The title of the episode says it all. That was embarrassing. To not be able to finish the job and leave it looking like that is extremely unprofessional and that fact that he chose to do that after winning the flash challenge. Yikes. Why put yourself out there? Let someone else take the fall and do the hardest job. What's interesting is hearing every artist come up with lame excuses to circumvent what is being asked of them in the challenge. I don't do this, I don't do that. Blah blah blah. If you can't do everything, then why the f*ck do you think you should be called Ink Master?

I remember that one, but never watched it. Is it still on? What channel was it on? I may be able to dig it up on Roku and check out some past episodes.

Good God. I've never seen a bunch of whiners complaining about how judging is being handled on a competition like this one. Everyone and I mean EVERYONE has some lame excuse about why their tattoos suck. I know why. It's because you guys do suck. So far, there's only a couple of artist that are really bringing their A-Game. Top dawg right now would have to be Shane.

I don't get how he was the only one that understood what the challenge of Black To Grey (Gradient Shading) was. It's simple. Black to grey. Sheesh! I'm glad that Al Fliction got the boot. He was horrible, but you never would have guessed with the amount of time he kept running his mouth. FYI, what a dumb name too.

I loved the Flash Challenge at the beginning of the episode when they brought out a bunch of naked chicks to basically be used for body painting. Hubba hubba!!

Thank God they finally booted Billy from the show. He is a horrible artist and never belonged in the competition and he ALWAYS had an excuse why he couldn't do anything the judges asked of him. I hope I never have to see him and his stupid soul patch anywhere. Good riddance! Lea is back on shaky ground again after that awful Pirate Ship tat. Ugh.

Shane rocked the Portrait tattoo. He was so good in this challenge. There was just no way anyone was going to beat him. As for the other 3, they gave Tommy 2nd best, but to me it was still a bad tattoo. So, it came down to Josh and James, each handing in a very crappy tat. I was sure that Josh would skate into the finale based on better results in the past. So imagine my surprise that he got the boot, giving James the 3rd spot.

So this thread is 3-1/2 years old already.

I'm under the weather with a summer cold, so I'm surfing around and landed on a full day of Ink Master.

I love the art of good tattoo's. I have one I designed, with cleanup from the tattoo artist. It's nice but not great. Over time I've come to appreciate good art.

I find Ink Master rather interesting for character study. The first and foremost trait is arrogance. Personally I hate it in any context. If you are the worlds best, I don't want to hear from you how great you are. Being humble speaks wonders. Arrogance blinds. Everyone of the arrogant guys was blinded to their work. They sucked. The artwork spoke for itself. Of course there were more quiet artists that sucked too.

Another thing I found interesting were the clients blindness. These folks were totally buying into their commissioned sucky work and defending their art and artist. Wow.

So, what have I learned? First, this show not about the client. It's about the artist and the competition. also I've watched enough of these reality shows to realize everything is manufactured. The way they edit, add dramatic music. It makes for enticing viewing, but it's far from real.

The other thing I learned... I've got another tattoo in mind. I cannot get one at this time, because of my blood thinners (I have to wait a year). But when I do go, I'm going to interview artist, but more importantly look at their body of work. Like I said... The art speaks for itself.

Not a clue to what season. No mention anywhere.