Ink Masters

[oboogie]

20 minutes ago, Devious6 said:

Ooops. Sorry for the spolier!! I set the DVR to record it....and then decided to watch it anyway. My wife even watched it, too. She said she liked it - but hated the many commercials for horror movies. Lynn's idea of a suspense-filled thriller is any Doris Day movie.

That's OK! No worries.

[SStu]

I watched it, but only because of a convergence of paths/opportunity, those being:

a/ we happen to be in Houston this week

b/ Nate Beavers posted about a 1st show preview party at the 8th Wonder Brewery

c/ the 8th Wonder Brewery is about 12 minutes from our place here

d/ they were raffling off prizes and free tattoos (! - which we did not win)

Surprised this year that there will a couple of names I recognized, including Kelly Doty and Ryan and Matthew Murray. It was great meeting Nate, too. I wish him luck!

[oboogie]

I enjoyed the show a lot. I couldn't stop snickering at the dicks who got so mad at Oliver when he dismissed them before they'd even finished. Made themselves look like total assholes.

[lape]

In Ep3 I can't really understand the girls are complaining about regarding skullpicks... Who was supposed to be assigned the shitty canvases when they are all on your team?

[Hoople]

I'm torn about Ink Master right now.

This season is a marked step in the continued push towards "good reality TV" as opposed to a "good tv show about skilled tattooers." It's been on the decline this way for years, but this time it seems the worst.  Which is weird, because this may be the most skilled field they've ever had on the show. I legitimately don't see much in terms of Sub Par work.  Even last night's elimination, which was a rough tattoo, was made by who I think is a pretty talented artist in their own right. 

The drama is super amped up by the new flash/elimination format, which had a major change that we didn't see until last night. Not wanting to spoil anything, I'll just say Iape above has a great point.  Someone is always going to get the hardest skull pic. (I think in last night's case, the Flash Challenge winner was gunning for the two people he seemed to be, but at the same time, I feel that if you want the human canvases to walk away happy with great tattoos, it's a good idea to give the tough skulls to the best artists, so I really don't know the strategy yet...)

That the canvasses are also absurdly difficult on last night's ep, which I know is something that they find out in casting. One of the questions has been "are you willing to change your mind at all about your tattoo" and I'm sure they pick some of the nuttier canvases that way. But I've not ever seen a set of canvases stacked this ridiculously.  

One of them was so difficult that Navarro lost it in the background on the shot and started laughing, half amused/half incredulous. That's the other big thing that makes me feel like they're ramping up the dumb reality TV drama even further.  They're using broader cuts, like the one of Dave laughing, and more black and white flashbacks to stuff that happened in the episode, to ramp up the drama even further.

Even with the hyper-talented field this year, I'm not sure if I can stomach a full season that's moving even more towards Survivor levels of drama.  At least not until it's all available to binge watch, streaming.  Though, if they can find the balance, and last ep's big new "alliance" works out, there could be some firsts on the way, and some really, really great work coming out of this season.

**I'm not just dogging on the show, either. I'm a big fan, and I'm starting a collection of my favorite artists and Ink Masters starting next month, I just paid the deposit to Kruzeman a few days ago. I just really want it to get back to something that resembled the original format, before Kyle lost his shit and the show dove straight for typical reality show material!

Edited September 8, 2016 by Hoople

[SStu]

19 hours ago, Hoople said:

I legitimately don't see much in terms of Sub Par work.  

I don't know. I respected 3-4 of those artists (and actually followed 2 of them on instagram) before this season's contestants were even picked - and I was disappointed with each and every one of those peacocks. I haven't watched the last couple of seasons because I got tired of having to fast forward through the drama to see the art. Not sure if I'm going to be able to hang with this whole season or not . . .

[Boiled Dove]

I had not realized the new season had started (no cable here). Will have to check it out. 

 

[zetroc]

I like this season's format a lot more than the Rivals/Mentors/Apprentices thing they were doing for a while. The additional drama was just stupid. 

[Hoople]

On 9/9/2016 at 8:37 AM, SStu said:

I don't know. I respected 3-4 of those artists (and actually followed 2 of them on instagram) before this season's contestants were even picked - and I was disappointed with each and every one of those peacocks. I haven't watched the last couple of seasons because I got tired of having to fast forward through the drama to see the art. Not sure if I'm going to be able to hang with this whole season or not . . .

1

Yea, they were pretty rough.  But I assumed that was easily as much "Way to big of a tattoo for the time, in nearly every case."

 

 

5 hours ago, zetroc said:

I like this season's format a lot more than the Rivals/Mentors/Apprentices thing they were doing for a while. The additional drama was just stupid. 

That's true.  It is nice the direct "vs" stuff is gone.  I just think it's going to get way worse with the inter-team stuff because there's a buy week from time to time.

[Dan]

so I went to a tattoo/bike show in Dixon Ca today and met Anthony Michaels,pretty cool mellow dude,and I won 3rd place for my B&G tiger side piece.

 

.

