The original commercials for Spike’s new reality show, “Ink Master,†weren’t exactly enthralling. Lets be honest, rocker Dave Navarro, as a judge?
But when the ink finally hits the skin, the show has plenty of color and personality. The contestants are all different. It’s easy to find someone to love and hate. The judges, including Navarro, are charismatic and pull no punches.
When all the palettes are mixed, there’s a winning spectrum that’s worth keeping your eyes on. No cover-ups needed.
The pilot wasted no time getting started. The group quickly got to work on their first challenge- drawing a skull on a dead pig- in a meat locker. During this feat of the elements and time [they had just 90 minutes to show what they had], all of the contestants showed something. Josh Woods won the initial challenge with a pretty cool design worth remembering because of the color and outline. The other designs were interesting, but the other contestants mainly stood out because of their personalities. Southerner James Vaughn is hilarious. Urban inker Al Fliction is annoying as well as arrogant and a total misogynist, but he is real. Youngster Bili Vegas is talented and uses color extremely well. Heather Sinn is also talented, but she complained too much about the cold.
After the initial challenge, the group faced an elimination challenge- a cover, this time on a live subject. While all of the inkers did a decent job, no one stood out as amazing except Bili. His eye cover-up was absolutely beautiful, totally eliminating a joke of an old piece. Tommy’s cover-up was also solid and made a silly tramp-stamp actually cool. Justin, on the other hand had serious problems. His client, Christine, cried during the procedure, most likely due to the fact that Justin wasn’t smart enough to ask her lay down during the tattoo. As a result, he wasn’t able to finish the work.
After getting their work critiqued by the judges, Tommy, Shane, B-Tat and Justin were called in. Tommy and Shane were told they were the top two, while B-Tat and Jeremy were singled out as the weakest. B-Tat’s work shows promise, but he destroyed his client’s skin and his work was simply rough around the edges. He was out of his league. For that, he was sent home, instead of Jeremy, who didn’t even finish his design.
While there are plenty of tattoo-inspired shows on TV right now, the realism and intrigue inspired by the challenges make this a must-see.
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