with the mandala, that puts him in the league. Listen. If I go two for two, then Mike's two average falls shorter. You're right. Oliver, final decision. OLIVER PECK: I vote for Sketchy.
Nate's got some wow factor with the flag. The mandala is light years above the gears and the eye. Mike has two mediocre tattoos. I vote for Mike. Chris. Mike. DAVE NAVARRO: The judges have decided. Mike, you do not have what it takes to be Ink Master. Why are there skulls? Good morning, artists. Yesterday you tattooed your canvas's left armpit. Today, the opposite artist will tattoo the right armpit.
However, you won't be working on the same canvas your teammate tattooed. The shops must all swap canvases. What? Another shop will be finishing what you started. And your shop must finish what someone else started, tattooing the right armpit. Why? Holy crap. We were all prepared to do what we were prepared to do. And now we've got to switch it up? Canvases, please show us your tattoos. Old Town Ink, which canvas do you choose? We choose Basilica's canvas. I love doing realistic images like that. I just feel like the black and gray is a smarter move.
DAVE NAVARRO: Unkindness Art, which canvas do you choose? I think I'm going to go with the Empire State Studio. DAVE NAVARRO: Allegory Arts, which canvas do you choose? Unkindness Art. Stylistically, me and Doom match very similarly. I'll give you the line work, the color palette, everything. Cool. ULYSS: It's good to know that I have a good roadmap that's solid, and I don't have to worry about anything being messed up.
DAVE NAVARRO: Golden Skull, which canvas do you choose? We choose Black Cobra Tattoo's canvas. CHRIS NUNEZ: Swapping the designs is completely not something these artists expected. The other side you want to do with the wrench, though. Yeah. A wrench and maybe a skateboard wheel and a bolt. The whole point of this is to test the artists on stepping out of their comfort zone and how well they work off of somebody else's artwork. What was their idea for the other side, and what were they-- - Vampire. Vampire-type teeth. I just want to talk to them and see if they'll share anything.
It's supposed to look like one artist did it. That's the big test here. What happened? You're going to give me a drawing or-- I think it's a beautiful drawing. You do think it's a beautiful drawing. That matches the same size as the other one. Awesome. Thanks so much, man. [INDISTINCT] your stuff in. Thank you so much, kid. CLEEN: I should have made you beg. We're going to have some favors later on. That outline better be perfect.
Don't stress me out. It's going to be perfect. - Just make it perfect, man. - It will be. CLEEN: Katie set the bar pretty high. So Aaron needs to execute this thing flawlessly. That's [BLEEP] boring, dude. Welcome to my yesterday. Worst-case scenario, I wobble one line. Done. Katie designed it. Katie nailed the linework. And if I leave one wobble, one transition, one piece of saturation not to the line, that's it. It's over. No line left behind. Long as they're perfect. It's gotta be perfect. I know, and it will be. Did I line up OK?
Yeah, it lined up great. Cool. ULYSS: Aaron is a great artist. So it's good to know I have a good roadmap, and I don't have to worry about anything being messed up. EVA: I didn't realize that this would be directly putting us head to head with Unkindness. So at first I thought the whole goal of the second tattoo was just to match the tattoo that was done yesterday. And then I kind of realized that me and Doom were going head to head. Whoops. Let's figure this out. Here we go. Look at this sucker. What's going on? I used Tommy's drawing as a base, and I missed the shape a lot.
Why'd you use his? I thought that he'd drawn it to fit that space, and he hadn't. His sides are super gnarly, so I wanted to make this side just a little gnarlier than what he had drawn it. And now you got to keep up with that one. Oh, I know. I am definitely nervous about this tattoo. It's a very high-risk move on my part because it is extremely detailed. And I'm just worried that the judges are not going to think it's dynamic enough to compete against Marv's. BUBBA: That red is [BLEEP] throwing me off. I might have you sit back down. I keep thinking I'm done with this guy. And every time he stands up and I look at it in the mirror, I can see the parts that don't look finished to me.
I'd have been done a while back if it wasn't for the stretch marks, man. It's like checking out everybody's setup here. DJ TAMBE: Nolan had a way more simple piece. Bubba's piece is way more dynamic. BUBBA: Sorry, man. I keep staring at it. You can take the win on this one. Five, four, three, two, one. That's it. Machines down. Time is up. No more ink. This week, you showed placement by tattooing a painful and awkward part of the body, the armpits.
The judges will compare your work side by side with two artists, the artist who completed the armpit tattoo that you started and the artist whose armpit tattoo you completed. Let's see how you did. Aaron and Katie, you're up first. All right, Katie. You tattooed the first armpit. CHRIS NUNEZ: Both of these tattoos together, top notch. So I commend you guys for application, for style, for looking similar to each other. OLIVER PECK: If you look at the subtle differences here in Katie's bigger flower, the red fades to that peach tone is super, super smooth. And then the thin line is really nice and clean. And then if you look at Aaron's pink flower
with the blue star in there, you see some wavering problems with the little thin line. Katie outshines you a little bit. She drew it. Not surprised. Katie takes it. Just with those tiny little bits of application, when you're this close, it's apples to apples. Bubba and Nolan. Hyperphotorealism in an armpit-- this is definitely a tough ask. But Nolan, I do think you capture the off-the-skin crawling, creepy look.
OLIVER PECK: The subtle little shadows you have on the tips of the legs give it that 3D effect. CHRIS NUNEZ: Bubba, yours is really tonal throughout. OLIVER PECK: As far as placement goes, man, you're handed the canvas, had one tattoo already, and you're supposed to add another one to match. You don't have a matching shape here. I think that throws it off. I got to go with Nolan on this. CHRIS NUNEZ: I agree with that.