[oboogie]

Cool, @Dan! Nice one. :-)

[Hogrider]

On September 9, 2016 at 11:37 AM, SStu said:

I don't know. I respected 3-4 of those artists (and actually followed 2 of them on instagram) before this season's contestants were even picked - and I was disappointed with each and every one of those peacocks. I haven't watched the last couple of seasons because I got tired of having to fast forward through the drama to see the art. Not sure if I'm going to be able to hang with this whole season or not . . .

And most of the 'art' wasn't worth looking at anyway. I think a good artist should be able to produce a good tattoo on ANY of these challenges. Maybe not perfect, or the best, but at least good. Unfortunately a lot of the work on this show is just awful. I'd be embarrassed to tattoo it or wear it.

The first season, the contestants had a reasonable expectation of receiving a good tattoo, not being able to imagine the awful work that was about to ensue. But anyone who watched the first season, and saw some of those miserable mutts doing tattoos that looked like they held the machine in their feet, and went on the show anyway deserved what they got.

[iowagirl]

I'm to the point I'd rather just fast forward to the tattoos and skip the crap between. I get tired of the "game", the alliances, purposely trying to submarine the other contestants w/the skull picks. If you can't win by doing what you're there to do, and let your work speak for itself, then you shouldn't be there. A couple years ago, I happened upon another tattoo show..Tattoo Titans or something. It had Ami James on it and a pretty tattoo model. But it was just three artists, they tattooed and they either went home or stayed. I set it to record on the dvr but there was only one season--I'm guessing b/c there wasn't all the gawd awful drama.

[Synesthesia]

I think the quality of artists this season is pretty rough. I'm rooting for Nate, but most of the others are just average at best. My parents like the show more than I do at this point, we get together and watch it every week.

[Gingerninja]

I fast forward through the drama every week. Oh, and I'd never, ever be a human canvas unless it was for one of the judges. Then, I'd be all over *that*.

[pidjones]

I'm kinda glad that Comcast took Spike off our package.

[Devious6]

I'll be watching tonight - still rooting for the hometown favorite, Ryan Ashley Malarkey.

[Synesthesia]

Spoilers I guess, even though anyone who wanted to see the episode probably did by now.

This last episode was laughably bad. That drawing with electricity challenge pushed everyone to impossible standards, and the results were embarrassing. I wish they'd do more tattooing or drawing (with conventional materials!) flash challenges because no one was ever going to make anything decent here. Disagreed with the judge's decision and thought Tito needed to go. It was badly done and didn't even meet the challenge (watercolor = scratchy sunset?). He's long overdue to leave, I can't think of a single good tattoo he's done, and giving that poor girl a tombstone shaped tattoo with some of the shakiest lines I've ever seen on the show...oof.

[pidjones]

Spoilers I guess, even though anyone who wanted to see the episode probably did by now.

This last episode was laughably bad. That drawing with electricity challenge pushed everyone to impossible standards, and the results were embarrassing. I wish they'd do more tattooing or drawing (with conventional materials!) flash challenges because no one was ever going to make anything decent here. Disagreed with the judge's decision and thought Tito needed to go. It was badly done and didn't even meet the challenge (watercolor = scratchy sunset?). He's long overdue to leave, I can't think of a single good tattoo he's done, and giving that poor girl a tombstone shaped tattoo with some of the shakiest lines I've ever seen on the show...oof.

Oh. That IS bad!

[Devious6]

I couldn't believe they kept him around.

[Synesthesia]

7 minutes ago, Devious6 said:

I couldn't believe they kept him around.

The lines in the swing ALONE should have been enough! Compound that with "watercolor" that looks like some kind of skin disease and some of the worst celtic knotwork ever on the show, and I can't believe he squeaked by again.

[Hogrider]

On September 24, 2016 at 4:24 PM, Synesthesia said:

[Patrick Bateman]

As much as I enjoy tattoos, I honestly admit to watching this show religiously.

I am happy to see artists I am familiar with on here this season too.

 

now you can start making fun of me.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Patrick Bateman

[Dan]

4 hours ago, Patrick Bateman said:

As much as I enjoy tattoos, I honestly admit to watching this show religiously.

I am happy to see artists I am familiar with on here this season too.

 

now you can start making fun of me.

we like it too,we watch every episode,

it's kind of fun for us since we got tattoos from Oliver  in feb this year at fresno,and we have 6 hours of appointments with him in SF on 10/22 at http://bayareatattooconvention.com/

he's a kick to talk to.

Edited October 13, 2016 by Dan

[Boiled Dove]

2 hours ago, Dan said:

we like it too,we watch every episode,

it's kind of fun for us since we got tattoos from Oliver  feb this year in fresno,and we have 6 hours of appointments with him in SF on 10/22 at http://bayareatattooconvention.com/

he's a kick to talk to.

Oliver is awesome. That is a cool thing about living in Dallas for the last year is running into him at punk rock shows and stuff. Now I'm realizing I've been in Dallas for a year and haven't gotten a tattoo from him and it looks like I'm about to be offered a job out east.