Unanimous. Nolan, congratulations. Ulyss and Doom. Doom, did you design both of these tattoos? DOOM: Our shop designed both of them. I drew the king. As a pair of tattoos, they work really well together. OLIVER PECK: All right, Doom. Everywhere you have the fine lines in your design, it gets away from you, especially the fine detail inside the crown. And you lose it in the shape of her face. CHRIS NUNEZ: The sloping forehead with the bulbous nose isn't the most attractive look for this lady.
Ulyss, I do like this profile much more. Just that simple little variance in the actual shape of the profile's face changes the game. OLIVER PECK: This one's a little bit cleaner. Looks a little softer. Definitely hard to mess up one of Aaron's drawings. OLIVER PECK: My vote is for Ulyss. Ulyss, you take it. Erin and Marvin. CHRIS NUNEZ: I love both of these. I think these have a really great synergy together.
Marvin, it's got the right color palette. I really, really love the richness that you have in the mouth, coming from the underside of the tongue, in the back of the open mouth, and then how you just smoothly move that black forward. Crazy risky to try to blend all this stuff out and the extent that you did. Erin, you chose this one. I just felt like it was the one that was closest to what I would do at home. I knew it was like a massive risk. Well, I think the risk pays off. OLIVER PECK: What really shines in this is the shading, the lips, the black shading in the background, the soft shading in the teeth that give the teeth their tone and their contour.
You totally kill it. My vote is for Erin. CHRIS NUNEZ: If I got to pick, Marvin, you really set the bar for where she had to work. And I'm going to give it to you. DAVE NAVARRO: There's a little bit more contrast and readability in Marvin's tattoo. So for that reason, I'm going with Marvin's. Winner of this head-to-head is Marvin. Congratulations. Thank you. Tommy and Cleen. You guys do match in the sense of placement. And they do have the feel of the same artistry. But Cleen, yours is really technically solid.
All the color here is really, really bright, saturated. OLIVER PECK: I love the deep, solid silhouette, the backside of the mouth, and the other teeth that are behind in the front. Very bold, very clean. You nailed it, man. Did you make any changes, Tommy? The drawing I got was a little bit simpler than the other one. So I added a little more texture to the face. OLIVER PECK: I don't feel like you look as comfortable doing this style. I think he gets you just a little bit on some of the textures, and some of the color highlights, and some of the blends. My vote's for Cleen.
I agree. I think Cleen edges out. Cleen, you get Tommy. DAVE NAVARRO: Congratulations, Cleen. You win the head-to-head. All right, judges. Time to announce best tattoos of the day. CHRIS NUNEZ: Cleen's is really solid. DAVE NAVARRO: And you know what? Aaron's is really good, too. Just Katie beat him. So this is a win and a loss, but Aaron's still looks like a nice, solid, clean tattoo.
100%. Win and a loss but top of the pack. DAVE NAVARRO: Both tattoos are really diverse coming out of the same shop. My vote is for Golden Skull Tattoo. Chris? Golden Skull. The judges have decided the best tattoos of the day go to Golden Skull Tattoo. This week you had the tattoo coordinating armpit tattoos. Based on your work, one shop will be packing their machines. Let's go to the jury of peers. You voted an Allegory Arts to the bottom.
Why did you make that decision? Christian? I think it was mostly just based on Eva's tattoo. OLIVER PECK: Was this a unanimous vote? No. Allegory voted for us as spite. No, not out of spite. I noticed a lot of technical flaws in Christian's piece as well. OLIVER PECK: Your tattoo is a little more challenging than Christian's, Eva. The biggest problems with these tattoos were your decisions on what to attempt.
CHRIS NUNEZ: Eva, you didn't try to do an Olympic ring tattoo in the center of a guy's armpit. You'd have been a little bit better off. But Ulyss, definitely the best tattoo you've done here. Unkindness Art. OLIVER PECK: You know how I feel about your tattoo, and I think it's great. Technically, slick as [BLEEP]. The biggest problem with Doom Kitten's tattoo is the loss of translation from the drawing to the face. You didn't follow that stencil perfectly with the needle. And that's what I think happened to the face, too.
It's true that he does have some more tricks to learn. But he is a fantastic artist, and he is a good tattooer. And I think that the fault in our team is the fact that I haven't been able to find the middle ground, not him. CHRIS NUNEZ: You guys are together. You did this team thing. Suck it up and start making some tattoos that you do believe in. Old Town Ink. OLIVER PECK: Bubba, the decision of how to do this background killed this tattoo for me. And then DJ, is it wacky?
Is it new-school? Is it Japanese? It has no home. Your guys' two tattoos are not bad tattoos. They just don't work for today. Don't leave questions. Just do what the thing's supposed to look like. It's crazy. You know, we have two losses, two losses, a win, and a loss. But on a standalone basis, most everybody here excelled. So this is going to be a really tough elimination. I need a final decision. OLIVER PECK: Since we've stopped bringing people back in this competition, it's starting to shed a little light into who is going to go further. And honestly, Allegory Arts, you've been struggling.
You've had some ups and downs. The middle of the pack that you've been running in has now been whittled down to the bottom of the pack. And that's where I'm leaning. DAVE NAVARRO: Chris. These whole different mixes that went down today make for big curveballs in this competition. Ulyss, you had a great drawing to work off. I think this is the best tattoo you did. But I think as a team you guys mirror some of your good habits, putting in color, and some of your bad habits with your liners. When we're getting down to the nitty-gritty, there's no room for error.
My vote's for you guys. My vote as well. The judges have decided. Allegory Arts, you do not have what it takes to be master's shop. CHRIS NUNEZ: You work well together. I love your energy. Stay strong, man. Keep going. DAVE NAVARRO: Please pack your machines and move out. All right. Take care. Love you guys.
